Upwork - Job Success Thread **title edited** - Page 7

jademilburn · ‎05-19-2015

I want Community Forum Moderators to add to this thread, and really listen to what is going on.

I, like many others am sure have the same story.

I used to love Odesk, and got many job interviews each week. I had all 5 star feedback, and glowing written references from my clients. Then Odesk made alot of changes and introduced Job Success rate. I was shocked that mine was 67%. That was until I looked at other discussions and heard of other people who had five star feedback, lots of good references and yet had a very low job success rate.

This system is beyond unfair as

!)Upwork introduced new changes and a new feedback system. They should NOT include information that people believed was being entered anonymously, prior to the changes. The Job success rate includes information that clients did not think would be shown publicly. They left star feedback that would be shown publicly. You CANNOt use retroactive data for a new system.

2)Since the Job success rate has been started, I am now not getting invited to interview for ANY jobs, so how could I get my Job success rate, even if I tried?

You have made a very bad error with this.

Can every freelancer on this forum who wants to get rid of the job success rate feature, reply with 'Get rid', and lets see if they listen to us.

cjemery · ‎02-21-2016

What is the reasoning behind asking clients to close them and not just closing them ourselves? This system is really strange, and it washed away a year of hard work literally overnight. I've now been kicked out of the Pro talent cloud (which was getting me plenty of work, BTW) because of this.

lysis10 · ‎02-21-2016

Sounds like too much work.

I just close them myself cuz I'm rad and pretty gangsta.

p_terry · ‎02-21-2016

Great advise. However, other aspects of how JS Scores are calculated are not as clear as all that.

Also, I don't know about anyone else, but I wasn't given direction on how clients can go behind and affect your career/life by the simple things they are allowed to do on this platform, with no thought given to ramifications.

I have been in the business world all of my life, I am not "green" and I have never seen any "rating" system as unfair as this.

It is not tranperent, and not "best business practices". I agree with your offense, but what happens, when you need a defense?

monirulislam90 · ‎02-21-2016

Hi There

I have been working as a freelancer since 1 years. I was migrated Elance to up work. There I was 100% job success rate. In December I had cancelled a contract with. 50 cents and 4.60 feedbacks, This contract aren't showing in my profile. After then my job success rates reduced from 100% to 95%. Now my JSS is continuously reducing.

Last week I completed 2 jobs with 5 star feedback and progressing 2 jobs. At this time my job success reduced 92% to 86%. I didn't understand why it's happened to me. I was continuously working with great services. But my JSS reducing continuously. I have all 5 star feedback. I have worked total 22 jobs, there I was completed 20 jobs with 5 star feedback for all.

I have contacted with support team, but they didn't give me a valid reason for the decrease. I have these rights to know what is happening with my account. But upwork is not fare in this case. I am very dessapointed, what i do now?

Thanks

lysis10 · ‎02-21-2016

When you refund, both sides can mark the job unsuccessful or successful. This happened to me this past week when the client backed out. I told him that I had done previous work on the contract and that marking the job unsuccessful will kill my score. He said he marked me well and both of us marked the job as successful since the backout wasn't my fault.

Anyway, I suspect this is when people get hit since for the most part when escrow is refunded (lol 50 cents) that it indicates the job was unsuccessful. If either side chooses one of those negative options in the dropdown, it tanks you.

fedkirill · ‎02-21-2016

May I know why my Job Success fell to 4%?

mehmetgeren · ‎02-21-2016

Hi,

I've worked with a few customers in a past months. 2 different clients are give me some feedbacks. One of them give me 5.00 stars feedback for own 2 projects, and one of them give me 3.85 rate for own 1 project. I have totally 3 feedback at this time. 5.00-5.00-3.85, that's all.

2 weeks ago I saw my first job success score and It was %75 and I don't get it, and right now my job success score is %70. I lost my %5 job success score. I didn't take any new project or feedback or disrespectful communication with clients.

My feedback score is totally 4.36 and how I lose this scores ? I've read your article about job success score but I think this scores are not showing true ratio.

Thank you.
Best regards,
Mehmet.

mannumuya · ‎02-21-2016

Yours is better. I got a 5 star rating to all my jobs, but they gave me 63%.

mannumuya · ‎02-21-2016

Hello.

I'm a newbie on upwork, with only 4 contracts. Out of these 4 jobs, 3 have been successfully completed, with 5 star ratings, while one is ongoing. What worries me however, is the job succes score that I received today. I have a score of 63%, which I don't understand how it was calculated, having in mind the 5 star rating that I received. can someone explain to me whether this is normal, or how they calcuate the score?

Emmanuel

jessicasimko · ‎02-21-2016

@Emmanuel M wrote:
Hello.
I'm a newbie on upwork, with only 4 contracts. Out of these 4 jobs, 3 have been successfully completed, with 5 star ratings, while one is ongoing. What worries me however, is the job succes score that I received today. I have a score of 63%, which I don't understand how it was calculated, having in mind the 5 star rating that I received. can someone explain to me whether this is normal, or how they calcuate the score?

Emmanuel

With so few jobs the only thing it can be (I think) is private feedback - unless you refunded a job with bad feedback and had it removed, in which case it would be that too. But as far as private feedback goes, some clients will give you a 5 publicly, and then rate you low privately (and I think that is pretty crappy too). But with only 4 jobs, it won't take much low private feedback, to bring your score down which is why I think newbies should complete way more jobs before getting such score.

cedris · ‎02-21-2016

I agree to the thread starter. This should be removed or modified to fit. I got scammed by a client last year and the feedback impacted my job success rate a lot. I was on 100% and it went down to like ~60%. I have long term clients and got a new contract but still it's 75%. I saw some profiles who haven't had a lot of clients and put in not more than 1,000 hours on upwork but their job success is 100% and the freelancer haven't worked for weeks or months but their job success is still 100%.

shreyasingh24 · ‎02-21-2016

I am still unable to understand the logic behind Job Score. Currently I have Job Success score of 93%. Last week it was just 79% and before that it was 91%. How come within one month, I have landed from one of the top rated freelancers to average freelancer to again one of the top rated freelancer with 93% job score in just one month. I am working on Upwork for last 2 years and there was never so much insecurity within freelancer. Everytime my Job score deeps, I start thinking what will happen next. What will happen if Upwork will block my account? Today freelancing is my livelihood and my all work is from Upwork itself but now I am kicking my head why I have not invested in other freelance platforms? I am really feeling the pressure of Job Score as it can impact my livelihood very hardly. I am against the Upwork philosphy of calculating my job score on the basis of hidden feedback that clients provide about my work. In many cases i have delivered the work and I have kept asking clinet for the feedback but they have never provided that because they were only for one or two jobs on Upwork. I think Upwork should start thinking about something transparent. Job Score is not a transparent way of calculating the freelancer work quality.

What do you guys feel?

cjemery · ‎02-22-2016

You might also check the jobs you've completed but are not yet closed. There are a lot of things that apparently go into JSS that don't really have much to do with job completion or client satisfaction.

kochubei_valeria · ‎03-08-2016

Hi Colyn,

I understand it may be confusing to see your Job Success Score fluctuate. The team is also aware that the Job Success score is one of the most discussed topics in the Community and they take this feedback very seriously.

However, the Job Success score is helping significantly to distinguish between great freelancers, good freelancers and freelancers whose performance isn't so good. It's also proven to be a much more complete (and transparent!) metric in comparison with the average star rating we had before because it counts outcomes of ALL contracts including those where freelancers managed to conceal the evidence of unsatisfactory performance by refunding or manipulating client's feedback.

I understand your frustration, but JSS is not something we're prepared to do away with. That's not to say we won't continue to improve the measurement as the marketplace evolves. Your Job Success score is high and it helps you, because freelancers who used to maintain 5-star average by refunding every time they failed to deliver, are obviously no competition for you now.

~ Valeria

stephenbrightman · ‎03-08-2016

It is more transparent in the way that marble is more transparent than granite. ANY metric that is fed by hidden variables is by definition not transparent. Simples.

researchediting · ‎03-08-2016

Valeria,

When we are penalized for not meeting secret criteria, that is far from transparency. I am surprised the moderators have not simply refused to parrot that patently abused—nay, tortured!—word in any discussion of the JSS.

Best,
Michael

iamkate0702 · ‎02-22-2016

I really do not understand this foolish Job Success stat shown on our profiles. If Upwork does calculate our JS rate through our previous clients' private feedback, do they even take into consideration that those clients who give negative feedback about us might actually be the reason why our contracts ended? Or that something just wasn't right about the job? It's not just us freelancers who mess up, you know. Sometimes, clients can be unresponsive and uncooperative, too!

My job success rate dropped from 94% to 85% and I have no idea what made it drop! I did refund two clients but I do not see why it should affect my job success rate.

For the first client, I refunded her the deposit because her account was suspended by Upwork and we have come to an agreement that I will return the money despite the fact that I have already done 1/4 of the job.

For the second client, I refunded his deposit because the apps that I was supposed to review weren't compatible with my device. I have read the whole job description saying that all the job requires is an iOS device. I have an iOS device which means I qualify for the job so I applied for it (and was hired). What he failed to disclose was that the app doesn't support later versions (and I have an iPhone 4 which has a later iOS version).

As you can tell, none of those was my fault but then again, they are eligible to leave a private feedback because they hired me, right? But you see, the fact that they are the ones who pay us shouldn't give them the power to say whatever they want to say about us (without us knowing). Our inability of defending our side of the story just isn't fair!

1105hec · ‎02-26-2016

This "Job Success Score" is a joke. It's NOT accurate. I have completed ALL of my jobs, successfully! But one client got upset that I gave my notice to leave the project, and one client has yet to leave feedback, and so this means I have not successfully completed my jobs?? Sorry, but that's bull and it's unfair.

I'm beginning to wonder why I bothered to transfer my account from Elance to Upwork. The transition has been horrible, and I've yet to land one job on Upwork. With this new feedback scoring system, and the sheer number of jobs only willing to pay $2.00 per hour, what benefit is there anymore?

I am NOT pleased at all with any of this, and after reading numerous (valid) complaints from freelancers, and seeing the responses from the moderators, I'm seriously concerned about the priorities here.

jmorenoshek · ‎12-14-2017

I stopped caring about the JSS that thing went all the way down to 64% on me. I will gracefully say I did drop the ball on one client...my dream client in fact, I had followed her for years! To my defense thought, I took that contract while I was fresh out of labor and my baby wasn't cooperating at all! On the other hand, this client left the same VA I was supposed to replace to train me and she by no means made it easy either. This very low feedback caused me to not have any work for almost a year. It didn't just hurt my profile but my psychi... eventually I recovered and start looking.... And surprise surprise a good 75% of the clients didn't give too hoots and the ones that did, I offered very small free trials they didn't even accept but hire me.
Idk how I got back in my 100% JSS only to go down to 84 this week but this time around I decided not to let it depress me like it did before.

I'm just telling you my personal soap opera so YOU DON'T LOOSE THE FAITH. Besides, us America based have the chance to network locally and through social clients and get even better clients. FB brought me 3 nice clients each are paying 2.5k per website, where my penny pinching upwork former clients would cry if I charged them over $450.

Trust and believe upwork isn't the only place to make it!

simplysolve · ‎03-03-2016

Hi,

Below is a detailed explanation of why I think the Job Success Score must be gone:

1. Clients have a star rating, freelancers have a star rating too. But in addition, freelancers have a job success score. This is not fair to freelancers. If a star rating system is enough for a freelancer to figure out if they want to work with the client or not, then the same star rating system should be enough for a client to figure out if they want to work with the freelancer or not.

2. Job Success Score - The problematic name. When a client checks the applications on her project, one of the first things she sees about the freelancer is a percent value that says for example "90% Job Success". What this implies is that the freelancer was successful on 90% of the projects she worked on. It does not imply "The percentage of this freelancer's jobs that resulted in a great client experience." It tells the client in plain words that this freelancer successfully completed 90% of their projects, and did not successfully complete 10% of their projects.

To give an example from myself, I currently have 7 projects completed which all have a 5-star rating, my average rating is 5.00. However, my job success score is now 96% after being 100% for some time. When a client checks my application, the first thing they will think is "Hmm, his score is not 100%, probably other clients had some problems working with this freelancer in the past", which is definitely not the case.

3. How Job Success Score is calculated is unknown and I don't think it is fairly calculated. One may argue that it is unknown to prevent abusing the system, but how can a freelancer improve their score after delivering all 5.00 projects if they have no idea what was wrong that resulted in a decrease in their score so they can pay attention to improve themselves?

4. I don't know how I can make my job success score 100% again, that is if it is possible at all. I spent a lot of additional time (hence money) in order to satisfy my clients and to deliver a 5.00 work in all my projects and I received 5.00 ratings as I believe I deserved them. However, I now have a 96% score after delivering all 5.00 projects and I have no idea why my score dropped down from 100% to 96%. I may continue working on projects and keep delivering 5.00 work, but my score may continue to decrease to 90%, then to %86 and so on. It is a number that the system tagged to me that I don't think I deserved based on my performance.

Some may consider 96% to be a nice score to have. I don't. Not if you have all 5.00 projects and never had any issues with your clients and closed all contracts with satisfaction (at least that is what was visible in our communications).

In conclusion, I think the job success score must be gone. **edited for Community Guidelines**

yitwail · ‎03-03-2016

@Nail Y wrote:

2. Job Success Score - The problematic name. When a client checks the applications on her project, one of the first things she sees about the freelancer is a percent value that says for example "90% Job Success". What this implies is that the freelancer was successful on 90% of the projects she worked on. It does not imply "The percentage of this freelancer's jobs that resulted in a great client experience." It tells the client in plain words that this freelancer successfully completed 90% of their projects, and did not successfully complete 10% of their projects.

That's an interesting point. I haven't given this as much thought as you, obviously. So what if it was renamed to something like Client Satisfaction Score -- would that be a step in the right direction?

Incidentally, freelancers *have* succesfully raised their JSS, but not me -- I've never been higher than 98%.

__________________________________________________
"No good deed goes unpunished." -- Clare Boothe Luce

researchediting · ‎03-08-2016

@John K wrote:
@Nail Y wrote:

2. Job Success Score - The problematic name. When a client checks the applications on her project, one of the first things she sees about the freelancer is a percent value that says for example "90% Job Success". What this implies is that the freelancer was successful on 90% of the projects she worked on. It does not imply "The percentage of this freelancer's jobs that resulted in a great client experience." It tells the client in plain words that this freelancer successfully completed 90% of their projects, and did not successfully complete 10% of their projects.

That's an interesting point. I haven't given this as much thought as you, obviously. So what if it was renamed to something like Client Satisfaction Score -- would that be a step in the right direction?

Incidentally, freelancers *have* succesfully raised their JSS, but not me -- I've never been higher than 98%.

Insofar as the JSS depends on client behavior, such as closing contracts and leaving feedback, that may be unrelated to both job success and client satisfaction, neither name works. Perhaps it should be the Upwork's Algorithm Satisfaction Score—UASS for short.

Best,

Michael

alekseevpavel78 · ‎03-08-2016

Insofar as the JSS depends on client behavior, such as closing contracts and leaving feedback, that may be unrelated to both job success and client satisfaction, neither name works. Perhaps it should be the Upwork's Algorithm Satisfaction Score—UASS for short.

Best,
Michael

Absolutely agree!

Not the JSS, but understandable for everyone - UASS!

drowzzy221 · ‎03-04-2016

I 'millionth' the drive toward ousting the JSS. Apart from the absurd notion of including the private feedback into the algorithm, I don't really get the reason why our application to selection ratio is being incorporated as well. There are usually more than 50 competent freelancers applying for a particular job, out of which only one gets selected. How does it justify that the 49 others will experience a dip in their JSS by simply being the unfortunate ones to have tried applying, and failed bagging, the job in question?

Regards,

Dhaval

cjemery · ‎03-04-2016

Wow. I didn't even know that there was a 'successful/unsuccessful application' factor as well. Are they trying to encourage us to apply for less jobs?

The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of going back to the star system. I think it should be a 10 star system, and I think it should be two-sided (freelancer and client). Further, I would really like to see more client transparency. Clients are free to use any pseudonymn they want (it seems), and I've confronted clients on here whose metrics look good, but then it turns out they do a lot of dishonest things. I've tried sharing this privately with the folks at ZenDesk, but no luck getting any answers other than "be more careful." But I was careful. Everything on their profile looked great.

A 10-star rating system seems good to me, but of course I could be wrong. But it seems simple. Below 5 stars is bad, and anything above 6 or 7 is acceptable to great. Then, the really outstanding performers get invited to the Pro Talent clouds. It's just my opinion.

No disrespect to Upwork! It's still one of the best options on the web, as far as I'm concerned. If anybody knows a better one, I'd love to know about it because work is slow with my current JSS.

drowzzy221 · ‎03-08-2016

Hi Colyn,

It was pure conjecture, but you do have a fair enough point there.

Regards,

Dhaval

oquintela · ‎03-04-2016

@Dhaval G wrote:
I 'millionth' the drive toward ousting the JSS. Apart from the absurd notion of including the private feedback into the algorithm, I don't really get the reason why our application to selection ratio is being incorporated as well. There are usually more than 50 competent freelancers applying for a particular job, out of which only one gets selected. How does it justify that the 49 others will experience a dip in their JSS by simply being the unfortunate ones to have tried applying, and failed bagging, the job in question?

Regards,
Dhaval

Is that how you think it is or is it a fact? 'Application ranking' does show on 'Marketing effectiveness' ('My stats' page),

drowzzy221 · ‎03-08-2016

@Olga Q wrote:
@Dhaval G wrote:
I 'millionth' the drive toward ousting the JSS. Apart from the absurd notion of including the private feedback into the algorithm, I don't really get the reason why our application to selection ratio is being incorporated as well. There are usually more than 50 competent freelancers applying for a particular job, out of which only one gets selected. How does it justify that the 49 others will experience a dip in their JSS by simply being the unfortunate ones to have tried applying, and failed bagging, the job in question?

Regards,
Dhaval
Is that how you think it is or is it a fact? 'Application ranking' does show on 'Marketing effectiveness' ('My stats' page),

Hi Olga

It was based on a few observations and deductions on my part. Every blog I read with regards to improving JSS led me to believe that I need to be really very particular while applying for a job. Also, out of around 6 clients I've worked with, only the first one had any cause for complaint (delay in submission). All the other clients were so satisfied that I'm sure they have not left any negative private feedback as well. The remaining 5 clients had ended the contract on a good note before Feb 21 (the day on which my JSS was updated). Still the score remained unchanged. And yes, of course, the inclusion of the 'Application Ranking' in the myStats page played a part too. I am somewhat relieved to know that the stat is not included in the calculation.

Regards,

Dhaval

kochubei_valeria · ‎03-04-2016

Hi Dhaval and Colyn,

Your proposals and how often they result in a hire don't have any affect on Job Success Score. Only active and closed contracts are included in the Job Success score calculation.

~ Valeria

mannumuya · ‎03-04-2016

Even so, this JSS thing is really unfair. I still don't understand why I should have a 63% JS, out of 4 jobs, and an average of 5 star rating. I'm still in shock, and I've never won amy job since I was rated.

jsutherland · ‎03-04-2016

@Emmanuel M wrote:
Even so, this JSS thing is really unfair. I still don't understand why I should have a 63% JS, out of 4 jobs, and an average of 5 star rating. I'm still in shock, and I've never won amy job since I was rated.

You have done 5 jobs and have one in progress. Only 4 completed jobs. What happened to the 1 job that is missing? Did you refund, cancel or have something else go wrong with the job? Please tell us what happened with that missing job and we can probably explain the JSS to you.

drowzzy221 · ‎03-08-2016

@Valeria K wrote:
Hi Dhaval and Colyn,

Your proposals and how often they result in a hire don't have any affect on Job Success Score. Only active and closed contracts are included in the Job Success score calculation.

Hi Valeria,

I'm sorry it was conjecture based upon certain observations (blogs, mystats, dips in JSS etc.) on my part. Thank you for letting me know that my deductions were wrong. Happy to have been proven so. However, I would urge you to take the logically accurate points of other members into serious consideration. If you cannot bring about a complete overhaul, then I would request you to implement a few radical changes within the system at least. In my opinion, the more you complicate a certain system, regardless of the secrecy level maintained, the better it is for the individuals involved in the system to manipulate it. It would be mutually beneficial if you could either simplify the system or get rid of it altogether.

Regards,

Dhaval Gawas

cjemery · ‎03-05-2016

I want to start off by saying that I mean no disrespect to Upwork, and do not wish to get in trouble for posting this. But I feel it is relevant to the broader topic of metrics and stats on this site.

Please find attached to this posting stats from the same job, but on different pages (one is from the Proposal page, the other is from the Original Posting). As you can see, the stats are wildly different. I've brought this up before on another thread, and never got a response to this issue specifically.

By the way, I am a paying member of this site, and part of the service that I was promised in exchange for the fee I pay to Upwork was access to stats that would help me understand the competition that I'm up against for jobs. But, obviously, these stats are inconsistent (I screen captured these within seconds of one another, and checked back to make sure they were still inconsistent).

I will go back a little later to see if this fixes itself after a little while, but I see this happen all the time. If I can't trust the stats that I pay for on Upwork, how can I trust whatever mechanism it is that is calculating my so-called Job Success Score?

cjemery · ‎03-05-2016

Maybe I'm not understanding them correctly...? Does this mean one prospect was interviewed/declined, and 9 other proposals have since been discarded?

suznee · ‎03-05-2016

Colyn E wrote:

Maybe I'm not understanding them correctly...? Does this mean one prospect was interviewed/declined, and 9 other proposals have since been discarded?

Colyn,

I am not sure why you are seeing two sets of stats on the job, but all it means is the client has choose to interview one person he was interested in. Sometimes you will see more then one being interviewed. If you are paying this is not the stats that you get to see your competition. You should be able to see rates that are being bid which if you have a free account you can't see the average bid any longer.

The below is what you should see if you are upgraded with current bid information

cjemery · ‎03-05-2016

Thank you for the reply. I guess I was mistaken as to which stats I am paying for.

However, why does it say zero interviews on one page and not the other? My original point (and the reason I posted the error on this forum) was pointing out that the calculation is off. So, given that, how can we trust the JSS? Mine says I'm a bad worker, but I'm not.

danielmbcn · ‎03-06-2016

So today I got my first JSS. I have completed 3 contracts, and the 4th is in progress. I'm not even going to bother to understand the magic behind an algorithm that gets the input "5-stars from each completed contract" and it outputs "63% score", but what I want to ask is: is it normal that I have got a JSS when the rules say that I have to complete at least 4 contracts for getting the first score? Did something change or is that an error?

Thanks.

danielmbcn · ‎03-06-2016

I forgot to mention something. I have a contract suspended because I think for some reason Upwork suspended my client's account. I didn't even start to work in such contract (if I remember well, from the time I was hired to that contract suspension it only passed a day).

Is that affecting my JSS maybe? Should I end this contract right now so that I get a logic JSS, or that at least it disappear until I really complete 4 contracts, as it should be?

kochubei_valeria · ‎03-07-2016

@Daniel M wrote:

Is that affecting my JSS maybe? Should I end this contract right now so that I get a logic JSS, or that at least it disappear until I really complete 4 contracts, as it should be?

We are working with the team to make sure the issue with the contract on hold is resolved. Since feedback from clients who have a track record of ToS violations and bad outcomes are excluded from the Job Success score, we're going to remove this single contract from your JSS calculation. This means, you'll be without a JSS until another contract with feedback is completed. We're working on making this update shortly.

~ Valeria

kochubei_valeria · ‎03-07-2016

Colyn,

Feedback from clients with a poor track record isn't included in the Job Success score. However, we will not be able to go into detail about which contracts are excluded from your JSS calculation here.

~ Valeria