🐈
» Forums » Freelancers » Too many Jobs Want Free Work or No Pay at all...
Page options
benedictrm
Community Member

Too many Jobs Want Free Work or No Pay at all.

This morning within a few minutes, I reported 4 jobs out of one page of job adverts.

 

  • Two were so vague as to be undoable. One snidely saying info would be given after applying. The other expected Free Test work to be sent over before hiring.
  • Two were essentially Want Ads. Cute that kids want to form a Band or get a Manager but if there is no money on the table, they are not Jobs.

 

Yet Upwork still expects these jobs are worth valuable Credits? As I pointed out, Upwork's job quality is rapidly becoming worse than Buyer Requests on Fiverr (at least they are free to respond to). Scary indeed.

 

What concerns me most in this is that Upwork still expect payment for these jobs and I would be willing to bet (based on past experience) that the jobs will still be there tomorrow, indicating that Upwork fully supports breaking their own TOS.

 

I'd love to hear from Upwork on this

 

Grrr

ACCEPTED SOLUTION
PradeepH
Moderator
Moderator

Hello Benedict,

 

While we work hard to rid our workplace of all inappropriate jobs, we sometimes need to rely on your assistance to report anything suspicious.

 

If you encounter such jobs that request free work or violate our Terms of Services, you may flag them. You will see an option to click on "Flag as Inappropriate" on the job post. By doing so, it will send a notification to our team to monitor the flagged job and take the appropriate measures they deem necessary. You may also send us a ticket to report them. With your help, we are certain we can achieve that goal.

 

I do appreciate your effort in keeping the integrity, safety, and quality of the Upwork Marketplace.

 

Thank you,
Pradeep H

Upwork

View solution in original post

9 REPLIES 9
2a05aa63
Community Member

Check the client's work history before sending a proposal. Freeloaders won't ever disappear, so adapt to it.

Wha!

 

Replies that don't even take the OP into account don't seem any better than this #5 job I had to report

"Hi Roc
Contact with me i need your services for composition of a song"

 

Telling me to check their past stats means nothing when the job itself is so fundamentally fubarred that it should never be there in the first place. Five in one morning is not just chance. It is a sign that something is very wrong indeed. Telling me that it is my fault only makes it worse. 

The last time I raised this it was indicated to me that I wasn't committed enough to my craft seeing I didn't have unlimited Credits. Well, riddle me this experts:

  • If a business proposal cannot prove to me that I will at least break even, what sane person would commit to that proposal?

If Upwork or their community members thinks this sort of garbage is what I would pay to apply for they need to look carefully at what sort of business they are running. In any other situation, this would be called "not fit for purpose".

Yes, I am angry, I have a right to be this way. Will it solve anything? Maybe not, but will being ignored or condescended to help make anything better? No.

Still happy to hear Upwork speak to this mess?
🙂

prestonhunter
Community Member

Benedict, it sounds to me like you are unjustifiably reporting job postings which don't measure up to your own personal preferences.

 

You can't do that.

 

If there is a job that you don't want to apply to, that is fine. But if a job doesn't violate Upwork TOS and doesn't clearly commit a reportable offense, you should not be reporting it.

 

Asking for a free test? Yes, you should report that.

Vague? Promises details after one applies? I have earned thousands of dollars working for those clients. Don't mess things up for other people just because that is not your niche.

 

Kids that want to form a band? That is how the Beatles got started. There was no money on the table for them either at the start. But they did all right.

I'm with Preston on this.

Some first-time clients over here simply don't know how to do this. There's only one way to find out! In that case, look at the keywords only. And even the keywords could be halfway off if the client is non-technical but requires the technical work to be done.

So let's not ask Upwork to start checking every job post and double (probably) their fees to make a profit out of that new mode of operation.

Let's allow clients to post THEIR UNDWRSTANDING about what they need. You're a competent freelancer good at what you do. You tell them what taking the clients to their goals entails and what it costs. The seller decides. If the job post is incomprehensible TO YOU, skip it. Don't spend another second on it.

Hope this helps in your frustration. I do feel it through the text lines. You cannot change others (very easily) but you can (easily) change yourself.

What you can do is just improve and optimize your client screening process. You can literally (I'm not joking, most old-timers here say the same) reject reading a job post in 1-2 seconds when you've developed the skill. You'll get there for sure. And I bet it won't take long from now at the speed you're going at. 😉

Good luck!
PradeepH
Moderator
Moderator

Hello Benedict,

 

While we work hard to rid our workplace of all inappropriate jobs, we sometimes need to rely on your assistance to report anything suspicious.

 

If you encounter such jobs that request free work or violate our Terms of Services, you may flag them. You will see an option to click on "Flag as Inappropriate" on the job post. By doing so, it will send a notification to our team to monitor the flagged job and take the appropriate measures they deem necessary. You may also send us a ticket to report them. With your help, we are certain we can achieve that goal.

 

I do appreciate your effort in keeping the integrity, safety, and quality of the Upwork Marketplace.

 

Thank you,
Pradeep H

Upwork
petra_r
Community Member


Benedict R wrote:

Yet Upwork still expects these jobs are worth valuable Credits?


Upwork don't. Upwork expect you to make an informed decision whether you'd like to apply or not. You are not forced to apply. You are free to simply move on, with or without flagging first.

 

Benedict R wrote:

Replies that don't even take the OP into account don't seem any better than this #5 job I had to report


You don't "have to" report. You are perfectly free to roll your eyes and simply move on.

 


Benedict R wrote:

Still happy to hear Upwork speak to this mess?
🙂


You have had a response fom Upwork. 

 

tta192
Community Member

The quality of the job posts does vary. But can a post such as the ones you reported impact the presence of more valuable opportunities? Clients don't even look at each other's job posts. Policing people to make sure they only submit 'good' jobs will make some of them bounce and will have zero impact on attracting new clients. Cheap fake clients and even scammers are not difficult to spot; it should all amount to just background noise for you as a freelancer. Simply ignore low quality posts and focus on identifying those matching your skills.

 

Would you expect Upwork to manually analyze each and every job post ? it would require both time and money, meaning (one) clients would have to wait until the post is approved (causing them to lose interest), and (two) the commissions will go even higher. All that for a very small benefit.

 

Also, take note real scammers are more sophisticated than that and will extract work from you without saying so in advance. At that point the cost of connects will be the least of your issues.

 

tlbp
Community Member


Benedict R wrote:

This morning within a few minutes, I reported 4 jobs out of one page of job adverts.

 

  • Two were so vague as to be undoable. One snidely saying info would be given after applying. The other expected Free Test work to be sent over before hiring.
  • Two were essentially Want Ads. Cute that kids want to form a Band or get a Manager but if there is no money on the table, they are not Jobs.

 

Yet Upwork still expects these jobs are worth valuable Credits? As I pointed out, Upwork's job quality is rapidly becoming worse than Buyer Requests on Fiverr (at least they are free to respond to). Scary indeed.

 

What concerns me most in this is that Upwork still expect payment for these jobs and I would be willing to bet (based on past experience) that the jobs will still be there tomorrow, indicating that Upwork fully supports breaking their own TOS.

 

I'd love to hear from Upwork on this

 

Grrr


I think the idea is that market forces will prevail. If a gig has zero value to any freelancer, then no freelancer will use their connects to bid on it. If some freelancers wish to spend their connects, then Upwork must assume that it has some value to those freelancers. I would say the expectation is that people who are spending money in the form of connects to bid on gigs will make decisions that are economically rational. (Although, research tells us that humans often fail to make wholly rational decisions). 

lgilmartin
Community Member

I visited the community to determine if it was just my search results or were others noting a degradation of the quality of job postings.  I have seen postings - 

-straight up asking for people to send money to them - written as though from children

-freelancers advertising their services 

-jobs that were clearly for a specific freelancer but were broadcast to all

                               'Hi, John,  I wanted to check in with you to see if you could accomplish this'

-multiple postings of the same jobs  - used to be a breach of TOS at some point?

-and one particularly unsavory request for artwork - not going to repeat it here. 

 

Based on responses here it seems Upwork is going to let the market decide. 

The process of freelancers sifting through all this may well mean the market decides.

 

Latest Articles
Featured Topics
Learning Paths