May 16, 2019 10:44:12 AM by Mateo R. S
I have found a lot of scammers, a lot of people with UNREALISTIC budgets, like make a pixar animation for 10USD, or people who are just scouting for prices, but have no intentions of actually hiring a freelancer.
May 16, 2019 11:24:24 AM by Jenny G
Noticing the same. Like people who want an entire animated banner ad suite of 10 different sizes for $100. How are we supposed to make a living off that?
May 16, 2019 11:37:23 AM by Mateo R. S
Yeah! totally, i mean i know the international freelancer market is supposed to be cheap, but... clients are crazy! i came across recently a job proposal... budget: 10USD task: create a bunch of 3D CGI videos of a human body excersicing, with wrinckles on the clothing and all, and ended up by saying: You´ll be asked to do 2 sample videos, if we dont like it we wont pay, and we´ll ask for a full refund (YES! OF THE MAJESTIC 10USD!).. so... this sucks.
May 16, 2019 11:29:20 AM Edited May 16, 2019 11:34:17 AM by RAFSUN S
Agreed! But the most disappointing issues are that many freelancers also applied for those kinds of job. A few days ago, I have found a job post where the client was looking for 20 videos at $20! And 20 to 50 freelancers submitted the proposal for that job within 45 minutes! And I often notice these kinds of activities. Quality of both sides-clients and Freelancers has dramatically decreased since a couple of months.
May 16, 2019 11:39:14 AM by Mateo R. S
Yes. That´s another topic, i have seen people over facebook trying to buy good Upwork reviews, or buying fully functioning accounts with good rep... this is getting out of control....
May 16, 2019 11:45:13 AM by Jenny G
I can't even wrap my mind around how that would even work. This is nuts.
May 16, 2019 11:50:44 AM by Mateo R. S
It IS happening i have filed a lot of complaints to Support team about this, haven´t heard anything from them.
May 16, 2019 11:44:42 AM by Jenny G
I'm seeing that too!! Like freelancers charging $5.00 an hour. When the job should pay at least $45 an hour. What the heck is going on with designers charging so little? It's bringing the whole community down. I can just got get a job in the mall for more than that.
But I didn't invest in 1000's of dollars worth of training and software, not spent my 12 + years as a full-time professional in-house designer to get paid $5.00 bucks an hour!! This is ridiculous!
Designers need to stop offering such low bids. It's not fair.
May 16, 2019 11:49:43 AM Edited May 16, 2019 12:02:54 PM by Valeria K
**Edited for Community Guidelines** they are taking over Upwork and pretty much the entire freelance market, they come in waves, many of them are crazy talented, many of them are not, but they all want to do every job for like 50 bucks... it´s crazy!.
May 16, 2019 12:08:37 PM by Jenny G
You are exactly right. Your comment is not offensive at all. If people from other countries can live on such a low hourly rate. It's not fair for them to compete in a country where the cost of living is getting higher by the week. Of course employers will go for the cheapest.
May 16, 2019 12:18:43 PM by Mateo R. S
...Guess i was being racist then... lol i meant people from certain parts of the globe...
May 16, 2019 12:32:00 PM by Tiffany S
That's no change. The vast majority of jobs have always been ridiculously underpriced, and people have been exclaiming about it like it's a new issue for years.
It just doesn't matter. There may be 100 bad jobs or 1,000 or 1,000,000 and it doesn't impact your prospects at all--it's the number of good jobs that matters. And, though the percentage is low, the number is pretty solid.
May 16, 2019 12:44:41 PM by Mateo R. S
I respectfully disagree:
there are not the same number of clients/freelancers 5 - 6 years ago, and today, heck! 1 year ago! So, numbers you are talking about have dramatically lowered, Upwork is even aware of that, as for freelancers they say they take more than 10,000 proposals to become an Upwork freelancer.... DAILY... they accept around 1,000 maybe... ONE THOUSAND new freelancers DAILY, clients are the same...
I have been a client in the past, i hired a freelancer succesfully. Then a few months ago i went ahead and logged in as a client and posted a job i wanted to do, for some reasons it didnt happened, but i realised how easy it is to post a ¨FAKE JOB¨ (not that mine was though) So, anyone literally can enter and post a job, that will never be concluded, it becomes trash floating around, so the amount of bad job porposals can go skyhigh, people who dont even have the money to do what they say they want... So yeah.. It definetely affects us.
Freelancers that has 1,000 years working on Upwork have already a good client list, and get a couple of invitations here and there, have no problem with all this, but the ones that are new, or relatively new, like myself, i worked before when it was oDesk, and left it, and back again for several months now it is really a struggle.
May 16, 2019 12:56:12 PM by Tiffany S
Jesús Mateo R wrote:I respectfully disagree:
there are not the same number of clients/freelancers 5 - 6 years ago, and today, heck! 1 year ago! So, numbers you are talking about have dramatically lowered, Upwork is even aware of that, as for freelancers they say they take more than 10,000 proposals to become an Upwork freelancer.... DAILY... they accept around 1,000 maybe... ONE THOUSAND new freelancers DAILY, clients are the same...
I have been a client in the past, i hired a freelancer succesfully. Then a few months ago i went ahead and logged in as a client and posted a job i wanted to do, for some reasons it didnt happened, but i realised how easy it is to post a ¨FAKE JOB¨ (not that mine was though) So, anyone literally can enter and post a job, that will never be concluded, it becomes trash floating around, so the amount of bad job porposals can go skyhigh, people who dont even have the money to do what they say they want... So yeah.. It definetely affects us.Freelancers that has 1,000 years working on Upwork have already a good client list, and get a couple of invitations here and there, have no problem with all this, but the ones that are new, or relatively new, like myself, i worked before when it was oDesk, and left it, and back again for several months now it is really a struggle.
But, other than the comment about the increase in freelancers, everything you are saying is exactly what freelancers have been saying for years. There's always something you can tie it to. The truth, though, is that people who don't bid on low-end jobs with crappy pay aren't affected at all.
May 16, 2019 01:09:04 PM by Mateo R. S
I don´t bid low proposals, and we ARE affected by it. It´s no JUST low rates, it´s about jobs that are not real, scammers, frauds, fake accounts, bought accounts... etc... all of that creats a really cluttered and busy site.
Tell me something, when you started out freelancing on Upwork, or oDesk... was it easy? wasn´t it frustrating to post and post and post and nothing? you spend your connects on jobs that ended up not being real, so that´s where we are, if Upwork could help us a little it would be great, i really look forward to the changes on the connects schemes, but i really hope they also do something on the clients side, maybe, funding first, then posting the job? to ensure client is real?....
May 16, 2019 01:18:21 PM by Tiffany S
I'm not sure whether you're talking to me or not, because I have nowhere near $400,000 in Upwork earnings--it's more like $150,000.
But, just in case, I'll answer your question. Yes, it was pretty easy. It took a few weeks to land my first job here, but that was fine. I didn't bid on a huge number of jobs. I didn't bid on jobs unless they were a near-perfect fit for me, bypassing the vast majority of jobs I knew that I could do and do well. Since the jobs I bid on were such a great fit for my skills, I was among the best candidates for each of them and my hire rate was pretty good.
I think that most of the people who experience the frustration you're describing are casting too wide a net and bidding far too much.
May 16, 2019 01:30:11 PM by Mateo R. S
Oh no sorry! i was talking to Jennifer, sorry about that, well, i can tell you i have submited proposals where the client´s refference is literally the same as one item on my portfolio, for instance client said: i want an animation of a coin spinning, well i have doen two coins spinning, i submit and show it to them... nothing... i have found that, is either because it wasn´t a real thing.. or because of more than 50 other freelancers, i can tell you i started freelancers wayback when it was oDesk, and yeah it was pretty easy to land a job, and i can tell you now, it is not.
May 16, 2019 12:46:42 PM by Jennifer M
I don't notice any difference. I bid on a few jobs in only a couple of days, which is unusually good for me. Already found the guy pretending to be in the US and has a lot of work for me to do if I just work for cheap this time. He was so adorable thinking I'm a stereotypical desperate freelancer who would go for it.
May 16, 2019 01:00:06 PM by Mateo R. S
Yeah, i know.
It is really easy to say that, and think that way with numbers like yours (congrats by the way!) 400k+ total earnings??? jobs that are worth more than 4,000?? very impresive.
I see a pattern here, old freelancers vs new freelancers, see i`m stubborn, and determined to be a succesful freelancer here, and i know it wont be easy, will have many stepbacks here and there, you great freelancers won´t never see this struggle, when you started out you started on very different conditions, yes.. you also struggled and market was hard, but times are different, what i´m saying with all this, is that Upwork should come up with some device to improve the quality of job posting, of clients, it might even the plane a little for us new freelancers to step up to the big ones like yourself.
May 16, 2019 01:17:46 PM by Jennifer M
Jesús Mateo R wrote:Yeah, i know.
It is really easy to say that, and think that way with numbers like yours (congrats by the way!) 400k+ total earnings??? jobs that are worth more than 4,000?? very impresive.
I see a pattern here, old freelancers vs new freelancers, see i`m stubborn, and determined to be a succesful freelancer here, and i know it wont be easy, will have many stepbacks here and there, you great freelancers won´t never see this struggle, when you started out you started on very different conditions, yes.. you also struggled and market was hard, but times are different, what i´m saying with all this, is that Upwork should come up with some device to improve the quality of job posting, of clients, it might even the plane a little for us new freelancers to step up to the big ones like yourself.
nah, it's been the same song and dance for years. People have been saying this stuff since I began. My experience is no different when I started from anyone else's. Started at the very bottom. I did Elance on the side for a while before I did this full time. I didn't go full time until 2015 and I see no difference now other than I built up and now get invites due to my history here. But I still have to go into the open marketplace and deal with the fake US client, people thinking I'm stupid enough to fall for the "I have lots of work for you" and people who just want to argue with me.
It's no different anywhere else. Just had to tell someone on LinkedIn it ain't happening because an article of mine she was looking at was $1000 and her budget was $240 and I had to tell her "welp, gonna have to increase that budget then, friendo." She'll run off and find someone else I'm sure, but that's what you have to do if you want to make money in this place.
May 16, 2019 01:41:27 PM by Mateo R. S
If i could... i would challenge you to open a new account, with no history and no rep, and try to land a job now, and compare it to land a job when you started out, i´m telling you it is not the same, many people are saying this for a reason, i can assure you i dont bid on crappy jobs, i have said no because of low rates, i believe a have a good portfolio, i was landing cool jobs before, and now it has stoped, yeah probelms might be the same for years, but it is getting heavier, but again, a succesful freelancer that needs only to bid on a couple of proposals a week to get jobs, wont never see the etruggles we have today... that might sound like the things people have been saying for years, but trust me, the levels of it are not the same.
May 16, 2019 02:01:22 PM by Tiffany S
@2f5ff562 wrote:If i could... i would challenge you to open a new account, with no history and no rep, and try to land a job now, and compare it to land a job when you started out, i´m telling you it is not the same, many people are saying this for a reason
I know things continue to change. The thing is, when I joined Upwork about 2.5 years ago, there were people in the forums constantly talking about how things had changed and they used to be able to get good clients but now there was too much competition and the jobs were all fake and everyone wanted to pay $5....and then, at every point during those 2.5 years, the same thing. The reasons people point to change, but the things they (you) are saying are exactly the same as the things they were saying my first week.
May 16, 2019 02:06:40 PM by Mateo R. S
Ok, i´ll give you that, complaints have always been the same, can i ask you something? have you ever complaint about that too? on any point in time on your career? have this been a struggle for you in the past? if the answer is yes, then it would be good to share some advice on how did you overcome that, we can use that more than we can use the arguement of: oh i have seen that in the past, there´s nothing new on your complaint, move on. I say this with all respect you deserve.
May 16, 2019 02:19:17 PM by Christine A
Jesús Mateo R wrote:Ok, i´ll give you that, complaints have always been the same, can i ask you something? have you ever complaint about that too? on any point in time on your career? have this been a struggle for you in the past? if the answer is yes, then it would be good to share some advice on how did you overcome that, we can use that more than we can use the arguement of: oh i have seen that in the past, there´s nothing new on your complaint, move on. I say this with all respect you deserve.
Yes, that's a fair point, and I definitely did my fair share of complaining when I was starting out (and still do). Nobody is saying that you shouldn't come here and vent if you need to. But taking the attitude that things were easier in the past and that's the reason you're not successful, or that you're not successful because all of the clients are scammers and cheapskates - that's going to be counter-productive for you. And it's simply not true. There are good clients out there, and if you look at the histories of some of the "gurus" in the forum, it'll be obvious to you that it's possible to be successful here.
Upwork has loads of resources on how to improve your profile, how to make bids, how to protect yourself against scams, etc., so if you want to learn, start reading. And the rest is just experience, hard work and learning from your mistakes. There's no real "secret".
May 16, 2019 03:21:26 PM by Mateo R. S
Ok, we are starting to understand each other, sorry if it seems i came in too hard, i didn´t mean to have an ¨attitude¨, i know you understand that starting a freelancer carreer can built up the frustration pretty high, so i erroneously believe that whats new to me, should be new to the whole world, ok what i struggle with many people have struggled with it years back, but i have to say freelancer that have years also come in with an ¨attitude¨ of Augh! those newbies! move on!, so... as you mentioned, it´s good to have a fair mid point, share your knowledge i mean if you are here in the forums it means you like encouraging other people. Earily times had it´s own unique setbacks and lowpoints, nowdays has its own sucky issues, dont disregard our struggles or make them less important! i dont mean to compare! freelancing will always have its difficulties.
May 16, 2019 07:22:06 PM by Christine A
Jesús Mateo R wrote:Ok, we are starting to understand each other, sorry if it seems i came in too hard, i didn´t mean to have an ¨attitude¨, i know you understand that starting a freelancer carreer can built up the frustration pretty high, so i erroneously believe that whats new to me, should be new to the whole world, ok what i struggle with many people have struggled with it years back, but i have to say freelancer that have years also come in with an ¨attitude¨ of Augh! those newbies! move on!, so... as you mentioned, it´s good to have a fair mid point, share your knowledge i mean if you are here in the forums it means you like encouraging other people. Earily times had it´s own unique setbacks and lowpoints, nowdays has its own sucky issues, dont disregard our struggles or make them less important! i dont mean to compare! freelancing will always have its difficulties.
LOL - well, I'm sorry if I upset you with any of my remarks. I've been really ill and stuck at home for over a week, so I'm crankier than usual. But you have to realize that if you come in here and start telling people that the reason for their hard-earned success is that things were just easier in the olden days, it's not going to win you a lot of admirers. I'm pretty new to posting stuff in the forum, but most of the people who are "gurus" have a truly exhaustive knowledge of how things work around here, and they'll give you great advice if you don't go out of your way to antagonize them first. 🙂
May 16, 2019 06:01:17 PM by Tiffany S
Jesús Mateo R wrote:Ok, i´ll give you that, complaints have always been the same, can i ask you something? have you ever complaint about that too? on any point in time on your career? have this been a struggle for you in the past? if the answer is yes, then it would be good to share some advice on how did you overcome that, we can use that more than we can use the arguement of: oh i have seen that in the past, there´s nothing new on your complaint, move on. I say this with all respect you deserve.
There's a reason that I'm emphasizing that these same complaints are consistent across time periods, and it's not to be dismissive. It's because the freelancers who get caught up in believing that the problem is some time-specific or market-specific thing beyond their control generally fail--you can't fix something that you think is happening to you due to an outside force.
My experience is very different from that of people who are just joining Upwork--not because I joined Upwork a little sooner, but because I started freelancing in 1989. I got my first freelance job off of a bulletin board on the wall, so finding work was much different (and much more labor intensive, and much slower) when I started my career. It's much, much easier to build a freelance career now, but expectations have changed--many freelancer expect to just sign up for a site like this and start working, not realizing that being a successful freelancer requires business skills, marketing skills, and patient persistence.
May 16, 2019 01:47:32 PM Edited May 16, 2019 01:57:44 PM by Christine A
Jesús Mateo R wrote:
I see a pattern here, old freelancers vs new freelancers, see i`m stubborn, and determined to be a succesful freelancer here, and i know it wont be easy, will have many stepbacks here and there, you great freelancers won´t never see this struggle, when you started out you started on very different conditions, yes.. you also struggled and market was hard, but times are different, what i´m saying with all this, is that Upwork should come up with some device to improve the quality of job posting, of clients, it might even the plane a little for us new freelancers to step up to the big ones like yourself.
Yes, you're right - when I started out it WAS very different conditions, because things were worse than they are now. It was 19 years ago during a recession, most companies were downsizing so there were no permanent jobs available, and the whole global marketplace thing was just starting to have an impact. Elance was still in beta, and you should have seen the kind of wild west marketplace that it was - there were basically no rules at all. You could read everybody's bids and there were always three or four proposals on every project that said, "I'll do your project for free in return for good feedback" (there was no minimum fee and no rules against working for free - that came later). And yes, there was a forum ("water cooler") in which many freelancers complained that people in other countries were stealing "their" jobs. Nothing has changed. If anything, it's much easier to get remote working jobs now, because people are so familiar with the concept - back then, there weren't nearly as many projects to choose from.
And I wonder why you think that Upwork should "do something" about the bad clients? If you were using any other form of advertising or marketing, you would still need to communicate well, exercise common sense, protect yourself, and ensure that you got paid - nobody would be doing this for you. That's all part of running your own business, whether you use Upwork or not.
May 16, 2019 01:59:32 PM by Mateo R. S
Ok, you have good arguement there, didn´t know that... i am taking this in... so you girls, Tiffany, Christine and Jennifer are saying, that no matter what the time is, freelancing have always been hard, and that a CRAZY amount of bad and fake jobs have always been posted, always have been crapload of other freelancers, and there´s nothing new here, that our complaints are the ones that you once had back on your starting days... and that we freelancers should suck it and toughen up and keep moving on. So, how did you you all became a succesful freelancer, what´s the ¨Secret¨...
May 16, 2019 02:05:45 PM by Tiffany S
Jesús Mateo R wrote:Ok, you have good arguement there, didn´t know that... i am taking this in... so you girls, Tiffany, Christine and Jennifer are saying, that no matter what the time is, freelancing have always been hard, and that a CRAZY amount of bad and fake jobs have always been posted, always have been crapload of other freelancers, and there´s nothing new here, that our complaints are the ones that you once had back on your starting days... and that we freelancers should suck it and toughen up and keep moving on. So, how did you you all became a succesful freelancer, what´s the ¨Secret¨...
Well, I don't think we exactly said all that, but it does seem that every new batch of freelancers thinks the same old challenges are unique to the time and place they're freelancing.
For me, the key to success was being very selective. It sounds counter-intuitive, but if you take on jobs that aren't really what you're looking for, they split your focus and divert your attention from building the business you want. And if you apply to every job you can do, you're in competition with a huge number of freelancers. I never bid on a job unless I can see a reason that I'm a better option than most of the other freelancers who will be bidding on it. That doesn't mean I get every job I bid on (like your coin example), but it increases the percentage and, just as important, it continues to build my expertise, samples, and connections in the specific area I want to work. At this point, virtually all of my work comes from referrals.
May 16, 2019 02:11:46 PM by Mateo R. S
It may be very well an issue that does not respond to the times we currently live in, but it is an issue that we all freelancers go trhough when starting out, so for you guys that have years on this, might seem repetitive, because every new freelancer says it... it IS new to us, and having no point of reference like you do, it makes us think that it has never happened before, so our mistake is to think that the world is getting crazier every minute, but you guys that have more time, maybe could cut us some slack, we´re new remember? we WILL complaint about a lot of things! lol, thank you for infoming us that this ain´t a thing that is progresively getting worse, and rather an issue that responds to the curve of getting a better freelancer.
May 16, 2019 10:21:34 PM Edited May 17, 2019 12:57:16 AM by Petra R
Jesús Mateo R wrote:s... and that we freelancers should suck it and toughen up and keep moving on. So, how did you you all became a succesful freelancer?
By sucking it up, toughening up and keeping on moving. By having a business-mindset, not an employee mindset. By selling ourselves, marketing our services, working hard.
Not by sitting in a corner wailing how hard it is.
It is hard. It is still hard and for most it will always be. Freelancing is not for entitled brats who want to sit back and wait for the nice fat offers to come flooding in.
Frankly, how DARE you claim that others had it so easy? Do you know how they got to where they are?
And even if it was easier for some than for others, that is life, right?
Instead of wasting quite so much time on entitled rage, try spending more time on getting your profile and your proposals and your portfolio to a compelling state so when a client looks at it, it sells you.
May 17, 2019 07:15:09 AM by Mateo R. S
Dear Petra, and Amanda.
Ok, this is going places i don´t like.....
I apologize if in my behavior you guys felt attacked, or even if i DID said something rude... i respect freelancers who has years, and made a path for us new ones, i was never in the attack mode against you, as the title of the thread says, i was complaining against the clients, and not even with them, with the quality of the job posts, i have learned from this thread that that is nothing new, some clients have always been jerks, it is ONLY new to me, but JEEZ, please, relax.
I am determined to be as succesful as you all gurus are, i never said it should have been easier for you, i actually said every generation has it´s unique issues to deal with. Let me tell you something, i dont know how do you picture me, I am a man that has 10+ years on the graphic and motion business, i am married and have 2.5 kids (one on the way) i try to be nice and polite almost all the time, i am no brat kid who is complaining how things are NOT possible and blaming previous generations, that is not my thing, so please i ask you to lower your sword so we can have a healthy discussion and so that we new guys on Upwork can actually learn something from the more experienced freelancers?? thank you.
May 16, 2019 03:08:52 PM by Tatyana M
I do notice a ton of jobs where no one is ever hired, so I think that is a problem. Expecially a client who has several jobs posted and zero hires and it has been weeks...
However, I do find that since I am in the US, if I filter for clients who only want US based freelancers, I don't compete with people on other coutries where $5/hr is reasonable. Are there similar filters for people in other countires?
May 16, 2019 03:24:51 PM by Mateo R. S
It is a problem, what i have learned from this thread is that ignoring those proposals is the closest to an answer. Apply only to jobs you think are best for your skills, although many many others aslo... will apply and have the same skills, but dont worry, eventually you´ll land a job, and slowly build up your carreer..
May 17, 2019 12:05:27 AM Edited May 17, 2019 07:23:40 AM by Amanda F
Yeah and how do you think you build your career? You build your skills and you apply to stuff you know you can do and you work hard. This stuff isn't meant to be a walk in the park. You need to work and build yourself up, how do you think the people here who have made 50k plus did it? They certainly didn't have work thrown at them! We've had to look through all of the bad jobs or use the filter, and check back often to be able to bid. We've also had to take the interviews against the competition and come out on top.
I for one have always had to work hard as a freelancer and my clients tell me what qualities they keep coming back for, and I can tell you for sure it takes time to builld your freelance business. It doesn't happen overnight. Upworks is not going to give you handouts of projects or be able to control what clients post, you have to get the good jobs yourself through good proposal writing and experience.
A truly good freelancer, when they see the low prices they just move on and keep looking. I and many others just set the filters so we don't see the bad quality stuff because it is far better than complaining since that gets you nowhere. The quality jobs still are out there, you just keep looking and proving yourself to be the right fit.
Low priced jobs have been around for many years and nothing has changed. The way that you think about it should be to find the diamonds in the rough rather than complaining that it should be all different. Your prespective makes a huge difference.
May 17, 2019 07:33:11 AM by Mateo R. S
Dear Amanda, i am not your enemy, i respect your work and history as a freelancer, i never tried to attack your status as a freelancer, if you be so kind to read the answer i gave to your comment on a previous comment here on this thread, thank you.
May 17, 2019 11:50:16 AM by Amanda F
I actually didn't think at all you attacked me, just you should see that it is more than just the upworks system that matters to your success. It comes from personal growth and if you are doing the right stuff. Most of all it is a positive attitude and a large determination to help clients that matters and of course your skill you have. I get it, we all started somewhere and sometimes, sure, we may have complained when we started some but seeing the light is really important and the ways to improve your business.
May 17, 2019 07:37:12 AM by Mateo R. S
And you know what... i will complaint... and i will continue to complaint because it´s new to me!! i am pretty sure than this kinda stuff when it was new to you, you probably also had a thing or two to say about it, that doesn´t mean i am blaming the clients, the community, the freelancers, the competitors... etc.. it only means i felt frustrated about it, and tried to reach the community for help and advice, please i ask you kindly, don´t feel attacked by that.
May 17, 2019 07:50:04 AM by Petra R
Jesús Mateo R wrote:And you know what... i will complaint... and i will continue to complaint
OK, your choice... Do make sure to let us know how that works out for you in due course, won't you...
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