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kellerlambert
Community Member

OCT 28th EVT Badge Ask Me Anything event

**** This event has ended and the thread is now closed to new replies ****

 

Hi Upwork Community,

 

My name is Keller Lambert and I am the Senior Program Manager on Upwork’s Enterprise Talent Solutions team here at Upwork. Earlier this year, we announced a new talent badge called Expert-Vetted Talent and since then we have been making improvements based on feedback you all shared. 

 

We heard your need for clarity and we created this help center article describing badge visibility to various users and improved your My Stats to see your alternate RT/TR/TRP badge if applicable. 

 

Now that you have had some time to get familiar with this new badge, we want to hear from you again. What do you find valuable about the EVT badge? Do you see negative implications since this badge was introduced?

 

Please join me and my team in a live Ask Me Anything session so we can get your feedback on the new badge and respond to questions or comments you have. 

 

Here are the details:

 

On Wednesday, October 28 from 10am-11am PST, Lena Ellis, Upwork Community Manager, and Keller Lambert, along with colleagues from the launch team, will be here in the Community to respond to your questions and feedback in real-time. 

 * You don’t have to wait until the event to post your questions - Respond below now!

We’ll do our best to answer any and all questions, though keep in mind account-specific questions will not be addressed in this public setting.


Tip: To keep the conversation organized, we recommend changing your settings on this thread to "sort by topics". Just click on the three dots at the top of this post to access the drop-down menu.

 

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Keller Lambert | Senior Program Manager
Upwork | Chicago, IL, USA (GMT-5)
"The world's work marketplace."
10 REPLIES 10
petra_r
Community Member


Keller L wrote:

... and improved your My Stats to see your alternate RT/TR/TRP badge if applicable. 

We don't want to see them on our "My Stats" page... (what's the point of that?) We want clients to see them (all) on our profiles...

 

In other words, if someone is Top Rated Plus and Expert Vetted, we want that person's profile to show all 3 badges, side by side, Top Rated, Top Rated Plus and Expert vetted.

 

That was our actual feedback.

 

How do we sign up to participate in this event? Is there a link?

Hi Christine,

 

Keller, Lena and others will be replying to questions on this thread on Wednesday, October 28 from 10am-11am PST. However, you don't have to wait until then and can post your question on this thread already.

Thanks for your interest!

~ Valeria
Upwork

I received the EV badge in July, so I've now had almost four months to experience the programme. Here are my questions: 

 

1. As Petra already mentioned, one concern is that if a freelancer is Expert Vetted, then Business and Plus clients can only see this badge and not the top-rated/top-rated plus badge. Is Upwork reconsidering this decision? If not, why not? And if so, then when can we expect to see both badges restored to our profiles?

 

2. Many freelancers have reported that they’ve received a substantial increase in invitations since receiving the top-rated plus badge, whereas my personal experience is that my invitations have declined since I received the EV badge. I’m concerned that clients don’t know what the EV badge means, and might think that it’s a lesser qualification than being top-rated or (especially) top-rated plus. How exactly are EV freelancers being highlighted to clients, and how does it differ from the way that you showcase freelancers who have top-rated plus badges? If clients are being told that “top-rated plus = ability to handle large projects” - and most Business and Enterprise clients are looking for freelancers who can handle large projects - then do EV freelancers stand much of a chance of being invited to these projects any more? 

 

3. We were told that one of the benefits of the EV badge would be that “Talent Services teams will prioritze inviting you to their invite-only jobs.” However, in the past four months, I have received only ONE invitation from a Talent Services rep. Obviously I don’t expect to win every project, but I’m not even getting any opportunities to bid. There must have been hundreds of projects for graphic designers/presentation designers since July, so it's hard to believe that I wasn't a good enough fit to receive an invitation to any of them. So I guess my question is - again - has my access to Business and Enterprise clients been reduced because I don’t have a “plus” badge? Is Upwork working on creating better opportunities/access for those with EV badges, and if so, what is being done and when can we expect to see any benefits?

 

4. This is a quote from Upwork’s announcement thread about the EV badge: “Our team is hard at work to further enhance the Expert-Vetted experience, so expect more exciting updates on the horizon including opportunities to engage with this exclusive community of professionals like you and other ways to more easily access high-value work.” However, I have not received a single update so far. Has the programme changed or progressed in any way, and if so, why haven't we received any further information?

 

Thank you for reading; I look forward to your responses.

 

Hi Christine!

 

Talent Manager specific invites are based around client demand, specifically for high earning, long-term, holistic projects. Although invites might not come directly from a Talent Manager, they still work on your behalf with our internal talent teams to recommend you for applicable roles, as well as with our sales teams to make recommendations for clients.

 

With the Expert-Vetted badge, in our continued analysis and monitoring of job invites for that group of talent, we did not see declines in invites. We will continue to monitor that trend.

 

With Expert-Vetted being a badge exclusively seen by Enterprise clients, any other status you may have achieved such as Rising Talent, Top Rated, or Top Rated Plus will be visible to other types of clients. We are listening to these concerns and taking all steps to monitor the actual effects these decisions have on freelancer invites, earnings, reputation perception, and more.We are continuing to iterate and improve the Expert Vetted Program and the perks and benefits this group will receive. We welcome any advice or recommendations on this subject, too!

 

Please keep the ideas coming and continue to raise your concerns.

Hi, Petra,

We have heard from our talent community the desire that all badges be displayed on their profile. In the cases of Rising Talent, Top Rated, and Top Rated Plus, those badges are earned progressively so it would be redundant to show each of these on a profile.

For Expert-Vetted Talent, we are considering displaying both this badge and the alternate Rising Talent, Top Rated, or Top Rated Plus badge to an Enterprise client. We are still researching options to showcase multiple badges, that will still ensure clarity to clients, while highlighting the value of each badge a freelancer earns/retains.

At this time, we are committed to keeping the Top Rated Plus badge visible to clients on paid memberships and the Expert-Vetted Talent badge visible to only Enterprise clients. The ability to identify talent with these badges is, quite frankly, a perk that gives these clients access to upgraded tools and services that help them find top freelancers and agencies quicker through Upwork. 

Lastly, in interactions that Talent Managers have with clients, they highlight if Expert Vetted Talent is Top Rated and Top Rated Plus as often as they can to bring new, stellar opportunities to those tiers of freelancers.


Keller Lambert | Senior Program Manager
Upwork | Chicago, IL, USA (GMT-5)
"The world's work marketplace."
a_lipsey
Community Member

When will you be vetting in the writing category and how will you vet for certain niches? Grant writing is a specific niche and someone who is expert vetted as a content writer or copywriter is not the same as expert vetted in grant writing. Will you make distinctions between major subsets of these categories? 

 

Who does this vetting and what are their qualifications? 

When are you starting to vet translators? It is quite easy to start with those that have studied translation or are state certified translators.

Hi, Jennifer! 

Thank you for your question. 

For the Expert Vetted program, we are regularly monitoring and observing skill set trends on the platform. We use these findings to inform where we allocate future Expert Vetted resources to expand the program. 

 

For translation specifically, this is an area we are currently reviewing. 

Thank you for your question. 

Keller


Keller Lambert | Senior Program Manager
Upwork | Chicago, IL, USA (GMT-5)
"The world's work marketplace."

Hi Amanda! 

We are currently reviewing, interviewing, and vetting talent in writing that relates to the categories of sales & marketing, and design & creative. 

 

Writing as a category crosses into many other sub-skill sets - which we totally understand! We are actively considering how we can expand into more Writing-specific functions in the future. 

 

Thank you for your question.

Keller


Keller Lambert | Senior Program Manager
Upwork | Chicago, IL, USA (GMT-5)
"The world's work marketplace."
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