Hello,
I have been an avid freelancer on Upwork and used to have jobs and proposal replies streaming in. I took a hiatus over the past year to focus on my corporate career, but I have hopped back on and am trying to bring in a bit more ancillary earnings with freelance again. I know I haven't been back on for that long but I have not gotten a single reply to any of my proposals.
I've read multiple similar posts and people have been advising to keep at it and something will pan out, and I of course will keep doing this, but I have never experienced a slump like this. I've applied to jobs where Less than 5 proposals have been submitted and the client is interviewing multiple people (therefore I assume he's interviewing everyone). I am an expert in my field so I honestly expected to receive messages but I heard nothing from any of them. Even when I come in at a totally average hourly rate OR fixed rate, still crickets.
My JSS is 90%, I do have 1 bad review (the rest are nearly all 5 stars) but that was a terrible client experience, and I don't know how to communicate that. I really don't think that is much of a contributing factor...as I believe I was able to get jobs after that negative review came in. My hiatus could definitely be a factor but I technically have 2 ongoing projects and I think I've made my interest in working hard very clear. Also my profile is viewable to the Public. I've tried to change up the proposals to become more client centric, updated my profile, I am just coming up empty here! I'm wondering if there is some new algorithm where my proposals get shuffled or lost in the mix? Who knows.
It could definitely be something that I'm doing, I don't want to be playing the victim here, but maybe someone has a solution! There were a lot of "I"'s in this post so my apologies, my time on here just needs to start being worthwhile!
