Let's make Upwork a better place ! Why 90% of jobs has expired or has been canceled by the client ??

[andras-kovacs]

Hello,

I'm Andras **Edited for Community Guidelines**. I'd like to share my frustrating experience. I apply fixed price webdesign/development jobs. I have very bad experiences about client interactions. About 90% of jobs has expired or has been canceled by the client. It means these clients launch a job and leave Upwork after a while without interviewing freelancers and bring no money neither for Upwork nor for freelancers. I just waste my connects for clients/jobs who don't deserve it. I don't even know whether my application was seen by the client. There's no possibility to initiate conversation with clients.  As far as I know other freelancer portals have clearification board where clients can be asked before applying. This conversation would be important to filter out clients who really think serious to find a  freelancers to do their job. Doing a search makes it clear these jobs are posted on several freelancer portals. Why Upwork doesn't do anything to keep clients?

Regards

Andras **Edited for Community Guidelines**

[toyosimed]

Hello Andras K! I trully share your sentiments on this topic. This is because i too am experiencing the same thing with regards to proposals sent out to flaky clients. At first i used to put it down to the fact that Upwork freelancing is a very competitive landscape. However, the ratio of Responsive clients -to- Flaky clients is alarming. An interview or some sort of feedback would be nice, not e-mail notifications saying a Job has "been cancelled or closed by client". It can be exhausting.

On top of that, the Upwork team then sends you a notification saying that your profile has been changed from "public" to "private". That only just compounds the matter, making one feel as though they don't put it enough effort. As you've suggested, a way to seive out these types of clients would be beneficial to us all.

Regards

Toyosi M.

[technikempire]

Use search filters. 1) filter by job history. Make sure they've at least paid someone once. 2) take their rating into account, 3) make sure payment is verified. You're absolutely right though, there's a lot of garbage posts. You just have to learn how to maneuver through all the garbage to find the legit work.

[charles_kozierok]

"About 90% of jobs has expired or has been canceled by the client. It means these clients launch a job and leave Upwork after a while without interviewing freelancers and bring no money neither for Upwork nor for freelancers."

If you mean that the client doesn't hire anyone, this seems like an exaggeration to me. Note that if you apply for a job and someone else is hired, it will still show as an active proposal and then will be closed when it is finished, so it may look like it was canceled when you simply weren't chosen.

"I just waste my connects for clients/jobs who don't deserve it. I don't even know whether my application was seen by the client."

They are seen, clients just don't respond to every applicant.

"There's no possibility to initiate conversation with clients.  As far as I know other freelancer portals have clearification board where clients can be asked before applying. This conversation would be important to filter out clients who really think serious to find a  freelancers to do their job."

Many freelancers would like to be able to ask questions of clients before submitting a proposal. And I believe this used to be possible on one of the two sites that merged to create this one, but they removed it. Why? Because it was abused. People would spam clients with applications, ask them stupid questions, etc. It basically would allow the entire connect system to be bypassed, there would be no need to even have connects -- you could just send a proposal as a "question".

I've seen what this looks like before, and it's not pretty.

"Doing a search makes it clear these jobs are posted on several freelancer portals. Why Upwork doesn't do anything to keep clients?"

What exactly would you like them to do?

Think of Upwork as a store and clients as shoppers. A shopper may come in and look around with no intention of buying anything. Or may want to buy something and not find what he or she is looking for. A shopper may go to many different stores, and ultimately buy from someone else.

In all case, there's nothing you can do to force someone to buy from you. Any attempt to do so simply ticks off the client/shopper and they don't come back.

The best thing Upwork can do to keep clients here and hiring is to reduce friction that would make it difficult for them to post and hire, while ensuring high quality standards when it comes to both listings and freelancers. We're far from perfection, but Upwork has at least taken steps to better educate clients, let us report bad listings, and weed out bad freelancers. There's nothing else they really can do that doesn't create more problems than it solves.

[andras-kovacs]

Hello Charles,

"If you mean that the client doesn't hire anyone, this seems like an exaggeration to me. Note that if you apply for a job and someone else is hired, it will still show as an active proposal and then will be closed when it is finished, so it may look like it was canceled when you simply weren't chosen."

If the client doesn't hire anyone then Upwork sends the following message: Please note that a job that you have applied for, xxxx, has expired or has been canceled by the client.

If client hires different freelancer then Upwork sends the following message: Your proposal to the job xxxx was declined. Reason: Just preferred other applicants. So it may not look like it was canceled.

"They are seen, clients just don't respond to every applicant."

I'm a bit sceptic about clients who doesn't interview and hire freelancers would read proposals.

"Many freelancers would like to be able to ask questions of clients before submitting a proposal. And I believe this used to be possible on one of the two sites that merged to create this one, but they removed it. Why? Because it was abused. People would spam clients with applications, ask them stupid questions, etc. It basically would allow the entire connect system to be bypassed, there would be no need to even have connects -- you could just send a proposal as a "question"."

Clarification board could be moderated as it is done on other places. Spamming freelancers could be blocked from board. That's so simple.

"Think of Upwork as a store and clients as shoppers."

In my opinion clients come in and look around with clear intention of buying services. If clients feel lost in the system then they obviously leave Upwork. High percent of the clients don't even know what they really want. I can see one sentence job descritions very frequently.  Upwork should give a hand at the very first steps and then the customers would feel the care and would stay.  It is not forcing clients but rather an incentive technique.  Freelancers' hands are tied by one way communication. We can only contact clients after interview invitation.

[tlsanders]

A lot of times, those clients flee the platform because they are bombarded with junk proposals. Allowing freelancers other ways to needlessly harass them would make the problem worse, not better.