Job Success Score

Jennifer M · Dec 27, 2015 06:17:03 PM

Amen, sistah. I'm not into complaining. I'm into action, which is why I'm here. No point complaining about your work environment when you have everything in your power to change it.

Tim S · Jul 21, 2016 11:27:53 PM

@Jennifer M wrote:
Life is too short to hate where you work. If you hate it, time to pack your stuff, say "Peace Out" and move on. This is why I never have a real job for longer than 6 months. As soon as the bs starts, I'm out.

Jennifer M,

It's wonderful that you have this luxury. Not everyone does. And upwork still remains the largest freelance site on the internet. I'm a little confused as to how you can be listed as a top solution author in these forums when your approach is 'if you don't like it, leave'.

Darrin O · Dec 27, 2015 07:16:54 PM

@Scott E wrote:
The main factor in that assumption is that I've never come across anyone complaining about the JSS if their score has gone up or stayed the same.

Job success suddenly shot up!

Jean S · Dec 27, 2015 08:07:45 PM

It's funny...well not really...but I looked at some old threads of people complaining about their JSS going down and realized there are a lot of people no longer getting work here...many of them really good freelancers who had been around for years providing good service. All it takes is two bad contracts and your career here is over I guess.

The damage being done by the JSS is slowing starting to reduce the "good" workers here and that's just sad.

Suzanne N · Dec 27, 2015 08:32:28 PM

@Jean S wrote:
It's funny...well not really...but I looked at some old threads of people complaining about their JSS going down and realized there are a lot of people no longer getting work here...many of them really good freelancers who had been around for years providing good service. All it takes is two bad contracts and your career here is over I guess.

The damage being done by the JSS is slowing starting to reduce the "good" workers here and that's just sad.

Jean,

It also has reduced some of he bad freelancers as well. I don't like the secrecy behind the JS score, but it has weeded out some of the people who constantly gave refunds to have a 5 star feedback when they were lousy freelancers. It stopped a lot of the feedback blackmail. There are some benefits to it.

Krisztina M.

Looking at your profile you have a lot of jobs with no feedback. Although one or two may not affect your score a lot of them will and going through your 80 some jobs you have a large number of jobs with no feedback on them. You also have one job at least this year with a 4.35 feedback. But I didn't even finish counting and was to 58 more jobs and had counted over 20 some jobs with absolutely no feedback.

Petra R · Dec 28, 2015 01:11:06 AM

@Jean S wrote:
It's funny...well not really...but I looked at some old threads of people complaining about their JSS going down and realized there are a lot of people no longer getting work here...many of them really good freelancers who had been around for years providing good service.

There are a lot of assumptions there.

How do you know they are no longer getting work, that they are trying but not getting work, and most importantly, that they were "really good" freelancers who had been doing "good work?"

Take Daniel for example. He was complaining bitterly when his JSS dropped, but says now that he wasn't getting less work despite being at 74% JSS and is now top rated again?

It seems that outside the forums people aren't anywhere near as freaked out over the whole JSS thing. I've brought a lot of friends to Upwork over the years, and funnily enough the only one who is even mildly concerned about her JSS is the only one who reads the forum.

Everyone else just gets on with their work and their clients.

I don't think it's perfect either, but frankly it's a hell of a lot better than the old star system which was abused all round by clients and freelancers alike and near meaningless with clients just giving 5 stars for fear of reprisals and freelancers just messing clients around knowing that if nothing was paid no sign of the damage would show on their profiles.

So you may be looking at profiles which look just great with 5 star feedback and all that, and be blissfully unaware how that was manipulated to look just peachy, or what caused the JSS to drop.

Try not to get too concerned about others or what "could" happen.

Concentrate on your work, and on what you do know what you can do to keep your JSS up, and you'll be fine.

You have a JSS of 96%, you are top rated, and you have a great profile.

Jean S · Dec 28, 2015 02:51:51 PM

@Petra R wrote:
@Jean S wrote:
It's funny...well not really...but I looked at some old threads of people complaining about their JSS going down and realized there are a lot of people no longer getting work here...many of them really good freelancers who had been around for years providing good service.

Try not to get too concerned about others or what "could" happen.

It's things like this below that reinforces my concern on how bad and how fast things can go bad.

Daniel C · Dec 29, 2015 03:57:08 PM

@Petra R wrote:

[...]

How do you know they are no longer getting work, that they are trying but not getting work, and most importantly, that they were "really good" freelancers who had been doing "good work?"

Take Daniel for example. He was complaining bitterly when his JSS dropped, but says now that he wasn't getting less work despite being at 74% JSS and is now top rated again?

[...]

Try not to get too concerned about others or what "could" happen.
Concentrate on your work, and on what you do know what you can do to keep your JSS up, and you'll be fine.

I'm going to be bitter when it drops again.

The problem with JSS is that when it changes, you're not sure why. It's basically a random number that somehow reflects my success?

Petra is right; it hasn't affected my ability to get work. Clients don't know what it means any more than we do. At the same time when you see one person with 100% and another with 75%, you are persuaded to believe that they are somehow better when it may not be the case.

In my case it was because I don't take on a lot of projects. I had a contract that was sitting for 6 months that caused a 20% change in JSS after being given the rest of the instructions. While actually having a client who marked me as not recommended only cost me a few points.

JSS is not helpful if it's not clear specifically what we could do to improve our situation. It would be a decent metric if it was understandable to some small degree. It's mostly magic as far as I'm concerned.

Scott E · Dec 28, 2015 12:40:55 AM

@Darrin O wrote:
@Scott E wrote:
The main factor in that assumption is that I've never come across anyone complaining about the JSS if their score has gone up or stayed the same.
Job success suddenly shot up!

I must have missed that one! But still, your disappointment in the JSS appears to (at least partly) stem from a lack of understanding when it comes to how it's calculated. I see no end of posts here and on Elance where people can't understand how their score has changed... they've not done any work in the last week or two, not had any bad feedback etc, for example... so it's impossible for the score to go up or down. As was explained in the previous post, we know that's not the case.

However, a lot of people seem to make the same mistake, so that would lead me to believe that communication of JSS leaves a lot to be desired.

At least you've got a bit of foresight in your complaint, as you're not just looking at what has happened (which happened to be good), but what could happen based on the same change but in the wrong direction.

"Welcome, humans. I'm ready for you!"
- Box, Logan's Run (1976)

Danielle S · Feb 13, 2016 10:39:36 PM

There are - in my opinion - many things that are unclear here. One, how does one's JSS go down quicker than it goes up? At least that is what I'm seeing with many people's concerns here.

For me, personally, I'm not thrilled at all that you don't get a JSS until you've received X amount of reviews. I have four current clients on here. One of them closes my contract every month in order to give me a review. He shouldn't have to do that. The others are extremely happy with me and my services thus they aren't closing the contract because they want to keep me as a freelancer. Shouldn't that be taken into consideration? I'm obviously doing a great job to make them want to keep me. But I get ZERO credit for that because they are long-term contracts that won't be closed out anytime soon.

There are jobs I bid on that I am more than qualified for, however because they require a certain JSS my proposal gets overlooked or hidden. How is that fair?

Plain and simple, this JSS thing needs further review and alterations to make it an even playing field.