What can the client see before viewing the proposal?

[paywell]

Just as other freelancers on this forum, I have seen a drop in views and invites. 

I wonder whether this correlates with the overall client activity on Upwork?

In my case, only 1 of 7 proposals have been viewed, while all clients visited the job posting shortly after I proposed - none of them viewed my profile.

Meaning that the job posting "viewed by client" date/time was equal or later than my proposal date/time.

I have become curious about how the bidding process looks on the clients side?

What can they see without viewing a proposal and/or viewing my profile?

Can they see, that I am from Ukraine?

TLDR: I have been back to work since March 2022, no availability or connectivity problems here. 

TLDR2: Nevertheless, I believe, that clients may be scared by the news and therefore reluctant to give work to Ukrainians. 

I can accept being considered unsuitable for the job at hand. But I sure wouldn't like it to be a technical issue or a bug. 

1 - Has anybody else observed the same problem (a job posting being frequented by the client, but the proposal and your profile page - not being viewed)?

2 - If anybody has input on how the bidding process looks like from the client's side - I would be thankful for your input.

Thank you for your efforts!

[bilal1983]

I have noticed the same thing: The 'last viewed by client' time resets after I submit a proposal. I check before submitting, and it sometimes refreshes within minutes of submitting my proposal. So I'm sure they open their job post page, but do not click and open my proposal or my profile.

I haven't seen the client side of things, but I saw a video of it quite some time ago, and remember that they see the first two lines of the cover letter and our profile picture. I don't remember what other information is available to clients without opening the proposals.

[paywell]

Thank you for your input! So I guess it can be my photo and I have to ramp up the first two lines of my cover letter.

P.S. Maybe I should have posted this in the "Clients" forum discussions, so they may tell us what they see. 🙂

[getcheeky]

Concerning the boosted proposal, a dual freelancer and client commented on this subject--- he said something like this, (I'm paraphrasing) "I don't look at the freelancers who boost their proposals any differently. In fact, I see them as suck-ups. I'm going to choose the best freelancer for my project--- I do not care about boosts."

Now, this is from someone who ALSO freelances, so there might be some bias.

Either way, it was interesting what he had to say about the boosting deal. 
It was actually refreshing to hear that even the client doesn't seem to care for these boosts. The client is more concerned with FINDIND THE RIGHT TALENT--- that's how it should be. 
In fact, these proposal boosts look like they annoy the client, if anything. 

[sinisa_rudan]

When was the last time you saw the third page of Google results? 😉 or even the 2nd?

So, I would do the same as he claims, but if we are overwhelmed with 50+ proposals, all these attitudes fade away.

On Upwork, most of the clients look for a smaller task, and it's not convenient to spend more time on hiring than on the execution of the task.

In the case of companies, they invest time in hiring because they hire for a longer time and it is generally done by a HR person dedicated only to that.

This is a huge paradox of Upwork!
(We see it now in the dissatisfaction of freelancers, and that will lead to the decline of Upwork if not addressed. Similar dynamics are observed in the past with different businesses):

[9fe872eb · Accepted solution]

>> Can they see, that I am from Ukraine?

Yes. 

>> What can they see without viewing a proposal and/or viewing my profile?

Your photo, name, profile title, country, quoted amount (for fixed-price projects), approximate earnings, JSS (if available), talent badges (if any), top part of your cover letter as would fit in two lines (line-breaks removed, line width as per page layout), skills.

[sinisa_rudan]

>> quoted amount (for fixed-price projects)

and for hourly projects, don't they see the quoted amount per hour?

[sinisa_rudan]

And now in 2023 what do clients see? 
I was informed that Upwork often introduce changes regarding this.