What am I doing wrong in my proposals?

[mariapambr]

Hi everyone, 

I am Maria and I have been in and out of the Upwork platform for the last couple of years. I recently moved to a new country so I am dedicating more time to Upwork but despite reading all the articles on "how to land a new job", "how to write the best proposal" and others I rarely receive an answer to my proposals. 

I tried to change it several times, always try to personalize it according to the job offering and including a mix of my past experience and also some sentences on what I will provide. I also include a sentence in which I propose to get in touch to talk "live" about the job in order to create a connection with the client. But nothing seems to work! 

My profile is completed and I have a 100% job success score so I really don't understand what should I change! 

Any suggestions? Do any of you had a similar situation in the past and managed to find a solution?

[petra_r · Accepted solution]

Personally I think your profile offers too much "stuff" - It is unclear if you are a translator or a technical writer or an illustrator or into marketing or a programmer.... It's like you threw every conceivable skill at your profile in the hope that someone might buy something.

It screams "Jack of all Trades, Master of None."

Decide what you want to be and stick to that, at least for now. Less is more!

You also waste the first 2 lines of your general profile with basically meaningless drivel. That is THE single most important part of your profile because it is all a client can see in preview, so if that part does not grab their attention, what is on the rest of your profile is irrelevant because it is never seen. Those lines should tell the client how hiring you benefits them, not what your goal is. Clients don't care about your goals, they care about theirs.

Translation clients who know what they are doing will look at a profile that claims native level skills in 4 languages and assume the owner of the profile to be less than truthful.

They also see someone offering to translate between their non-native languages and consider that person to likely be an amateur. Professional translators don't translate into their non native language(s), let alone from one of their non native languages to another.

[mariapambr]

Hey Petra, thank you so much for taking the time to check at my profile! Most of the time, we tend to forget that "less is better," so it's nice to have little reminders.

I will definitely go back to my profile description and brush it up to make sure it's less "I can do everything" and more specific!

Have a great day! 

[kbadeau]

This may seem superficial and it might just be me, but because your photo is in black and white and you are apparently in front of a chair, it looks like you have pigtails. It makes me think you create videos for children or something. Maybe you could photoshop that part out because otherwise it is a lovely photo.

[sergio-soria]

Apart from what has been said already I suggest that you check the client's hire rate and how many proposals have been sent to that job post.