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vic123
Community Member

Too many offers. From 20-50. How to fight with this? + Cancelled projects

Writing in a hope that this irritates not only freelancers like me that do not see any sense in bidding in such case, but clients too.
Just got an idea that want to share - why not to request from the clients to delete (reject) offers when they have gone above 5-10 for example?
It is not a secret that most speedy posts on mugly general tasks are done by semi-human bots.
And there to be some (symbolic - $1) pool of money that to be spreaded among most successful offers (for example).
Especially when project is getting cancelled.
I'm seek and tired to look inside, work half a day in order to provide adequate bid request and see that all my efforts has gone for laughing outside.

12 REPLIES 12
bf06d2cf
Community Member

Same here. Just started and out of given 50 "connects" now 16 left.

After that i supposed to pay for writing proposals 🙂 Looks like a scam

Reminds me: "you will 1 000 000. To post a check send us $10 to western union" :)))


Andres M wrote:

Same here. Just started and out of given 50 "connects" now 16 left.

After that i supposed to pay for writing proposals 🙂 Looks like a scam

Reminds me: "you will 1 000 000. To post a check send us $10 to western union" :)))


If you believe upwork is scamming you, you definitely should not be on the platform. That kind of distrust is hard to overcome. 

I am not sure why i should pay to apply for job. The person who need job done pay for it. Not candidates sponsoring lottery that get harder and harder to win.

Just looking for a way to get micro IT contracts. Hard to estimate the budget in terms of the time and money I should spend. If one proposal costs a few cents to apply then I can't spend much as my time to write those proposals is limited. But psychologically it is hard then you try to get 1st job and get a reminder "hey, add your credit card to subscribe to our premim service".
And yes will go classic route with recruting agency this weekend, register and apply apply 🙂


Andres M wrote:

Same here. Just started and out of given 50 "connects" now 16 left.

After that i supposed to pay for writing proposals 🙂 Looks like a scam

Reminds me: "you will 1 000 000. To post a check send us $10 to western union" :)))


It's not a scam, but I can understand why freelancers are very uncomfortable with spending money when they don't know if they will ever succeed in getting a job. (Many don't ever get a job.)

I'm glad this system wasn't in place when I joined Upwork. It might have put me off from persisting until I got my first job here.

 

martina_plaschka
Community Member


Victor B wrote:

Writing in a hope that this irritates not only freelancers like me that do not see any sense in bidding in such case, but clients too.
Just got an idea that want to share - why not to request from the clients to delete (reject) offers when they have gone above 5-10 for example?
It is not a secret that most speedy posts on mugly general tasks are done by semi-human bots.
And there to be some (symbolic - $1) pool of money that to be spreaded among most successful offers (for example).
Especially when project is getting cancelled.
I'm seek and tired to look inside, work half a day in order to provide adequate bid request and see that all my efforts has gone for laughing outside.


You lost me there. I don't know what you are proposing. Who do you want to give money to? When clients have to many proposals, they are free to reject them. How does it benefit anyone if the client is forced to do that?

Anyways, upwork just went the opposite direction by making every proposal cost only 1 connect now, so this situation will only get worse. 

Hi,

Now I am missing something - every proposal costs 1 connect? I am "paying" 4-6 connects per proposal on regular basis. Am I doing something wrong?

Hi Piotr,

 

We are lowering the price to submit a proposal to select jobs to one Connect. With these jobs, you’ll have the option to spend additional Connects to boost your proposal so it appears at the top of the client’s list. Boosting your proposal is optional and you can still submit a proposal for those jobs using one Connect.

I encourage you to check out this announcement as well as this help article for more information on how this new option works. Thank you.

~ Goran
Upwork

Hi Goran,

Thanks for replying. Indeed, I have already used the "1 connect or boost" option, but it appears only on selected projects. Still many are charging 2, 4, or 6 connects - hence my question if EVERY proposal now costs only 1 connect, cos I believe it is not true yet. Regardless of this inconsistency, I think the concept of "1 c + boost" sounds interesting and I do like it. 

Hi Piotr,

 

We are testing this out with selected jobs to start and hope to expand the testing soon. Thank you.

~ Goran
Upwork
tlbp
Community Member

Many of the connects and bid number complaints come from freelancers who aren't able to compete. They cannot support the cost of applying through their freelance business or aren't able to land gigs for reasons that have nothing to do with the number of competitors. 


Upwork allows new and slow-to-gain traction freelancers a chance. This is a good thing and one that less successful freelancers should not seek to change. Because, if the sole goal were to throttle the number of bids, the solution would be to not allow any new freelancers in crowded niches to join Upwork and to eliminate all freelancers with scores or earnings that fail to meet a minimum threshhold. There's really no reason to allow new freelancers to join or underperforming freelancers to stay unless there is more demand than the current set of freelancers can meet. 

 

I am not advocating for this change, no more than I would advocate for a convoluted set of connects and bidding rules designed soley to benenfit specific freelancers who cannot find a way to succeed on their own. I mention it only as a caution. Freelancers who want to gatekeep the competition because they believe investing in their own success is too expensive should be careful. They may find themselves on the outside of that gate. 

 

TL;DR After observing the strategies of winners and losers on this platform for several years, I am confident that one factor is constant: Whiners aren't winners. 


Tonya P wrote:

Many of the connects and bid number complaints come from freelancers who aren't able to compete. 

 


Yes, and it's always interesting to me when people say, "There's too much competition/too many bids on each project" and then also say, "Upwork should give us free connects/cheaper connects/refund our connects so that we can place more bids." You can't have it both ways. I fully expect that the freelancers who are welcoming the change to a one-connect per project requirement are the exact same people who'll be coming back to the forum to complain about the increased competition.

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