Solved: What Is A Trophy?

b586e748 · ‎11-15-2022

Hey Everyone,

I don't really post much or actively seek jobs on upwork since I have some long term clients.

Funny thing happened though which is that my profile got featured on here: https://www.upwork.com/hire/product-managers/pk/islamabad/

And a couple of questions came to my mind.

1 - What is that trophy icon? I have no idea how one gets that or how do I change it to some other skill?

2 - How does one even make it to this list? Is it curated or automated?

3 - Ummm not to sound thankless but all my info on this link is outdated for some reason, why might that be? My live profile link is https://www.upwork.com/freelancers/~01e42b7b9b54e00d0d

Thank you very much!

feed_my_eyes · ‎11-15-2022

1. Upwork just likes putting little icons and badges everywhere. Everyone on your list has a trophy next to where it says "Product Management", so it looks like it's just meant to highlight this particular skill and not be an award (if everybody has a trophy, it's meaningless). And I believe that the skill listed is based on your profile title (ETA - and/or the skills that you've checked off), which says that you're a product manager, so why is this a problem? You can change your title to something else whenever you like, or add/delete skills.

2. It's automated, based on some mysterious algorithm. The search results rotate to supposedly give everyone a chance to be seen, and aren't based on quality or suitability - the link that you've provided looks like it's just based on location and is a randomly-ordered list of people who provide this service. The clue is in the heading, "Hire the best product managers in Islamabad" (it might even be a list of the ONLY product managers in Islamabad).

3. I'm not surprised. My information also comes up incorrectly in various search results and I've been complaining about it for years, but haven't been able to get anyone in customer service to help (they don't even seem to understand what the problem is, despite my explaining over and over). I've given up trying to fix it.

At least those search results should reassure anyone who's worried about their JSS. It's not even visible in this view; what matters are your star reviews, which are high for almost everybody (the average score is 4.9, which misleadingly makes it seem like every freelancer on Upwork is amazing).

View solution in original post

colettelewis · ‎11-15-2022

You get a "trophy" every time you post in the forum. They all "represent" something, but basically they are meaningless. Upwork loves them and gets "excited" by them, so just go with the flow. They won't bite you or harm your JSS. Have a look here: https://community.upwork.com/t5/Announcements/Introducing-Community-Badges/ba-p/1157413

feed_my_eyes · ‎11-15-2022

He's not talking about the community badges - there are little trophy icons in the search results, apparently.

colettelewis · ‎11-15-2022

Ahh. I didn't open the attachment! This reminds me of when we had little rockets and things. Upwork can't resist playground marketing hype.

feed_my_eyes · ‎11-15-2022

1. Upwork just likes putting little icons and badges everywhere. Everyone on your list has a trophy next to where it says "Product Management", so it looks like it's just meant to highlight this particular skill and not be an award (if everybody has a trophy, it's meaningless). And I believe that the skill listed is based on your profile title (ETA - and/or the skills that you've checked off), which says that you're a product manager, so why is this a problem? You can change your title to something else whenever you like, or add/delete skills.

2. It's automated, based on some mysterious algorithm. The search results rotate to supposedly give everyone a chance to be seen, and aren't based on quality or suitability - the link that you've provided looks like it's just based on location and is a randomly-ordered list of people who provide this service. The clue is in the heading, "Hire the best product managers in Islamabad" (it might even be a list of the ONLY product managers in Islamabad).

3. I'm not surprised. My information also comes up incorrectly in various search results and I've been complaining about it for years, but haven't been able to get anyone in customer service to help (they don't even seem to understand what the problem is, despite my explaining over and over). I've given up trying to fix it.

At least those search results should reassure anyone who's worried about their JSS. It's not even visible in this view; what matters are your star reviews, which are high for almost everybody (the average score is 4.9, which misleadingly makes it seem like every freelancer on Upwork is amazing).

b586e748 · ‎11-15-2022

Thank you for the explanation!

Yeah it's weird how the info is outdated. That is my only concern.

The part 1 is more about how it picks the thing to highlight as Product Manager is not actually a category/specialization you can pick in your specialized profiles. So just a confusion I had, don't have a problem with being a Product Manager.

For 2 I will keep an eye on this link and see how it changes overtime, because right now it's very misleading, Product Managers in software industry are very different than Product Manager that are popular on upwork who manage your product listings on sites like Amazon or Shopify. The link is for Software PMs, but half the people on it are not that at the time I shared it.

And 3 yeah I guess Upwork needs some fixing.

Thank you!

feed_my_eyes · ‎11-15-2022

Saqib T wrote:
For 2 I will keep an eye on this link and see how it changes overtime, because right now it's very misleading, Product Managers in software industry are very different than Product Manager that are popular on upwork who manage your product listings on sites like Amazon or Shopify. The link is for Software PMs, but half the people on it are not that at the time I shared it.

Ah, got it. It's kind of like how Upwork matches me with Wordpress projects because my profile says that I do MS Word. It's not a perfect system.

b586e748 · ‎11-15-2022

Yupp exactly.