Proposal stats - I'll show you mine if you show me yours

[6f71b509]

Hi everyone

I'm having a difficult time securing clients.  I'm Top rated, 100% JSS.  I've had a tiny 14 jobs in 12 months.

Here's my stats, 

I'm beginning to think Upwork is not for me.  Only 46/150 proposals were looked at all year.  On average my profile does not even get looked at. 

How are you all surviving on this site? 

Ready to quit, it's so demoralising. 

Thanks for letting me rant 🙂

Shannon

[yofazza]

>  Only 46/150 proposals were looked at all year

I agree it's weird but maybe they're normal. I've been looking at posted stats like this and most of the view:sent ratio goes between 10% to 30% (yours is a little above 30). There was also a discussion on Reddit.

Don't know why they don't read the proposals. It could be that the numbers are recorded incorrectly, otherwise then be prepared that only around 2 out of 10, of your sent proposals, will be read. Remember that this "read" metric is supposed to be before we think about how good the proposal is (except for the first 2 lines and a few other things that are visible to client before they Click).

[6f71b509]

thanks Radia

yes its not encouraging stats is it?

[ashrafkhan81]

I think you should not bother yourself with such stats, the only stat that matters is whether are you getting enough money on the platform given the efforts you are putting on this platform? 

Too many people have reported the stats part to be broken since it is showing incorrect interviews and hires. My own stats page says I was hired only for 1 job in 2022 which is incorrect, I have been hired at least on 10-12 projects in 2022.

Also, the proposal part on my stats shows I sent just 187 proposals this year, which again I find to be too low I know I have sent more than that...so really the stats are not reliable dont be discouraged by that....

[feed_my_eyes]

The stats are only from May, not the whole year. My stats are showing 2 hires from sending proposals, which is accurate; all of my other projects were from invitations.

[feed_my_eyes]

I think that clients don't read all of the proposals because most of them are terrible. From what I've seen of new people asking for help in the forum lately, you look at their profiles and they're not merely bad, they don't even make any sense. If you were a client and you read through the first 10-15 proposals you receive and they're total gibberish, would you keep reading, or would you look elsewhere for a freelancer? I think that Upwork needs to go back to requiring freelancers to demonstrate a minimum level of competence before their profiles can be approved.

[ottoemilschmid]

According to Wikipedia, Upwork purged 1.8 million freelancers in 2020.  This is because Upwork would be focusing more on serving the needs of  Fortune 500 companies rather than smaller companies just looking for a quick job with a single gig worker.

[feed_my_eyes]

That was then - and I'm sure that most of those were idle profiles - but things have changed. Upwork is now making money from selling connects, so they want as many freelancers as possible on the platform, regardless of their ability. More competition = more desperation = more freelancers spending money sending proposals, boosting, and having their "Available Now" badge turned on. 

[williamtcooper]

Hey Shannon, apply to more Jobs if you are not obtaining enough work. Increase your skill set so more Job posts apply. I have completed $850k on this site. The work is here, but one has to industrious otherwise the Job goes to another Freelancer. Have a great day!

[25005175]

William, what do you think of her profile summary? It doesn't seem very client-oriented to me, even though it does a great job describing her characteristics.

Shannon, do your proposals have the same style as your profile summary? When you bid, do you start out with statements about how you will solve the client's problem or ask questions about the problem to start a conversation?

[25005175]

Remember that none of your proposals, interviews, or hires that resulted from an invitation are recorded in those stats. Also, none of the contracts that you proposed to previous clients.

[feed_my_eyes]

---

Jonathan L wrote:

Remember that none of your proposals, interviews, or hires that resulted from an invitation are recorded in those stats. 

---

She literally posted her proposal and interview stats - it's the blue/green bar chart.

[25005175]

Yes, but those are strictly from proposals sent from jobs that she located and applied to. Invited jobs and her "propose new contract" jobs are not counted.

[feed_my_eyes]

Ah, gotcha.

[parthbhavnani]

Don't quit. There's a lot of potential. If you need any help, please feel free to reach out to me privately. We could discuss this at length and figure out a solution for you.

[df602768]

My rate is better than yours, so I don't believe it's the platform. That said, there's been an issue lately with super unresponsive clients. For example, a client will hire me at $175 an hour. I'll do the work, deliver it, and then, they disappear. This is frustrating, the least.

[vepa_durdiyev]

Hey Shannon, thanks for sharing. I am an EVT, and my numbers are far worse than this. See below:

Nothing to be demoralized here, though. There is no single factor affecting it. The economy is going down, the tech job demand is going down (not sure how much it will affect you), Upwork changed their search (if I am not mistaken), proposal boost (cancer, pay to win) was introduced, and many other things.  

You have a strong profile. You need to push on the gas a bit more in terms of proposals. I thought my numbers were low. 

Consider adding a second specialized profile, even if a blank carbon copy of your main one, as specialized profiles boost your visibility. You can copy your main just with a different title to increase your chances in search. Play around with rates. Also, December and January are usually slow months. Experiment, measure, and improve. 

Good luck!

[feed_my_eyes]

My stats will make you feel better. Mind you, this isn't for all of 2022, since Upwork only started showing us our stats in May. Still, not good at all, and yet it says that I've been interviewed and hired more often than others in my category - yikes. Thankfully, I get repeat business, have non-Upwork clients, and also get hired from invitations, because sending proposals isn't paying off at all these days.

[mr1996]

Great 

[alex-nemchyn]

I no longer believe in statistics and Upwork algorithms.
There has to be a lot of luck here.
Right now it looks like a titanic.
There were a lot of rich and beautiful people on the titanic.
But it was the luckiest that survived.

[a77045c6]

I just started on Upwork in January 2022, I'm a small freelancer, with a small number of earnings. If you don't mind, I would like to share my stats.

[vepa_durdiyev]

Hey Apinia, thanks for sharing. Your stats look great, especially for the first year. Great job. Keep it up.

[a77045c6]

Hi Vepa, thank you so much for your encouragement. 😊

[mr1996]

Great 😍

[a77045c6]

Thank you 😊

[25005175]

Looks like translation is a great field to be in, with an average 10%-12% hire rate for no-invite, new client jobs.

[a77045c6]

I think it's acceptable for me as a new freelancer. I've received 60+ invites, but I declined the offers. Many projects are recording conversations with partners that are not my preference, and writing casino/bidding games content that was against the law in my country. Some jobs I liked but clients offered very low rates or requested a fast turnaround. 

[yofazza]

Hi, that's not just acceptable but very great. Look at other stats in this thread, they are far below yours.

Is it because Thai translation is on the rise or something? A friend Indonesian translator of mine has similar ratio with the rest of us.

Any idea why you get that 47% view:sent ratio while others are usually goes below 30%?

[bugsbyte]

?? Is UpWork AI tipping the scales out of your favor ??

This are good number compared to mine, as well as others posted here. Strikingly, to me, is the 4-hires - thats great! and that is what it is ALL about.

As I have been keeping up with this topic (as I have time to do so, on account of not having jobs)m, a new theory is coming to mind.

Obsiously talent and jobs ar like triangles, a few at the top, and a ton at the bottom.

Thinking of it this way, if UpWork wanted to cover ther $83-mil in losses in 2022 (and naturally, why wouldnt they?) - what is the obvious place to focus? The top of the pyramid? the bottom? They have a solution that can support the volume, why not focus on the massive volumes at the "bottom"?

If UpWork lifted the vail to there statistical secrets, we might be better informed.

In anycase, the new theory is,

• "what if UpWork is driving $0 / no feedback Freelancers to the top of the "Best Match" list of a job post?"

[25005175]

• "what if UpWork is driving $0 / no feedback Freelancers to the top of the "Best Match" list of a job post?"

---

That's not a theory. That's been the reality (or at least partly) for the past few months, according to screenshots and testimonials from Clients (who are also FL).

However, I don't think this was intentional. Upwork is less likely to convince Clients to hire (and thus pay) if they are fed poor choices. I think it is more likely that the effect is caused by a combination of:

• a well-intentioned algorithm change that focused on skill tags
• the flood of freelancers who can easily produce optimized profiles (often by lying)
• Clients not knowing which skill tags to select when they create a job, causing them to do silly things like select "Solidworks" or "technical drawing" when creating a Video Editing job, based on the (at first) random suggestions provided by Upwork (which then get focused into the category of the first selected suggestion).

[nmelssx]

Here's mine for the whole year:

And here is mine for the month:

As you can see, it has been super duper bad ever since Upwork introduced the new "transparent" bidding system where everyone can see each other's bids. The rate that I got hired, dropped from the yearly 3.86% to the monthly 1.21%. So there's that.

[25005175]

What's telling is the comparison to your field - your hire rate is low, but it is also close to the average. That tells me that your market supply is saturated (and will likely only continue that trend). Likely the strongest thing that you can do is learn new skills, including specializations.

[3314778e]

my stats

[alex-nemchyn]

My stats are the best. 😂

[df602768]

Yeah, well. Mine aren't that great, too. 

[cssolutions2016]

I think these stats don't really reflect on any of the proposals' actual merit.  

This morning I decided to apply to a posting - when I started typing a response the post was showing as having been "Live" for 2 minutes - by the time I had completed my response (in 3-4 minutes), there were over 50 responses !  

The thing is, most of these responses are automated - developers seem to be using some kind of Upwork API perhaps to simply post a stock proposal to every job posting - or maybe have some logic to read the post and apply when their algo thinks there could be a match.  

I think Upwork could stop people from using APIs to post job responses - that way they are forcing human beings to actually read the job post before posting relevant responses. 

As it stands, most of the responses are junk / "stock" and it simply wastes time for clients who simply get overwhelmed. 

[25005175]

The thing is, most of these responses are automated - developers seem to be using some kind of Upwork API perhaps to simply post a stock proposal to every job posting - or maybe have some logic to read the post and apply when their algo thinks there could be a match.  

---

Huh. That makes sense. It would certainly be one exlanation for all of the code jobs getting insta-piled.

[df602768]

What they do is just spam proposals. 

[cssolutions2016]

OK, I am now reasonably convinced that all these instant responses to job posts are being "prepared" by ChatGPT or other such AI engine and then some kind of API posts these responses.. 
No chance for human beings to compete with these human-bot response speeds.
I think one way to fight this for Upwork is to convert the whole job post into some kind of human-only readable image - so that there is no text for these AI engines to interpret - at least not that easily. That way, it leaves humans some time to send meaningful responses.

[ae640784]

I found this topic explained in detail on **Edited for Community Guidelines**