No matter what project, Upwork would only charge 1 connect ?

[3ctechnologies]

Is this the right news? and we can also boost our proposals by spending additional connects.Thats heaven for freelancers then..A big thanks to Upwork.

[adaming]

Well, I just made a proposal and it took the usual number of connects and did not ask me to bid. So I guess they are just testing this feature out. I hope they do not make it permanent because it is a really stupid idea. However, I don't think it should make a big difference to the best clients, who take the time to actually look at all the proposals they get. But for quick, small jobs when the client is in a rush...this could make a difference there

[deborah-ponzio]

I am afraid that a good part of the "quick jobs in a rush" can eventuate a in bad surprise and the budget is not even worth the time spent in corresponding. I won't miss them, although I see that several freelancers jump on them en-masse.

[feed_my_eyes]

At least this is more honest than charging us connects just to say that we're available, but they should call it what it is - paid advertising. 

[kouassi_abidjan]

Bonjour from Abidjan

I got upon upwork this morning and receive a video about the boosting of proposal.

Has the possibility to boost a proposal started already?

Do you we boost with our connects or something else?

What are the steps to do that?

Enjoy your day and I value your comments

[bevcam]

OMW - this seems weird, but I suppose that's just because I'm used to the same old same old when applying for jobs.

Thinking about it, I can't see it doing any harm. Particularly to skilled and specialised freelancers. And it gives a cash break to those who need it. 

Clients might have a different experience if there are loads of unsuitable applications, though.

In my market, there are often few applications and clients know exactly what they want. Let's see 

[petra_r]

---

Bev C wrote:

Thinking about it, I can't see it doing any harm.

---

You can't?

• Not only will more freelancers have way more connects, so will apply more, so the poor clients will drown in proposals, which is allegedly what connects were introduced to avoid.
• Clients won't be shown the freelancers who are best matched (as is the case now) but those who pay most. How will that help clients? Or freelancers?

---

Bev C wrote:

Particularly to skilled and specialised freelancers

---

How? Those have been shown higher up until this.... Unless they are willing to pay, they will end up at the bottom with the 100 desperados using their 1 connect...

This is just as hateful as the "Available now" thing. If that rolls out clients will assume that if we don't have that badge we are not available and will invite those who have it. Hence forcing anyone who wants invites to pay. The more people pay, the more it will cost.

So not only will we have to pay for the connects, we then have to pay connects by the fistful to get any chance of invites and we have to pay  another fistful of connects on every single proposal to have our proposals seen by the client. This is very cleverly designed to result in everyone paying who wants ANY chance of their proposal being seen. At all.

I thought Upwork was about giving clients a chance to hire the freelancers who are best suited to the job. Not the ones willing (or able) to pay the most.

[jr-translation]

---

Petra R wrote:

---

Bev C wrote:

Thinking about it, I can't see it doing any harm.

---

You can't?

• Not only will more freelancers have way more connects, so will apply more, so the poor clients will drown in proposals, which is allegedly what connects were introduced to avoid.
• Clients won't be shown the freelancers who are best matched (as is the case now) but those who pay most. How will that help clients? Or freelancers?

---

---

Whenever I post a job the best matches are useless. I bet this is also what te TS are using to send out useless invites.

[deborah-ponzio]

What is the "available now" thing? I have not found info on this one so far. Please share any clues, thank you 😉

[m_terrazas]

---

Deborah P wrote:

What is the "available now" thing? I have not found info on this one so far. Please share any clues, thank you 😉

---

https://community.upwork.com/t5/Announcements/Show-clients-you-re-available-to-work-right-now-with-t...

[deborah-ponzio]

Thank you, Maria 😉

[feliciaoates158]

Yep, it just undermines the whole initial "argument" used to justify the implementation of fixed connects to apply to jobs when clients were "bothered" with spam proposals.

I wonder if the guy/girl spending the highest amount of connects in a proposal will win a golden mane or crown to stand out from the crowd.

These "changes" are appalling and counterproductive, especially when basic but actually IMPORTANT things continue buggy, like what just happened to me (again!). I apply for a project I was really interested in, with over 50 applicants at the time, and the only way I know the client got in touch is when I receive the "Congrats you got 10 free connects because X interview was successful" mail.

I love free connects, but I would rather be notified EVERY TIME a direct message or answer to an application comes my way. I still remember the time this was a platform to have work done and make money, not a Gaming platform where connects and the capacity to buy them or earn them matters the most.

[dataextract]

While trying to submit a proposal a pop-up comes and says "Send a proposal for: 0 Connects You can now boost your proposal to get noticed. (This job would have been 2 connects before.)

But once I have submitted the proposal normally 2 connects been deducted.

Is this a new feature yet to get introduced or what?

[VladimirG · Accepted solution]

Hi everyone,

As many have already pointed out, some of you may have noticed an option to boost proposals by spending additional Connects. This is an anticipated test we plan on releasing soon; however, the curtain was pulled back a little too soon! The features mentioned here will be halted until further notice when this test is ready to roll out. We're working on this new feature and will share all the details when they are finalized prior to launch in September.

[rverang]

---

Vladimir G wrote:

Hi everyone,

As many have already pointed out, some of you may have noticed an option to boost proposals by spending additional Connects. This is an anticipated test we plan on releasing soon; however, the curtain was pulled back a little too soon! The features mentioned here will be halted until further notice when this test is ready to roll out. We're working on this new feature and will share all the details when they are finalized prior to launch in September.

---

Ranking bids based on connects used?

I'm hoping this doesn't roll out at all. As pointed out earlier, this is a terrible idea.

[martina_plaschka]

---

Vladimir G wrote:

Hi everyone,

As many have already pointed out, some of you may have noticed an option to boost proposals by spending additional Connects. This is an anticipated test we plan on releasing soon; however, the curtain was pulled back a little too soon! The features mentioned here will be halted until further notice when this test is ready to roll out. We're working on this new feature and will share all the details when they are finalized prior to launch in September.

---

Is it still possible to un-launch it? Please?

[3ctechnologies]

alright , so Sptember!! Perfect..Ths boost option was intially there on Elance as well i think but i am not sure

[m_terrazas]

---

Vladimir G wrote:

Hi everyone,

As many have already pointed out, some of you may have noticed an option to boost proposals by spending additional Connects. This is an anticipated test we plan on releasing soon; however, the curtain was pulled back a little too soon! The features mentioned here will be halted until further notice when this test is ready to roll out. We're working on this new feature and will share all the details when they are finalized prior to launch in September.

---

Well, since someone failed and launched another great Upwork idea ahead of time, you can take advantage and see what those of us who will have to use it think about it. Thus, on the one hand you do not have to continue working on it and on the other, you will not have to answer hundreds of posts because of it.

This is a method that is used on another platform. There the sponsored proposals are in the first place (within them I do not know what will be the method for the order of priority). I have never liked or used it, but they make it very clear that they are sponsored (because it says so and because they have a background of another color).

I refer you to Wes's post in which he asks a few questions that I think you can answer now.

Actually the idea seems to me as absurd and harmful as the one of "available now".
It seems that if I submit a proposal to a job I will never get the client to see it, because I will not activate "available now" and because I will not sponsor my proposals.
I feel sorry for the clients who, once again, will be flooded with proposals, yes, this time full of colorful, explanatory texts and new badges.

[55717664]

Who comes up with these ideas? Are they just bored, or trying to justify their job, or just totally out of touch with the realities of hiring and freelancing?

[rverang]

---

Celia S wrote:

Who comes up with these ideas? Are they just bored, or trying to justify their job, or just totally out of touch with the realities of hiring and freelancing?

---

Perhaps all of the above, in one group. 

[feliciaoates158]

It's called "finding ways to stop the bleed" following the many unfortunate "ideas" implemented in the past years. It went downhill when Upwork decided to throw at clients different Packages with more or less free invites and alike. It took less than a month for one of my best and longest clients at the time, one that had spent over 1 million bucks on this platform to say goodbye and outsource most of their Operations department.

It takes us "freelancers" decades, literally, to build a community where clients want to go to because they know the platform is safe and reliable, and just a few minutes of "deplorable" ideas to bring it down.

We can scream and shout as much as we want, if Upwork wants to push it, it will be pushed.

I have 2 questions for Upwork though:

1. Do You really Think This "Pay To Shine" Feature Will Generate more Happy/Returning Paying Clients? After all, we know how "visual" some people are, and the rabbit hole it may lead to.

2. What Type of Upworker Do You Expect to Retain and Attract Going Forward?

[vitcher]

Funny idea. It only makes sense if you know that the end of the world will happen or Upwork will go bankrupt in a few months. This will destroy the most important thing that sets you apart from other freelance sites - the belief of customers that they will receive truly quality services here. This will be especially true for newbie clients. They have no experience in recruiting good freelancers.

[dylangarity]

This is a truly, truly terrible idea. Please reconsider.

To be clear, terrible on both fronts--flooding job posts with unqualified freelancers, and creating a system that out of that deluge highlights random people who bid most instead of most qualified people.

[m_terrazas]

Vlad, since the secret has been revealed ahead of time and is generating opinions, questions and assumptions, could you not tell us exactly what it will consist of?
It is easy. Just share here the link to the video and the text that "appeared and disappeared" since the data is already created.
1- We will stop making assumptions since we will deal with specific data.
2- For once, you will have the opinions BEFORE launching something without checking what the "talents" think about it.

By the way, it would also be nice if the person who is carrying it out commented on the subject.

For once, we'll know what Upwork is going to do or test, before it shows up without further explanation.

[39b26ea4]

Thanks. I was super confused about why jobs are still more than one connect. It's a confusing system that some jobs are more and some are less and there seems to be no correlation to the quality of the job or pay rate.

[zmajolika]

The boost part is completely stupid. 

So even though I'm highly qualified for a job, my tags & job history match the description, I would not be visible to a client unless I spend more connects?

[martina_plaschka]

So, I've been shredding wood for about 2 hours. Shredding wood is my favorite gardening activity, and the neighbors kindly gave me a huge pile of branches to shred. It was pretty exhausting in the heat, but I didn't want to leave the branches lying on the grass. You get the idea. 

Anyway, got myself a drink of water and looked at new job postings. New announcement pops up: 1 connect for all jobs. Oh, ok. But then you can bid on a job. Like you put some connects in, and maybe you bid enough, or maybe not. So your proposal gets ranked higher, or lower. (Do they tell the client that? This freelancer bid most to talk to you kind of thing?)

I can't find the announcement, so I'm still hoping that I just have heat-stroke and imagined the whole thing. But if not, upwork, no. Just no. No no no. Bad bad idea. First of all I don't want to start gambling to win a job, second I don't want to read the complaints of other freelancers saying this is so unfair because yada yada yada. 

[2a05aa63]

They are really pushing the whole spending connect on everything idea...

[mipaparazzi]

To be frank I don't know how upwork team got to take a style from another planet and want this to work here. I saw this new change and it was not the expected improvement. 

[feed_my_eyes]

I really got my hopes up last year when it looked like Upwork was trying to raise the overall quality of the marketplace by vetting freelancers and matching them with the bigger clients. But all developments since then - from introducing project catalogs, to handing out free connects left, right and centre, and now backtracking on the whole reason for introducing paid connects in the first place - seem geared towards flooding the marketplace with unqualified, low-charging freelancers at the expense of higher earning freelancers.

If Upwork wants to make more money from its higher-earning freelancers - which they clearly do - then fair enough, but I don't think this is the right way to go about it. It doesn't seem like a good way to attract better clients or better freelancers, so how will it lead to more profit?

[gilbert-phyllis]

---

Martina P wrote:

So, I've been shredding wood for about 2 hours. Shredding wood is my favorite gardening activity, and the neighbors kindly gave me a huge pile of branches to shred. It was pretty exhausting in the heat, but I didn't want to leave the branches lying on the grass. You get the idea. 

---

Shredding branches is one of my favorite garden chores, too! It's tremendously gratifying and I now always have enough 'brown' material for my compost piles. (I don't rake fallen leaves, I let the lawn mower shred them in place to mulch the lawn.)

[c21068a1]

Hey Goran! I just recently got a notification while using Upwork that connects are getting revamped, whereby now it will cost 1 connect to apply to a job globallly but you can boost certain proposals if you want to. 

Unfortunately, i can't find any information about this update online whatsoever, and Upwork itself is still making me apply to jobs with more than 1 connect requirement, meaning the update seemingly hasn't taken effect. Any comments on this please to help clear the air? 

Thanks in advance, Ryan.

[petra_r]

---

Phyllis G wrote:

---

Martina P wrote:

So, I've been shredding wood for about 2 hours. Shredding wood is my favorite gardening activity, 

---

Shredding branches is one of my favorite garden chores, too!

---

What do you do with shredded branches??

I've just paid good money for branches to be cut down and taken away....

[martina_plaschka]

---

Petra R wrote:

---

Phyllis G wrote:

---

Martina P wrote:

So, I've been shredding wood for about 2 hours. Shredding wood is my favorite gardening activity, 

---

Shredding branches is one of my favorite garden chores, too!

---

What do you do with shredded branches??

I've just paid good money for branches to be cut down and taken away....

---

Oh no don't do that! When I drive in the country and see some fallen branches after a storm, all I think is, why oh why can't I get that and shred it....

I put the wood chips on the vegetable beds and under the flowers to fertilize, keep weeds from getting sun, retain water longer, dont fill the organic waste bin too fast, and finally hope it keeps the birds from digging for worms, which does not seem to work. Nothing as satisfying as reducing a huge pile of branches to a few bins of wonderful wood chippings. Girl, you need to get yourself a chain saw, and regular saw, a wood chipper, you will not regret it, I promise! (When my rasperries are getting ripe in the fall, I have the dilemma of waiting for them to ripen, or cut them down for shredding. I'm embarrassed to confess I went for shredding....)

[gilbert-phyllis]

---

Petra R wrote:

---

Phyllis G wrote:

---

Martina P wrote:

So, I've been shredding wood for about 2 hours. Shredding wood is my favorite gardening activity, 

---

Shredding branches is one of my favorite garden chores, too!

---

What do you do with shredded branches??

I've just paid good money for branches to be cut down and taken away....

---

I compost my kitchen waste and traditionally struggle to get enough 'brown' material to balance it. Last winter I bought an electric chipper/shredder that will handle branches up to 1-1/2 inches in diameter. Now I have plenty of wood chips for the compost and enough to mulch some of the flower and vegetable beds, instead of buying so much pine straw for mulch. (We buy pine straw in bales here but it has been expensive and sometimes hard to get since Hurricane Michael in 2018 destroyed so many trees in southwest Georgia and the Florida panhandle.)

[martina_plaschka]

---

Phyllis G wrote:

---

Martina P wrote:

So, I've been shredding wood for about 2 hours. Shredding wood is my favorite gardening activity, and the neighbors kindly gave me a huge pile of branches to shred. It was pretty exhausting in the heat, but I didn't want to leave the branches lying on the grass. You get the idea. 

---

Shredding branches is one of my favorite garden chores, too! It's tremendously gratifying and I now always have enough 'brown' material for my compost piles. (I don't rake fallen leaves, I let the lawn mower shred them in place to mulch the lawn.)

---

I mulch the vegetable beds and under the flowers. It's really great to keep weeds in check, fertilizes, and the organic waste bin does not fill up that fast. Win-win-win! Plus the shredding is, as you said, deeply satisfying in itself. 

[feliciaoates158]

You know what, I am going to do the same 😉

[moonraker]

I read somewhere that it goes up to a maximum of 8 connects, with intervals of 2, 4, 6, 8. (Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, I'd like to know the details myself) 

If I'm applying, then I'll just go the full 8. What would be the point otherwise? I suspect a lot of other people would as well. 

I've seen quite a lot of people happy about having to only spend 1 connect, but how long will those people be happy for when they realize that their single connects are essentially worthless? And how many people will be expecting more jobs because they have spent extra connects to have their posts boosted (rather a lot methinks).

[petra_r]

---

Jamie F wrote:

I've seen quite a lot of people happy about having to only spend 1 connect.

---

That is problem number 1: More people with more connects = More Spam. When connects were introduced, we were told it was to reduce spam. Now Upwork actively encourage spam with all those free connects which cause fake job posts and fake interviews left, right and center, and this nonsense.

---

Jamie F wrote:

I read somewhere that it goes up to a maximum of 8 connects, 

---

Was that in the video or the explainer text? I didn't see that but I only glanced at it in fairness. That would be idiotic. Then everyone pays 8 and still only one of those who paid 8 gets the top spot.

[2a05aa63]

I'm pretty sure they gonna add a Plus feature where you see the biggest connect bid on a contract (like the average bid now).

It will be pretty useless to spend 1 connect unless you are like the first person to do so. But it will make people be more mindful on what job post to spend the most connects for. Sure spending the most will make the client check out your profile but it's doesn't mean they will hire you. It's like using a Super Like on Tinder.

On the other hand, will clients be like "they didn't spend the max amount of connects so maybe they aren't that motivated to work" or smth.

[moonraker]

---

Petra R wrote:

---

Jamie F wrote:

I've seen quite a lot of people happy about having to only spend 1 connect.

---

That is problem number 1: More people with more connects = More Spam. When connects were introduced, we were told it was to reduce spam. Now Upwork actively encourage spam with all those free connects which cause fake job posts and fake interviews left, right and center, and this nonsense.

---

Jamie F wrote:

I read somewhere that it goes up to a maximum of 8 connects, 

---

Was that in the video or the explainer text? I didn't see that but I only glanced at it in fairness. That would be idiotic. Then everyone pays 8 and still only one of those who paid 8 gets the top spot.

---

It was mentioned in this thread, I've not seen the video myself