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mobelal
Community Member

The system is designed to mess with us

Now that connects are no longer free, they are more valued than ever, yet no change was made to compensate for that.
Some clients open the job and never check it or hire anyone. Some jobs already have hires but they are left open for us to guess if the client actually still needs another freelancer or is just to lazy to close the announcement.

I am sick and tired of applying to jobs, then when I check it 10 days later it says the client last saw it 10 days before and the job is just left open for weeks without the client ever checking it.
There is no system whatsoever that is as flawed as this system.
25 REPLIES 25
lysis10
Community Member


Mohamed B wrote:
Now that connects are no longer free, they are more valued than ever,

Not really.

mobelal
Community Member

Howso? Is it in anyway acceptable that I might spend 4 to 6 connects on a job that the client stopped hiring for with noway to get refunded? And after I am left to be screwed with like that when I finally land a job after spending 20+ payed connects, I am still charged a wobbing 20%
lysis10
Community Member


Mohamed B wrote:
Howso? Is it in anyway acceptable that I might spend 4 to 6 connects on a job that the client stopped hiring for with noway to get refunded? And after I am left to be screwed with like that when I finally land a job after spending 20+ payed connects, I am still charged a wobbing 20%

I don't feel screwed as long as my bid gets properly sent. 

Mohamed - Instead of worrying about connects, maybe you should try to learn from the one job you've had and the feedback you got from that client.

What gave you the impression that I am not focusing on polishing my skills and making the most of the "one job I had"?

Since I see you are a top-rated freelancer, I don't think you can appreciate what building a profile under the current system requires.
For example, my account is deactivated because I didn't get a job in a month, which means I can not get any invitation and I am fully dependant on connects that I pay for. The least I should expect is that every job offer I find on my wall is open for hiring, but my experience has been that most are not. I need to do a lot of guessing because simply I don't trust Upwork to close the offers that their clients have already hired or dumped the project completely and have not logged in in days.
They should at least not deactivate active profiles as long as I am active and will accept any invitation, instead they made my account invesible to force me to spend money on connects! Then they do nothing to protect me from fake offers.
c7785401
Community Member

Wow,  I 100% agree with you. I'm grateful for this website but these things should be fixed asap

Mohamed - It is very easy for you to request that your profile be made public. And the fact that you are very new to Upwork means that you probably won't be getting many invitations, anyway. When you make a bid for a job, the client is able to see your profile even if it is not public. The fact that I am top rated does not mean that I don't know what it takes to build an Upwork account. It took me a long time to get to a JSS of 100% and to be top rated and it took a lot of work to get there. And in the beginning I spent a lot of money on connects. I figured that was just the cost of starting a business. If it didn't work out, I would not stay - but it did work out. So, for you, you either have to keep at it and try to overcome the very bad feedback you got on your first job, or you will have to find some other way to earn a living. Whatever you do, most people will advise you to not count on Upwork as your sole means of income.

I am interested. Is a 4/5 ratings considered "very bad", I though it's bad or not good but very bad!

Mohamed - Your "4" rating is certainly not a good rating for your first job - and I considered it to be very bad because it included two "3" ratings. You will need to work hard to overcome that rating but it can be done. In addition, I think your profile could be improved. For instance, it has been my experience that clients who are looking for proofreaders don't want to hire someone who uses a program like Grammarly. They could do that themselves and, besides, Grammarly doesn't catch nearly enough.

petra_r
Community Member


Mohamed B wrote:

I am interested. Is a 4/5 ratings considered "very bad", I though it's bad or not good but very bad!


Looking at that client's job post and feedback history there is no way in hell that I would have considered working with them for a single second for any amount of money, ever, under any circumstances.

 

That client is toxic and screams red flags waving everywhere!

Joan S wrote:

Mohamed - Your "4" rating is certainly not a good rating for your first job - and I considered it to be very bad 


For that nightmare client it's actually great feedback...

Did you bother to look at their history?

 

 

Yes, Petra, I looked at the client. I would not have wanted to work for a client with that kind of feedback. However, the feedback for the freelancer is stuck there on his profile and some clients won't bother to look further. He will just have to work to get rid of that feedback since he can't delete it.


Joan S wrote:

 I looked at the client. I would not have wanted to work for a client with that kind of feedback. However, the feedback for the freelancer is stuck there on his profile and some clients won't bother to look further. He will just have to work to get rid of that feedback since he can't delete it.




Joan S wrote:

 I would not have wanted to work for a client with that kind of feedback. However, the feedback for the freelancer is stuck there on his profile and some clients won't bother to look further. He will just have to work to get rid of that feedback since he can't delete it.


That client's feedback may at least be deleted from the JSS calculation.... I am stunned how anyone would consider accepting work from them. There could not be more obvious warning signs and red flags---

Nightmare client.

Unfortunately, Petra, sometimes new freelancers on Upwork will take any kind of job they can get and they often don't understand feedback. Learning how to be successful on Upwork takes time and we all sometimes make mistakes.

kbadeau
Community Member

I clicked on a job the other day that I was going to send a proposal for, a quick down and dirty thing since I had some time on my hands. The budget was $120 and the description said it would take 2 hours. (It might have taken less, which would have been fine with me, since it was fixed rate). It was FOUR connects to apply. Needless to say, I did not apply.

 

Perhaps that's their goal. Only a few people apply to a job so the client isn't bombarded for such a short project. But I fail to see then how a long-term, $10,000 gig would only cost six connects.

 

It's not that I don't have the connects to spare... i just can't wrap my head around their system of rating jobs.

lysis10
Community Member


Kelly B wrote:

I clicked on a job the other day that I was going to send a proposal for, a quick down and dirty thing since I had some time on my hands. The budget was $120 and the description said it would take 2 hours. (It might have taken less, which would have been fine with me, since it was fixed rate). It was FOUR connects to apply. Needless to say, I did not apply.

 

Perhaps that's their goal. Only a few people apply to a job so the client isn't bombarded for such a short project. But I fail to see then how a long-term, $10,000 gig would only cost six connects.

 

It's not that I don't have the connects to spare... i just can't wrap my head around their system of rating jobs.


I'm surprised it wasn't 6 connects. They say it's based also on popularity, and that seems like the type of job that would get flooded with bids. 

kbadeau
Community Member

I mean I guess it's working the way they want it to, in that the client propbably only received a few proposals. It just seemed bizarro to me.

 

It's almost like I'd rather have the span be wider, like up to 10 connects or something, so there might be a more rational way to allocate connects to job postings.


Kelly B wrote:

I clicked on a job the other day that I was going to send a proposal for, a quick down and dirty thing since I had some time on my hands. The budget was $120 and the description said it would take 2 hours. (It might have taken less, which would have been fine with me, since it was fixed rate). It was FOUR connects to apply. Needless to say, I did not apply.

 

Why is that "needless to say"? You obviously have every right to set your own standards and draw your own lines, but I'm very curious as to why you'd see it as a given that reasonable people wouldn't spend $0.60 to earn $120 in less than two hours. 

 

I wouldn't bid on that job (unless I was bidding higher) because that's way below my hourly rate, but if it was $120 for one hour's work (more in line with my rates), I wouldn't think anything of spending one half of one percent of the value of the job to connect with the client.

tlsanders
Community Member


Mohamed B wrote:
Now that connects are no longer free, they are more valued than ever, yet no change was made to compensate for that.

Well, they did reduce the price of purchased connects from $1 to $0.15, and they did reduce the value of paid connects needed to bid on a job from $2/job to between $0.15 and $0.90/job.
Some clients open the job and never check it or hire anyone. 

I wish Upwork would do away with that damned "last active" red herring. There's a pervasive and totally inaccurate belief among freelancers that clients whose stats show they haven't viewed a job in 10 days (or whatever) have abandoned it and never see proposals. In fact, the email updates Upwork sends highlighting proposals are so constant and overwhelming that there is no reason to visit the job posting unless you get an email about a freelancer who looks like a good fit. Some freelancers are emailed to the client three, four, or five times on the same job. Email subject lines falsely proclaim "You have new bids!" and then you're confronted with yet another email that includes freelancers you've been emailed multiple times before. Engaging with a job posting is a full-time job even if you never log in to Upwork.



Tiffany S wrote:
 In fact, the email updates Upwork sends highlighting proposals are so constant and overwhelming that there is no reason to visit the job posting unless you get an email about a freelancer who looks like a good fit. Some freelancers are emailed to the client three, four, or five times on the same job.

This is good news for me. Thanks for sharing. This way UpWork is increasing the probability of freelancers to get hired even if they had applied and initially there proposal had gone unnoticed. 

 

And I assume there is no way for the client to unsubscribe from email notifications from UpWork. I really doubt it though.

I saw your reply and went back to my upwork wall to see the jobs they are recommending me. Here is an example this job was posted 3 years ago it has 50plus proposals the client last logged in 6 months ago and 0 hires. This job is in my RECOMMENDAtION**Edited for Community Guidelines**



It didn't take long for me to find this, in fact, half the jobs I found were like this or turned out to be like this after I had wasted my connects on them.

And my account has been made private, can't get jobs via invites. They are forcing me to even spend more connect.


Mohamed B wrote:


And my account has been made private, can't get jobs via invites. They are forcing me to even spend more connect.

Were you getting good invitations before your account was set to private? 

 

If so, have you considered taking a few minutes to contact customer service and ask that they make it public again? 

 

Re the recommendations, yeah...they're crap. Don't pay any attention to those. They come from a very bad algorithm. 


Mohamed B wrote:
I saw your reply and went back to my upwork wall to see the jobs they are recommending me. Here is an example this job was posted 3 years ago it has 50plus proposals the client last logged in 6 months ago and 0 hires. This job is in my RECOMMENDAtION
**Edited for Community Guidelines**


__

Try to use the Filter to select the type of jobs you need and then select NEWEST from dropdown. You can also save the filter and it will show you latest and appropriate jobs in your feed everytime.

The filter is awesome and can a lot of you time and effort. None of your connects will be wasted.

Good luck 🙂


Tiffany S wrote:

I wish Upwork would do away with that damned "last active" red herring. There's a pervasive and totally inaccurate belief among freelancers that clients whose stats show they haven't viewed a job in 10 days (or whatever) have abandoned it and never see proposals. In fact, the email updates Upwork sends highlighting proposals are so constant and overwhelming that there is no reason to visit the job posting unless you get an email about a freelancer who looks like a good fit. Some freelancers are emailed to the client three, four, or five times on the same job. Email subject lines falsely proclaim "You have new bids!" and then you're confronted with yet another email that includes freelancers you've been emailed multiple times before. Engaging with a job posting is a full-time job even if you never log in to Upwork.



Yes, 1000% yes. As a new freelancer I was focused on this stats and mine, none of which really mean anything relevant.  I wish Upwork would take a hard look at the data/stats they provide and eliminate the ones that are misleading and/or meaningless.

 

And, I may have said this in the past, but I really loath that an accepted invitation to interview = "interview." Really you are invited to submit a proposal, if you submit a proposal and it's accepted you are interviewing (in theory).  I know it sounds like semantics, but it's really not.

sarwatnaqvi
Community Member


Mohamed B wrote:
There is no system whatsoever that is as flawed as this system.

Check out my recent post "Dissatisfied with Upwork at present" where I have mentioned similar and some additional issues as I want UpWork to consider my suggestions for further betterment of the system for everyone at large. 

lysis10
Community Member

lol omg that feedback hahaha

 

And he'll still find plenty of freelancers I bet. 102 jobs and $2k spent. lol

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