Questions, questions and more questions

[feed_my_eyes]

I've been on Elance/Upwork for almost 19 years now (spoiler alert: I'm not young) and over the years, I've developed many theories about which jobs are "worth" bidding on and which ones aren't. Now that Upwork is going to start charging me for each and every application, I'm trying to get this down to more of a science than an art.

Until very recently, it was one of my theories that it's especially worthwhile bidding on projects in which clients make use of Upwork's pre-prepared questions, e.g. "Which part of the project do you think will take the longest?" These types of projects often have the fewest bids - probably because it takes a lot longer to apply to them - so in addition to the improved odds of being 1 in 10 bidders instead of 1 in 50, I've assumed that my thoughtful and articulate (ahem) responses would give me an edge. 

But lately I'm coming around to the opposite conclusion: that clients who use these pre-fab questions are actually much LESS likely to move forward with their projects (i.e. choose a freelancer to work with). Also, clients who ask the most questions (5-6) are even less likely to choose a bidder than clients who ask just 1-2 questions.

Thoughts? I don't expect Upwork to share any official data on this (assuming that they have any), but I'd be interested in hearing if anyone else has made similar observations.

(Incidentally, my absolute least-favourite pre-fab question is, "Which past project have you done that's the most like this one, and why?" when a client has given little or no information about THEIR project! Each time I see this, I die a little inside.)

[petra_r]

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Christine A wrote:

"Which part of the project do you think will take the longest?"

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TOTALLY no help with your question, but I have, once, answered "Responding to all those questions!" to that.

I can not remember if I was hired.

😉

[feed_my_eyes]

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Petra R wrote:

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Christine A wrote:

"Which part of the project do you think will take the longest?"

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TOTALLY no help with your question, but I have, once, answered "Responding to all those questions!" to that.

I can not remember if I was hired.

😉

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I would definitely have hired you.

[yitwail]

Christine, that’s an interesting theory you proposed. Now I’m wishing I’d kept track of how often I’ve been hired after answering those questions. I’m fairly sure I was hired a few times so I wouldn’t avoid those jobs, but most jobs I worked on didn’t have those questions if memory serves.

[elastella]

99% of the time I will avoid projects that come with either any number of pre-fab questions or more than 2 regular (sensible) questions.

In general, I will only answer questions if one or two sentences suffice. Most times, I simply reply with 'yes' or 'no'.

Then again, my proposals hardly ever comprise more than 3-5 sentences. And those are mostly my own questions. Of course, it really depends on the field(s) you're in.  

ETA: I always skim their hiring history and check how they've rated past providers. NOT necessarily what kind of feedback they have received.

[gilbert-phyllis]

I almost never respond to posts that use UW pre-fab questions. Clients looking for the kind of work I do, who have to resort to those canned questions are generally so clueless about what they need and what it will cost, that even the prospect of hiring me for two hours for a customized Research 101 consultation gives them sticker shock and/or sends them scurrying away.

I hardly ever look at how many proposals have been submitted, but I do look at the client's hiring history and how recently they've viewed their post. But I operate in a fairly narrow niche.

[msublette]

I mostly avoid these job posting.  But I do think it is domain-dependent.  In my area, people usually have really specific questions. Or no questions because they don't know what they want.  The jobs that have questions like, "What is the most interesting thing about this job?" Or whatever that question is, is always a red flag to me.  I never answer that.  Now if they make up their own questions about experience with certain software or specific types of research, I will usually answer those and I feel I've had a pretty high rate of hire on those, but I I don't have any stats to back it up.

[feed_my_eyes]

Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to respond so far - these are very interesting insights. It has certainly challenged my assumptions about why fewer freelancers respond to the really question-y projects.