Recent Difficulty Landing Work / 100% JSS and Top Rated Plus

[dustin_slack]

Hello Upwork Community, please tell me if you are experiencing similar issues. Or if I'm crazy or doing something wrong, please tell me straight up. Also let me preface this by saying that I realize I'm not the best designer in the world. Always room to grow, I get that. But I do stand by my work and the vast majority of my clients are pleased with my work as well. 

I've been top rated plus 100% jss (graphic designer) since way before Upwork implemented these ridiculous changes. Connect boosts, 10 free connects a month (oh how generous - let's push the freelancers to boost their proposal so they'll run out of connects sooner and have to buy more), consultations, project catalogs... my work is in my profile! CLIENTS CAN VIEW MY WORK IN MY PROFILE. Not only that, if they search my name in Google, they will find my actual portfolio website. This leads my to my first concern listed below. 

Project Catalogs: If a client wants a fixed price pitch deck, they can find me and invite me to interview and discuss it with them in detail. Not all graphic design projects are alike. Some require more effort, some require minimal effort. Three tiers for a project just doesn't cover it. It is a nuanced discipline. It's more work for us trying to comply with Upwork's new standards and less money coming our way. Looking at it from a client perspective, it seems like they would think of us freelancers as unflexible, rigid, unwilling to budge, too complicated, and then just give up on the platform. I had to wait about 15-20 days and multiple fixes to get my first Project Catalog to go through. You know what Upwork said when I asked them what was taking so long? They are having trouble getting through the influx of similar concerns. I mean, that's a red flag right there. 

Consultations: Clients aren't dumb, they might need direction or need advice and might not know exactly what they are looking for, but they aren't dumb. Why are clients going to pay for a consultation when they can just message me through Upwork by inviting me to a job - even if they are unsure they'll even want to hire for the job? If the project looks good, my type of client, or design style, I'll respond, for free - because I potentailly want that specific work. What does Upwork think they are getting out of this? I'm not a lawfirm, consultations... I just don't get it. 

I haven't been receiveing invitations or landing jobs like I used to. I started noticing it about 3-4 months ago. It used to be like I'd snap my fingers and there was a good job at hand (even when I wasn't top rated plus!). Now it's nothing. I've been complaining to Upwork support about this for about a month, but I'm to be assured, these changes are working and are great for freelancers! I'm just not seeing it and I can't be the only freelancer not getting the same amount of work they used to get, not even close. I can't be alone in this, maybe I am, but intuition and years of experience tells me I'm not. 

Let me know if any of you fellow freelancers, especially graphic designers, if you're experiencing similar things or feel the same way or if you have a different opinion. I'm just trying to understand what is going on. I used to be able to make a living straight through Upwork. I've always respected Upwork so much that I'd route clients who reached out to me through my website back to Upwork, those who found me through Behance, or Dribbble, etc. Currently, it's almost impossible though. I've been using Upwork since about 2015-2016 or back when it was Freelancer. I've never had such a hard time getting work while being top rated plus at 100% jss. Something is amiss and it has to be these recent (within the last 9 months) changes to the platform. 

At this point I'm just frustrated. I put in so much work and so much effort to increase my jss to 100% and become top rated plus in my field. Now it feels like I did all that work for nothing. Great for discipline in general, not seeing the benefits monetarily anymore. 

Also, the less us freelancers get work, the less Upwork gets their cut of our pay. I think Upwork isn't looking at the fact that we (freelancers, clients, and Upwork) rely on each other. Which is why none of these changes make any sense to me. If I'm not making money on Upwork then Upwork isn't making money from me. When things start messing with your income, you notice. If I'm not the only one, then Upwork has to be experiencing less income (their cut), unless they are relying on us freelancers buying more connects to fund their platform - which just doesn't add up in my mind. 

The thing is, I'll keep using Upwork because aside from a few other sites, they've cornered this market - and like I stated before, I've been on here working since it was Freelancer. I just hope things change for the better and soon. During a time of inflation in the States, I'm not so sure about other places, having my income interrupted because of platform changes is quite frustrating. Maybe it's the platform changes, my feeling is that it is, but then I again I could be wrong. This is just my experience as of the last couple months. 

Anyway, let me know your thoughts. Whether we agree or not, much love and respect to my peers for responses.

Dusty

[the-right-writer]

I can find no evidence the lack of good jobs has anything to do with the situation in Russia. In my experience, very few jobs were from Russia, at least in the writing category. Those rare jobs are not the reason there are so few decent jobs on the platform.

There are multiple reasons, and yes the war in Ukraine does affect the rest of the world. However, COVID is still killing thousands of people each day, and the economy has not recovered and will never go back to the way it was. Employers are cutting costs because of business being down, projects have been delayed, and many clients test the waters at every platform to see whom they can get for the rock bottom prices they want to pay.

Upwork has never made a profit, and they aren't likely to do so anytime soon. Sure, they make some money, but they are not running at a profit. Their stock goes up and down all the time.

Upwork is never going to give you the stats. First, I doubt they have any. Second, if they do, they will never share that with freelancers.

[edwardgichina]

Where are you that you still have Covid? 

Upwork should be apolitical. I think there is need to test both freelancers and clients in the job category they are in. 

Entry,intermediate or expert  tests and maybe mandatory KYC. 

[the-right-writer]

I'm in the United States. COVID is still killing hundreds of people each day in this country 400 - 500 at minimum.

Every country has had cases and deaths and they still are dying. When you add up all the countries, there are thousands of people dying every day. More than 6 million people have died so far.

Just because the subject isn't in the headlines doesn't mean it has gone away. It's just not that exciting to the media because the numbers aren't as terrifying. Some countries stopped counting and nearly all nations act like it is over. People do not want to hear it is still a problem across the globe and it is far from gone.

How would you test clients in their category? Do you mean screen the clients and verify emails, etc.?

[marc_compte]

Wise words. Boosted connects are evil, that is common knowledge, but I doubt they have the power to cause such misfortune on so many people in such short term.

I never boosted and I have not had any problem landing jobs. Boosted proposals are a horrendous idea but I think their impact is not as high as one may first imagine.

[dustin_slack]

Thanks for your input Jamie, I'll take it into account. 

[financemark]

Great question Martina.

I wonder if this is some combination of things:

- economic slowdowns across the globe (the US IS in recession, despite the pleas against it)

- UW recognition that top-ranked are sometimes only so "in name" -- (how top ranked is someone, really, if they are allowed to delete negative feedback for the sake of 100% JSS).  I read a lot of grumbling from top-ranked here, and while I respect their efforts in attaining the ranking, I wonder if they expect special recognition in times of draught.

- UW pushing more low-fee work to low-paying clients.

- UW's new monetization schemes doing the above.

Remember: "when the hay gets low in the barn, the horses start to bite each other"

Suggestion: drop your bid price, take it on the chin and pay your bills.  Oh, and do what Tiffany suggest: "Your future is not safe here, or in any specific place. As an independent business owner it is your responsibility to develop multiple channels for securing work to ensure that the loss of one platform or referral source cannot undermine your business."

To that end: I am building my own WordPress website, when finished, I am funding an email marketing campaign. 

[81f2681a]

Hi Dustin,

I´m just a newbie in Upwork, I joined some months ago, but I realy feels the same as you. I´m an illustrator and animator, and of course I´m not the best artist in the platform, but I thinks I´m realy good to works full time being a professional. I had hopes to grow up in Upwork.

In my first month, I sent few proposals and got a job, I was so happy and heart filled with hopes to increases my earnings, I decided to invest more on UpWork. I was receiving a lot of invites, even being just a beginner and even a lot of these invites isn´t matching my skills or isn´t reliable, at least I was receiving a lot of invites. Since few months ago, invites just disapeared, I got other jobs after sending a lot of proposals, my last clients was so happy and pleased with work but they didn´t left a feedback! I don´t understand why this happened! I sent messages to them asking "please, leaves a feedback" but they just disapeared. I was hoping to finaly get a JSS, but nothing happened.

I opened my agency in Upwork to work with my brothers. I love my brothers and our most highest desires in professional terms is that we can keep working together. We are just 3 close friends, like real brothers, working together. We were hoping things could be better, but we just got 1 job in agency. As I searched in Upwork and found a lot of agencies that earned a lot, me and my brothers was hoping to grow here too. Also I found clients that hates agencies, but found post jobs that just wants agencies. In fact, we are not like most of the agencies in Upwork, we knows each other outside Upwork and have a strong friendship, and we has no intention of hiring anyone to join our agency like a lot of agencies does. But after the first job, seens we are just in a desert city.

Everyday I comes to community to read forums, get some tips and knows what is happening in Upwork. I hope things can get better soon.

[spectralua]

My experience with innovation

Catalog. Attracted 10+ scammers, one successfully deceived me. 0 real clients.

Availability icon. Absolutely useless other than a waste of money.

Boost. Absolutely useless other than a waste of money.

Spammers. Recently, I see 1-2 applications suitable for me. Just see(do not say that I was hired). Previously, it was about 20-30. Clients have stopped posting orders here. And during the first 10 minutes there are usually 50+ offers, I think from bots. I don’t know where these bots get connections from, but I see that connections don’t stop them.

Fraudsters. Somewhere every 4th client tries to cheat me, some succeed. There are no protections from Upwork. Some works are lost because I initially demand to open a contract and other mandatory actions. Customers find this unfriendly and leave. Otherwise they are trying to get jobs for free.

I see that the upwork is actively increasing the number of users. But don't worry about the quality of these users. These are bots, scammers, ephemera. Perhaps the platform wants to show beautiful numbers "there are a lot of us", but anyone who checks sees that these are bots and garbage.

Invitations. I haven't received any invitations in recent months. Maybe one a month. My profile seems to look good (or bad?), but it is either not found in the search or there are no clients left. In general, now I hardly get one job a week to maintain my freelance plus status and many of these jobs are old clients. I do not have the opportunity to work locally, the war is on my country. But this is getting worse and worse. The scammers take my money back, the Upwork blocking my account with chargeback, forced refunds. Most of the time is pointless waiting and fighting with scammers.

I hope that Upwork will listen to the wishes and start thinking and correcting the situation. My suggestions: Conduct mandatory verification of the identity of customers, transfer fraudulent cases to law enforcement, stop the easy and free re-registration of fraudsters. Hire people to work with messages flagged, don't ignore it. Prohibit support to use of template answers "your offer is valuable, but we will not tell you about the results." Conduct user surveys about new services and respond\act to feedback.

I wish you all a great day and good luck! And my countrymen survive and peace.

[84798706]

Upwork isn't losing money instead they are earning a lot

[moonraker]

---

Nabeel A wrote:

Upwork isn't losing money instead they are earning a lot

---

This is false.

Upwork has never made a profit.

[paywell]

If you're right - it's good news for Upwork: it can now register as a non-profit organization.

But something tells me, that Upwork isn't working for charity, and therefore - it can't do so. 

Been hearing that "Upwork doesn't make money" bit since forever.

Infact, many people wish they could "not make money" like Upwork. 

[moonraker]

---

Pavlo L wrote:

Been hearing that "Upwork doesn't make money" bit since forever.

---

That might be because it's a verifiable and provable fact.

All you need to do is look at their financial records. Upwork is a publicly listed company so it's all available online for anybody who's interest.

[paywell]

Not making money and not showing profit are two different things. 

[moonraker]

I know.

And Upwork has still not made a profit - they are losing millions. Again this is information that is readilly available to anybody that wants it. You don't have to just take my word for it.

[paywell]

Food for thought:

One person's loss may be another person's gain.

What seems an error for one may be the goal for another.

And, last but not least:

Not showing money doesn't equal not making money. 

[moonraker]

How is any of that waffle food for thought?

Nevermind, it's clear you're not intersted in the reality so I'll just leave you to it.

[getcheeky]

Jamie, Pavlo, 

We're not here to argue. We're here to work together and find solutions, so let's move in that direction. Put down the light sabors, boys--- you can pick 'em back up come Halloween and knock the snot out of each other then. 😉

[paywell]

Thanks for your caring input, Michelle! 

Some want to help, while others try to feed us the "Upwork works for charity" baloney.

Just separating the wheat from the chaff.

There's at least one of them in every or growing forum thread.

[the-right-writer]

If you look at Upwork's business profile, you will see the company is not making money. You may think the stats are invalid, but all the data says Upwork isn't making a profit. Are they making money? Yes. Are they making a profit? No.

[tlsanders]

I'd guess each of us is here for our own reasons and not necessarily the purpose you've bulk-assigned to us all. 

[martina_plaschka]

I think you are confusing a number of things. Upwork pays their employees, let's hope. That does not mean it's a profitable company. 

[paywell]

Generating income is like filling your pockets with money.

Showing profit is inputting ones and zeroes into a report and filing it. 

Whether the reported amount is equal to what remains in your pockets is a different question.

But that is not the subject of this forum thread.

I have no interest in the topic.

Nevertheless, I don't like my intelligence being offended by shallow claims.

[tlsanders]

"Not showing money doesn't equal not making money. "

So, you're asserting that Upwork is committing serious federal crimes in its SEC filings?  Why would you even consider working with a company you believe is operating illegally and committing fraud?

[martina_plaschka]

They are the same thing. 

[81f2681a]

Do you realy believe that Upwork doesn´t makes money? Doesn´t have a profit? 😂

Lets be realistic: **edited for Community Guidelines** Upwork must pays their employees. Upwork takes at least 20% of each sucessfull job done here. Upwork sells connects to freelancers. Do you realy believe Upwork doesn´t makes money?! Don´t make me laught!

Why Upwork says that is against TOS to comunicate with client outside the platform unless you have a contract here? Just to protect us from being scammed? Yes, it is, but not just it; it is to protect its 20% cut too.

It is obvious that Upwork has profits, if not, maintainig this platform would be impraticable.

[paywell]

What you are writing is obvious, but people choose to believe, that financial reports (which indeed can show that Upwork doesn't make a profit) mean that no money is being made. 

Some people choose to believe that Santa comes from the North Pole. 

I choose to believe, that he is a man with a fake beard, trying to make a buck for Christmas.

[martina_plaschka]

You mean the difference between profit and cash-flow?

[paywell]

Showing profit is about making financial statements. 

Making money is, let's say, generating cash-flow. 

For some reason, every big forum topic mentions one part and disregards the other. 

Advocates of the "Upwork doesn't make money" church preach only about financial statements, fully disregarding real world money, solid currency, which the company generates. 

It is a mystery to me, what they are trying to convey by arguing this without end. 

But, as I have stated above - I have no interest in financial markets. And this forum thread is about a different problem.

[feed_my_eyes]

If you have evidence that Upwork is falsifying their financial statements, then take it up with the relevant authorities. I don't know what this has to do with the topic of this thread, which is about people saying that they're getting fewer projects.

[paywell]

---

Christine A wrote:

If you have evidence that Upwork is falsifying their financial statements, then take it up with the relevant authorities. I don't know what this has to do with the topic of this thread, which is about people saying that they're getting fewer projects.

---

This was my reply to the omnipresent argument, that Upwork doesn't make money, which is an insult to people's intelligence. Nevertheless, it is being repeated over and over again.

I have no interest in that topic.

You can find my in-depth answer to the current problem at hand here:

https://community.upwork.com/t5/Freelancers/Recent-Difficulty-Landing-Work-100-JSS-and-Top-Rated-Plu...

To sum it up: 

Sanctions is what most probably got us. 

New features have nothing to do with this, unless programmers who worked on Upwork were influenced by the sanctions.

To prove it - we have to wait for the geopolitical situation to be resolved or for the sanctions to be lifted.

[7ba56d1a]

Much of the world stopped producing much for the greater part of the past two years; jobs, business, and industries went away. This can't not affect the entire picture.

[martina_plaschka]

You can read their financial statements to confirm they never made a profit. Making a profit and paying their employees is not the same thing. 

[81f2681a]

Where can I read Upwork´s financial statements? And even if they say they don´t make a profit, I will never believes on that, because every business is sustained by profits. I´m not a specilist in business, but I know the basics in administration that is: never spends more than you earn. It is just impossible to survive without profits. If you say that Upwork has a low profit, that´s ok, I can trust you; but saying has no profit, I won´t believe on you, never! Profits is essential to any business to survive, winter comes once a yer, profits helps any business to survive during winters. I´m just being logic, Upwork isn´t a charity institution. And even charity institutions needs profits, the diference is that their money comes from donations, not from users. If winter comes to a charity institution (the donators stops donating for a time), the institution will survive with profits previously earned.

[feed_my_eyes]

**Edited for Community Guidelines**

[martina_plaschka]

You to to the footer and find the financial statements in the investor relations section. 

Again: upwork has never shown a profit on their P&L. That does not mean they have no earnings. They do. It means that their expenses are higher than their earnings. 

[81f2681a]

---

Martina P wrote:

That does not mean they have no earnings. They do. It means that their expenses are higher than their earnings. 

---

This is nonsense. No company, or even charity institutions, can survive for long time if spending more than their earnings. If Upwork expenses is higher than their earnings, and they´re operating like this for 10 years, so this platform would be just bankrupted long time ago.

Upwork is a business, it is obvious they has a profit. They just can´t survive spending more than earns.

Never spends more than your earnings. This is the basic of administration.

[martina_plaschka]

That is a wise policy indeed for a private citizen, but not one that many companies follow. Bank loans, factoring, selling stock, companies have multitudes of ways of raising funds to bolster their cash-flow.  

[81f2681a]

Thats not wise even for these companies, in long term they will bankrupt or destroy the economy.

[martina_plaschka]

Show me one company that does not have debt on their balance sheet. It doesn't exist.  

[81f2681a]

---

Martina P wrote:

Show me one company that does not have debt on their balance sheet. It doesn't exist.  

---

This is insane! If all companies has debts in their balance sheets, so we are all losts, and the conspiracy theory about big reboot economy on earth planned by illuminattis globalists must be true. It is completly impossible companies survive for long time with debts. All companies must have profits or they bankrupt.