Strange Goings On

[hammersleyh]

I wonder if someone could explain why I have lost my top-rated status and my job success rate has dropped from 98% to 89%. All this despite the fact that I have worked for Upwork for 7+ years, receive consistently good feedback from clients, and have earned over $5,000 since October 1, 2022. The end of February appeared to be some sort of cut-off date and the end of frequent invitations from clients to apply for a job. Since when I have received an invitation from a woman who wanted her thesis proofread but was never heard from again, a man who would only communicate via what'sapp, and an invitation to apply for a job dated December 22, 2022, one that I saw at the time and discounted because I didn't have the right skillset and experience. Any ideas?

[lysis10]

If I had a guess, probably got a 7/10 on the last two contracts.

[celgins]

Helen,

I agree with Jennifer's assessment. It is likely related to feedback on the last two contracts, but may also include other adjustments. Upwork has never revealed the formula for calculating JSS, but it seems a lot of freelancers have had similar reductions in their JSS over the past 3-months to 1-year.

[hammersleyh]

Hi Jennifer and Clark,

You are probably both correct. But from the last client I received 5-stars. I haven't done any work for the second to last client recently, and the third to last client (same as the last), didn't leave any feedback for the first contract.  One possible problem may be that if you work on a series of milestones, you won't be given feedback until the contract ends.

[celgins]

Helen,

I should have been more clear--like Melanie was in her message below. 😀 I was referring to the impact from private feedback, which can affect your JSS. And like Melanie pointed out, your contracts from 2015 - 2021 have fallen out of the window for consideration, so those are no longer a part of the JSS calculation.

If I remember correctly, I think Upwork says 2 years of work is considered in the JSS calculation. If this is accurate, your 2015 to 2020 work has been out of the JSS calculation for a while. As time passes, your 2021 work is slowly dropping out of the calculation.

By comparison, I was working with clients outside of Upwork for the past two years and only recently returned. I had not completed any jobs since 2019, so all of them were no longer part of my JSS, which now means I don't have a JSS at all! 😂

[melaniekhenson]

Your private feedback was probably much lower than your public feedback. I say that because it's common when freelancers are confused by a dip in JSS, and also because your most recent contracts were not 5 stars. Publicly the clients were less than fully satisfied and that can mean that privately, they're going to score a contract the way they really think.

In addition to this, it is possible some contracts that were keeping your score up fell out of your window and are no longer considered in the JSS calculation.

I don't say this without empathy, this has happened to me too in the past.