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

[tlsanders]

"This is for legal work looking for licensed attorneys, most of the jobs have less than 10 proposals."

I'm curious about how you're making this work in view of the regulatory prohibition on paying non-attorneys a percentage of your earnings as an attorney. Are you outside the United States?

[mahmood_uh]

Oh, tell me about it brother.
I am Top rated plus with 100% jss as a video editor. I used to send 3-4 proposals and always landed a nice job but now, I've sent 15-20 proposals, and everything is silent. It feels like I'm invisible to clients. I don't know what is happening, I even upgraded the membership but still nothing is working. There must be something wrong. 
And yes, they should return the connects that were spent on fake jobs or closed jobs. I hope things work out fine for everyone soon.

[fe9b8d82]

I guess the one positive is that neither of us is alone in the dry spell!  I do have faith that things will turn around, and I really wish you continued success here, and wherever your job search takes you.

[kris_dubovskaya]

Same, I used to rely on Upwork, but now I don't get any clients 😕

I know I am not the most outstanding designer ever, but it never was so difficult to get a job, even as a beginner.

[e296e5ff]

Hi All,

I'm Emily, VP Product at Upwork. First, thank you all for your reports here - they have been extremely helpful! I wanted to share a few updates and insights.

First, we've identified and fixed an issue in one of our search machine learning models. (The issue we found was not related to Availability Badge or Boosted Proposals, which I know many of you had a hunch about).

Second, we will continue to monitor to ensure we've resolved the issue entirely. We'll also continue to check feedback shared here in the Community. There are a few things this group could do that would be especially helpful as we troubleshoot:

1. Share any significant changes in behavior. For example, someone who used to get a lot of invites and now doesn't get any is more likely to have found a bug than someone who is just getting started and hasn't gotten any invites yet.
2. Describe your experience in detail. (Many of you already do this). We don't have the resources to investigate each person's issue, but we do read through the threads, looking for trends and common patterns, which helps us know where to start.

We know from our own data that marketplaces are very dynamic - it's normal to have ebbs and flows of work due to changes in demand on the client side. Dramatic changes are not normal (in the absence of larger macro-economic factors).

Thank you for taking the time to report these issues, and thanks very much for your patience while we resolved them.

[kenmex]

Emily ,it is really encouraging that this is getting acknolwledged by Upwork. Thank you for this.

As already mentioned by many freelancers, invites uset to be about ten per week , and now zero to 1 per week. I have sent more than 80 proposals, and got one single interview the last month. I might not be the best in my field, but this is very strange, and has never happened to me the last four years I am with you here on Upwoerk. This pattern - more or less- applies to many other freelanceers, no interviews, no invites, like somehow we became invisible to clients.

Thanks again for your feedback

[tjmisny]

Hi Emily, thanks for taking the time to respond.  I am an Expert Vetted Freelancer with over $270k in earnings on the platform.  In April of 2022 I wrote a lengthy letter about dramatic changes in my success on the Upwork platform.  I shared this with my talent specialist but she was unable to get me in touch with anyone to hear these concerns.  Despite thanking me profusely for this letter and the concerns it brought up, this talent specialist has since blatantly ghosted me.  

If you are indeed interested in hearing our experiences in detail - where can I send my letter from April 2022, which details a very negative experience I've had on the platform in 2022?  

Thank you,

T.J.

[paywell]

Dear Emily,

this sounds fantastic! I have actually seen a spike in views and invites recently, therefore something must have happened. Thanks!

Regarding your request for feedback: 

It could be a good idea to create a collection system, in order to gather data, allowing to recognize and react to issues more quickly. 

The first step would be to identify the most active clients/freelancers on the platform, with not only high overall earnings, but also a high activity rate in the way of proposals sent, jobs posted, etc. 

It would be important to identify the period, when changes are made (or anticipated) in order to choose the users, which were active during this period, as well as prior to any changes / suspected changes occurring.

You may choose any other criteria, to create a pool of users, who are actively using a function, which may become affected.

I imagine it being something like that:

As soon as a person's actions or their amount sum up to a specific level - they receive a pop-up or an E-mail message, inviting them to participate in the Upwork feedback-pool. 

Or simply inviting them to post in an invite-only forum thread, or maybe even anywhere on the forum. But filtering their messages for your consideration, as coming from users, who are in the active pool. 

You wouldn't want somebody, who posts "I haven't seen any changes" to affect your decisions, especially if the person registered yesterday, or is a long-time user, who hasn't opened Upwork in years and is just visiting the forum.

To sum up: Having a working feedback system from active users is the best that could happen to any on- or offline platform. And Upwork could greatly benefit from this. 

[e296e5ff]

Thank you everyone for the very warm welcome! I wanted to address a couple of suggestions/concerns that people have raised about how to provide feedback:

1. You can post here in the Community. Team members monitor and pass along feedback to the product team.
2. You can use the feedback form at the bottom of each page on the Upwork site. This information gets passed along to the product team as well, even if you do not get a reply!

Although I can't address everyone's specific situation, we do use all of your feedback along with our own monitoring to help us understand whether we have a systemic issue. We know Upwork is an important source of income for many freelancers, and we are working on getting better and faster about identifying issues.

[tjmisny]

Hi Emily --

Please let me know how I can get the letter I mentioned to the product team (or to the appropriate person/team)?  As an Expert Vetted Freelancer with $270k earnings, I would hope that when I say that the platform has become nearly unusable in 2022, that my insights would be very valuable.

Thank you,

T.J.

[paywell]

I guess you have to post here (maybe a new thread?) or use the feedback form. 

Just like Emily stated in the message you have replied to:

1. You can post here in the Community. Team members monitor and pass along feedback to the product team.
2. You can use the feedback form at the bottom of each page on the Upwork site. This information gets passed along to the product team as well, even if you do not get a reply!

[tjmisny]

I have already done both of those things, Pavlo.  No response.  No follow-up.  No interest.  No compassion.  No action.  

That is why I wrote a letter, and why I am trying to get someone from Upwork's product team to engage with me.  I'm an Expert Vetted freelancer and one of the top people in my field here, so I would hope that *somebody* would care to engage with me.  If not, then it makes me wonder why I'm even a member here.

[the-right-writer]

Good luck with getting anyone to pretend they care. Upwork doesn't care about freelancers because they have 10 million or so. (Would Upwork staff please give us the real number?) The management mistakenly believes all freelancers are equal when it comes to connects and fees. Upwork knows that if 90% of the freelancers leave, there will still be millions? on the platform. Short-sighted business decisions have certainly brought down larger corporations.

We, freelancers, are here to make Upwork money. I had no problem with that arrangement when I, too, was making decent money. However, the free for all freelancer program is running the program into the ground for reasons that have been explained repeatedly. Many excellent freelancers will leave if they can't make money or have chargebacks after following every rule.

It breaks my heart and infuriates me that freelancers beg, plead, and demand a smidge of respect and receive none. We quietly beg or yell and scream, and nothing happens. Absolutely nothing we do matters because Upwork feels they don't need us - plenty more here, and they let in anyone and everything that shows up.

I do not see any reason Upwork will start to care. Short-sighted drives for cash are a terrible way to run a business. Perhaps, they should hire some of the financial experts on the platform, and maybe they would show a profit.

I'm sorry this is not reassuring, but I don't believe in lying. Whoever is making the decisions should be fired. After all this time and squeezing freelancers for every penny, they still can't break into the black? Many of us are considering whether it is worth the problems Upwork has brought down on us.

Unfortunately, from watching and reading about Upwork, they seem hell-bent on doing what so many little businesses do - suck the life of the business and then be stunned when the whole thing collapses. Except it won't collapse; Upwork will run with millions of scammer freelancers and scammer clients. Welcome to the bottom.

[tjmisny]

Fully agree with your comments, Jeanne.  

As one of the top freelancers in my field, I believe Upwork owes me a response. And if I continue to be ignored, I will leave the platform.  

[tlsanders]

Has it not occurred to you that if the platform had become "nearly unusable," Upwork would no longer be making money, and so would be investigating fixes on its own?

It sounds like it's not working for you anymore, so perhaps leaving the platform makes sense--as a business decision about what is profitable for you, not a childish threat against a large company that won't be harmed in the least by your departure.

[tjmisny]

I know for a fact that Upwork is investigating fixes on its own (including Search, which Upwork personnel have acknowledged to me is broken).  It's also clear that Upwork is not as profitable as it could be.  

As for you calling me "childish" - I don't have the time to dignify that with a response.  

[tomzilla1]

---

Jeanne H wrote:

Good luck with getting anyone to pretend they care. Upwork doesn't care about freelancers because they have 10 million or so. (Would Upwork staff please give us the real number?) The management mistakenly believes all freelancers are equal when it comes to connects and fees. Upwork knows that if 90% of the freelancers leave, there will still be millions? on the platform. Short-sighted business decisions have certainly brought down larger corporations.

We, freelancers, are here to make Upwork money. I had no problem with that arrangement when I, too, was making decent money. However, the free for all freelancer program is running the program into the ground for reasons that have been explained repeatedly. Many excellent freelancers will leave if they can't make money or have chargebacks after following every rule.

It breaks my heart and infuriates me that freelancers beg, plead, and demand a smidge of respect and receive none. We quietly beg or yell and scream, and nothing happens. Absolutely nothing we do matters because Upwork feels they don't need us - plenty more here, and they let in anyone and everything that shows up.

I do not see any reason Upwork will start to care. Short-sighted drives for cash are a terrible way to run a business. Perhaps, they should hire some of the financial experts on the platform, and maybe they would show a profit.

I'm sorry this is not reassuring, but I don't believe in lying. Whoever is making the decisions should be fired. After all this time and squeezing freelancers for every penny, they still can't break into the black? Many of us are considering whether it is worth the problems Upwork has brought down on us.

Unfortunately, from watching and reading about Upwork, they seem hell-bent on doing what so many little businesses do - suck the life of the business and then be stunned when the whole thing collapses. Except it won't collapse; Upwork will run with millions of scammer freelancers and scammer clients. Welcome to the bottom.

---

I think Upwork staff is trying to do their best to follow the vision of the current CEO. There's a lot of behind of scenes stuff we don't know, while yes this year indeed sucked really bad, I still have faith in Upwork in addressing this issue soon. Most of the issues this year in my humble personal opinion is that of technical issues, low quality freelancers & clients, and search ranking. I've read somewhere that Upwork had to terminate all their Russian operations, which included a huge chunk of their core developers I believe I could be wrong, read it somewhere I think on Upwork Blog. They also were trying to please institutional shareholders, as does most public companies. These institutions for the most part, from what I understand, just want to hear about growth, and new features. They don't have time for the nitty gritty ("are you showing your best talents to the best clients"). So while I do sincerely share similar views, I want to also share recent updates from Upwork side that has mee keep cheering them on. As I mentioned in another post, I paid somewhere north of $32k last year in fees alone to Upwork. I don't expect VIP or any special treatment, but I remember my early days when I was only spending 10k a year to Upwork in fees and getting much better email support, much better quality clients. Anyways, enough about what I paid. Bottom line, let's all cheer for Upwork, I'm sure they have things in the pipeline to address the major concerns. I encourage all genuine freelancers to continue to deliver your best and win together with Upwork.

[tjmisny]

I wish Upwork would prioritize, as you say, "showing best talent to the best clients", beacuse this seems like the entire premise of this business and what its value proposition is for both Clients and Freelancers.  (i.e. what separates it from being Craigslist with a payment platform).  It would be like if McDonald's said they didn't have time to focus on hamburgers and fries.  

[tlsanders]

---

Thomas J M wrote:

I wish Upwork would prioritize, as you say, "showing best talent to the best clients", beacuse this seems like the entire premise of this business and what its value proposition is for both Clients and Freelancers.  (i.e. what separates it from being Craigslist with a payment platform).  It would be like if McDonald's said they didn't have time to focus on hamburgers and fries.  

---

One thing you may want to take into account is that Upwork is very, very bad at this. As a client, the freelancers they highlight to me as a great fit generally aren't. As a freelance writer, I've had their "talent experts" or whatever they're called pitch me web design jobs. There's a very good chance that their further interference in these areas would drive clients off the platform because they would be presented with the representation that some not-really-appropriate freelancers were the best options available for them. 

[tjmisny]

This is correct.  Upwork is a total failure when it comes to matching talent to Clients and vice versa.  The abysmal "Best Match" feature is a good example of this.  As a Client, I have been "Best Matched' with scammer Freelancers and Freelancers who have nothing to do with my job post, simply because they bid low.  Then my inbox is spammed with Upwork nudging me to hire these clowns who are unqualified for my job.  

I can imagine one of the reasons there is almost nothing to apply for in my field is quality clients have been scared away by a platform that makes it more difficult than necessary to find the right person.  

[the-right-writer]

The "staff" are not the ones making the big decisions. The technical issues, while significant pale in comparison to the primary problem of the deluge of unskilled freelancers.

I see zero evidence that Upwork is changing the negative decisions. No offense, but I'm not basing my statements on blogs or comments, even from Upwork. I have done a lot of research on this platform, and I am more concerned with every terrible decision. The Russia connection does have an impact, but far less than the actions taken by Upwork.

"Bottom line, let's all cheer for Upwork, I'm sure they have things in the pipeline to address the major concerns."

Sorry, but I am not interested in making brownie points. You'll have to find someone else to cheer with you.

Upwork has shown no interest in or responded to the freelancer flood. They like it or they would not continue to do it. The business decisions have not resulted in more of a profit. What does that tell you?

[tjmisny]

I'm curious - why do you think the biggest problem with Upwork is the flood of unskilled Freelancers clogging the platform?  Do you think this because you suspect it is alienating / scaring away quality clients?  Or do you think quality clients are acutally hiring these unskilled people beacuse of how cheap they are?

[the-right-writer]

The short answer is the biggest problem is for the clients who are inundated by unlimited freelancers. There are additional related problems, such as clients believing they can get an expert project for pennies an hour because a line of freelancers say they have the skills and will work for that amount.

With so many freelancers and probably some bots drowning the clients in numerous garbage proposals, some clients get angry and leave. I have been contacted by people who tried to hire in my field. They couldn't find anyone because they didn't want to read more than 10 or 12 proposals. When clients receive 20, 50, or more proposals, especially multiple garbage ones, or please, please hire me, they become disgusted. They don't inform Upwork of their bad experience; they leave, never to return.

My carefully crafted proposal is going to be buried in the pile. I can't expect a client to wade through all that to find me. The categories are all overflowing.

The unskilled apply for jobs and plead or sometimes demand. The pretenders somehow manage to get a job and then mess it up. Then another angry client believes all freelancers are trying to cheat. From a slightly different angle, some clients have no respect for freelancers and expect to be able to get work for dirt cheap and don't care if it isn't very good. For proof, look at any article, website, blog, or ebook, and you will likely discover atrocious writing with numerous errors.

I realize Upwork wants and needs money. However, the free for all freelancer situation may bring in some cash flow but won't result in long-term profit. The policy needs to be rescinded immediately with the former checks in place.

[fdynasty]

Hello Emily,

Glad someone is really here to listen to the community.

As a top-rated, I should be getting some views on my profile, I am not asking for an invite which I never get, the last 2 invites are from my old client other than that my profile never got any views. having highly satisfied and returning customers does not impact my profile at all.

I don't know if it's a bug or if it's a similar case with other top-rated freelancers.

[00137e0a]

Hello Emily

It's great to have you here.

I can attest to the fact that a few months ago, whenever I sent a few proposals, I could always count on receiving at least a few replies the following morning.

My proposals seem to be invisible to the client at the moment. I have to submit dozens of proposals before I receive a response, and everything seems very random.

I have a lot of open contracts, so you might want to ask your team to look into it even though it might not be related at all. Is it possible that this is preventing the "best match" algorithm from working properly?

I should mention that I have 100% JSS and am a Top-Rated Plus graphic designer.

Cheers,

Rafa

[miriam-ocampo]

Hi Emily

It's been a couple of months that I have not been getting any jobs. It's like suddenly I'm invisible to customers. I didn't get many invites but I would get 3-4 jobs per week (sending 10-15 proposals),  sometimes I would get offers without even applying for the job, and now I hardly get one 20 USD job per week after sending more than 40 proposals. 

I tried boosting, changing cover letter, etc., etc. Please do not send me articles on how to get more clients, or how to start working in Upwork because I have been here for 4 years, and I have read all of them and I'm pretty sure that is not the solution.  Thanks in advance. 

[getcheeky]

Hi Emily!

Glad you're here and are helping us with this issue. Not sure if you're still reading these posts, but if you are, here are my grievances.

As many have stated, this "creative drought" started back in May'ish 2022 for me.

(1.) DRAMATIC DECREASE IN JOB INVITES---  I used to get tons of invites, and starting May'ish 2022, the invites became VERY sparse. I never had to "search" for jobs, Clients always came to me--- what a luxury and blessing!

BUT......when I searched for jobs, I did not find quality jobs. I found TONS OF SCAMMER jobs and low-baller jobs--- this was NOT the Upwork I knew! ******"What is going on???" I kept on thinking.*******

I was starting to doubt my skills, but I knew better than to go down that road....I'm great at what I do.

(2.) REPERCUSSIONS OF DECLINING JOB INVITES--- The repercussions of declining job invites and what that does to your visibility--- it KILLS your visibility--- at least it did with me!! The more job invites I declined this year (2022), the more I got pushed to the back of the classroom. I would search for my name, and I did not appear on pages 1, 2, 3, 20 +...... it was scary.

(3.) RECENT UPTICK--- After getting my TOP-RATED PLUS badge reinstated on 10/2/22, I immediately received 2 job invites. Now, is that a coincidence? Hmmmmm....... Or, is the Upwork platform "working" again?? Hey, this is definitely a PLUS for me, so I'm not going to question it to death. I'll take it! I pray this UPTICK keeps UPTICKING!!! 😊

Thank you,

Michelle

[tjmisny]

Hi Michelle I just wanted to thank you for your message and for validating the experience I have been having this year.  Late 2021 / early 2022 I declined a ton of scam/spam invites... and I was de-listed from search.  My name appeared around 200 PAGES deep into search.  And it was stuck there for months.  I tried to raise this concern with Upwork in March/April 2022 and I was ignored.

I appreciate you sharing this because it confirms that I am not alone in this.  Upwork needs to fully and completely decouple responses to invites from Search placement... OR... give us the option to block lowball and spam offers in a way that does not impact our search results.  This is impacting our livelihood.  

[chiara-franzo]

Thanks Emily! I don't know if it is a bug or not, but I used to get an interview every 3-4 applications (before May), now I feel like it's 1 in 25-30...and I'm not talking about landing the job, just the interview...I never boost, so is it possible that my applications (which used to work very well before) are not even read anymore, or very rarely? 

[paywell]

I can confirm that this is happening with my proposals as well: the client visits the post, but doesn't open the proposal.

The fact that whole treads were dedicated to this, makes me sure, that this was noted by Upwork as something worth looking into.

P.S.  It sure is a relief to read, that it isn't just me. Because I even started blaming my name (that I'm Pavlo, not Paul:), or that I'm not from a specific, more desired country (closer to the client etc.)

[tlsanders]

There's often no reason to open proposals. Upwork inundates clients with emails when they receive proposals, which allows the opportunity to see basic information and even visit the freelancer's profile without ever opening the proposal. 

[paywell]

So the proposal has a view without it being marked as "viewed"?

And the profile is being viewed without a view being registered?
That's not right. 

And off-putting to the freelancer, looking at his statistics, at least.

A fix for this would be a mandatory "read receipt confirmation" for mails, including such information. If the mail has been marked as "read" by the client - a proposal view should be registered on the statistics screen, visible by the freelancer. 

Needless to say - whenever a profile is viewed it should be registered as well.

[a4lfr32]

I think this could be related to a post-pandemic issue. During the pandemic, there were a lot of jobs posted remotely, now that it is calming down, the offers may have been decreasing, causing that feeling of fewer jobs on the platform.

I wish Upwork share some statistics about the amount of data they handle, in order to predict more accurately if the market is changing, before facing the consequences of not noticing it.

[fe9b8d82]

Stats in last 7 days:

19 proposals sent (all to verified payment method clients with actual feedback)
4 viewed

That's 15 proposals not even viewed.  The vast majority of these jobs were clients looking for US talent only, and with less than 10 (often less than 5) potential proposals submitted.

I'm 100% JSS and top rated, but my stats lately are making me feel like I'm invisible.

[tjmisny]

For what it's worth, I am also baffled by the low percentages...

I am 100% JSS, Expert Vetted...

Stats in last 90 days:

Sent 47 (keep in mind I applied to nearly 200 jobs in first 3 months of 2022, so there has been a massive drop off in quantity of worthwhile jobs to apply to)

Viewed 35

(All of these were Boosted).  So only 74% of the time I am viewed.  (And only hired on 1 job, so 2% isn't a great batting average.  Last year my average was nearly 8%.  Something has changed to reduce my success rate to such a large degree).  

[lysis10]

Emily, it was reported on reddit that someone posted a job and there were 16 best matches. Has that changed? If best match is diluted to a dozen or more people, that might explain why some people are not getting the replies that they are used to.

[tjmisny]

Hi Jennifer - Are you able to share this post? I'd be curious to see.

My explorations with the Best Match feature have lead me to believe that this function is drastically confusing and misleading clients... not to mention devaluing labor.  (Cheap options who are not qualified or relevant are being recommended as Best Match... these Best Match picks are then blasted via e-mail multiple times).  This nudges Clients to hire cheaper options (not the best fit or best value... its based on a formula where cost is a dominant factor), and it also creates a false perception that anyone billing at higher rate than the Best Match is perhaps not worth the cost.  (Why pay $100/hr for somebody when Upwork's almighty algorithm is telling me the Best Match is $50/hr?) 

[lysis10]

---

Thomas J M wrote:

Hi Jennifer - Are you able to share this post? I'd be curious to see.

My explorations with the Best Match feature have lead me to believe that this function is drastically confusing and misleading clients... not to mention devaluing labor.  (Cheap options who are not qualified or relevant are being recommended as Best Match... these Best Match picks are then blasted via e-mail multiple times).  This nudges Clients to hire cheaper options (not the best fit or best value... its based on a formula where cost is a dominant factor), and it also creates a false perception that anyone billing at higher rate than the Best Match is perhaps not worth the cost.  (Why pay $100/hr for somebody when Upwork's almighty algorithm is telling me the Best Match is $50/hr?) 

---

The OP deleted it. I mentioned it and the OP came out and said it was them, but I don't remember who it was. I think best match benefits long-term people, so I like it. But if it's been diluted to over a dozen people, then it doesn't have the same impact.

[fe9b8d82]

If Upwork's algorithm is suggesting cheap talent, over perhaps more expensive (but more experienced talent), that's one thing, but another part of the equation is the cheap client who is willing to entrust their legal needs to a "legal specialist" with no training in US law, other than maybe once they went to a seminar about how to write an NDA, and now claim that they can meet all your legal contracting needs...

I literally saw a client advertising for a contract to be written, with a budget of $10.  No, this was not a placeholder - a check of their job history showed that this was what they were paying people (sorry "legal specialists") on a regular basis for their contracts.

There's plenty of untalented/scam freelancers, but there's also plenty of cheap, unrealistic clients who are willing to be penny wise and pound foolish with their business ventures.

[paywell]

I have seen "clients" who have a hundred jobs in their statistics, with 100% hire rate, and a spend of $1000 USD.

Although not all jobs were visible in their history - the ones I saw were $10-12 USD "gigs" with job names/descriptions like "create a fully functional website" or other, very large contract names with a miniscule budget.

I believe that many of the community members which I see addressing these posts, suspect those "clients" being cheap and not bogus accounts, fronts, which are being used for boosting "freelancer" acccounts with ratings and badges. 

I believe a reporting system has to be put in place, because it takes two to make a "fake" freelancer account look real (the second one being a "client", handing out "jobs" and ratings).