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Nivenka's avatar
Nivenka S Community Member

Why are my proposals not being viewed?

Good day. Is there a reason my proposals are not being seen by the clients? Even when I boost them it doesn't seem as though they are being viewed. Is there something wrong with my account?

Please see attatchment

ACCEPTED SOLUTION
William T's avatar
William T C Community Member

Nivenka,

 

Proposals don't get viewed for only three major reasons:

 

- The cover letter proposal doesn't appeal to the client.

- Applying for jobs that are not a good match.

- There are better suited freelancers applying for the job.

 

Have a great day!

 

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83 REPLIES 83
William T's avatar
William T C Community Member

- 50% of the jobs don't get filled.

- Many of the jobs have 50+ proposals.

- Need to have in-demand skills.

- Your profile settings are on private instead of public.

Mark's avatar
Mark L Community Member

Well, we can certainly eliminate all but the first of these.  I'm in a high-demand niche area, where there tend to be few proposals, my specific skills are highly in-demand, and my profile settings are set to public.  Something tells me there is something else sneaky at play here...

Radia's avatar
Radia L Community Member

Sinisa you're right. I posted on this thread (above) because I saw problems in the accepted answer.

 

"Overly simplified solutions" that are too-often posted by someone who claimed OpenAI told him that ChatGPT University is (used to be) theirs.

 

At least one other person (beside you) also got very confused on this thread's accepted answer when they ask me again about it. I think I'll post this mod's answer on similar topic

 

 

There are several possible reasons why this might happen. One is that the buyers receive a large number of proposals and they only have time to view a few of them. Another is that the buyers have specific criteria or preferences that they use to filter out the proposals that do not match them. A third is that the buyers may have already found a suitable freelancer and did not close the job.

 

It does not necessarily mean that your proposal quality is low or that you are doing something wrong. 

Will's avatar
Will L Community Member

William T C,

 

How can a prospective client know they don't want to view a freelancer's proposal if they haven't read the freelancer's cover letter and so can't know whether the freelancer is an interesting match?

William T's avatar
William T C Community Member

Will,

 

Prospects read Cover Letters and then determine if they want to view the freelancer's Upwork Profile.

Will's avatar
Will L Community Member

Nivenka S. originally asked, “Is there a reason my proposals are not being seen by the clients?”

 

You answered, “Proposals don’t get viewed (because)…The cover letter proposal doesn’t appeal to the client.”

 

Then you tell us, “The Cover Letter is the proposal.”

 

Those two statements are contradictory. If “The Cover Letter is the proposal” then the cover letter is seen by all clients who open freelancers’ proposals. The cover letter may not appeal to the client, but (s)he can only know that after they have opened the freelancer’s proposal.

 

NIvenka is saying her cover letters/proposals, according to Upwork's system, are not being viewed by clients. This has nothing to do with the quality of her cover letters, which clients can only see after they have viewed her submitted proposals.

 

Viewing a freelancer's profile is a different issue.

William T's avatar
William T C Community Member

Will,

 

When a cover letter is clicked off of, that is called an Upwork Profile.

 

If you or others are adding extra steps for the clients, bad idea.

Will's avatar
Will L Community Member

That makes no sense, William TC.

 

"clicked off of" - do you mean when a prospective client opens a freelancer's proposal?

 

That is certainly not "an Upwork Profile." An Upwork profile is a static outline of a freelancer's skills, experience, work samples, etc. created by each freelancer that exists irrespective of whether anything is "clicked off of." And the cover letter and profile are completely separate documents that serve different purposes.

Louis's avatar
Louis D Community Member

Genuine questions: How do they know the cover letter and proposal doesn't appeal to them if they are not viewing it? Wouldn't they need to view it for them to see that which would count as a view? 

Will's avatar
Will L Community Member

Yes, Louis D., I'd think no client could "know the cover letter and proposal doesn't appeal to them if they are not viewing it."

 

William T C has disappeared, so we can't know why he thinks otherwise.

Jacquelyn's avatar
Jacquelyn L Community Member

...Or there are just too many freelancers sending proposals for the same job, or the client already is interviewing someone.

William T's avatar
William T C Community Member

Yes, I have stated that fact in many of these community threads.

Lindsey's avatar
Lindsey T Community Member

In my case it says interviewing 0 or 0 submitted proposals when I apply. I purposely don't apply to anything that has more than a few applicants already.

Furkan's avatar
Furkan T Community Member

This is not a satisfying answer if you are a freelancer who makes music and apply for music production jobs with the highest bid over and over but it is still not viewed by the client!

Jeremy's avatar
Jeremy Z Community Member

  The system does seem to have improved over the past couple months in terms of proposal views. I have also changed my approach. I send fewer proposals with more detail (the first two sentences are key as they are what prospective clients see when scrolling through proposals ... good idea to include a reference to the project title and the client name if you can find it in past project reviews.) I do boost at least 25 connects and, for more substantial projects, up to 40 connects. I cannot say that I am closing more projects as sites like this (similar to dating sites) encourage customers to keep looking rather than commit. Hope that helps, friends.

Kaya's avatar
Kaya S Community Member

How can they know any of these 3 things without viewing your proposal?? I have been sending off many proposals with only a single oven ever being viewed. I also think it's wrong for the connects to not be refunded of your proposal was never viewed.

Mark's avatar
Mark L Community Member

Your "accepted" response to this question doesn't really make sense to me, so I'm hoping you might be able to elaborate a bit.  The question asks why proposals are not being viewed on Upwork.  How is it possible for the cover letter to not appeal to the client, applying for jobs that are not good matches, or the client feeling others are better suited for the job to be the causal reasons that the proposals are not being viewed?  In order for any of these to be a causal effect for the proposal not being viewed, the proposal itself has to be viewed.  For example, the only way for the client to determine that the proposal doesn't appeal to them is to have opened the proposal and reviewed it, correct?  

I have had the same issue, where I've boosted over 20 highly applicable, relevant, and well-written proposals and they are not even being viewed, even after boosting continuously to the top position.  I've even reviewed dozens of videos on Upwork, reviewed the success tips to ensure I'm in compliance with those, and implemented the suggested techniques, all to no avail.  I hate to say this, but it almost feels as though proposals are being hidden or blocked from potential client view by some Upwork algorithm to encourage freelancers to continue spending money on additional credits to boost.  

Can you please provide some sensical reasons why proposals might not even be viewed/viewable and how we might be able to increase the view probability?  To be sensical, it would stand to reason that there is something intervening after submission but before a client can open the proposal that might decrease the probability of the proposal from being viewed.

Thanks for any reasonable insight you can provide.

 

Radia's avatar
Radia L Community Member

Thanks for any reasonable insight you can provide.

I suggest doing your own research. You can start by reading more of this thread. Asking that particular person for additional insight will only lead to bickering and further confusion, it's well-known.

 

And mods should think, before they delete my post for being disrespectful to a bickering expert (vetted), instead of fixing this confusing-for-over-a-year "accepted solution".

Anna's avatar
Anna T Community Member


 Mark L wrote:

I hate to say this, but it almost feels as though proposals are being hidden or blocked from potential client view by some Upwork algorithm to encourage freelancers to continue spending money on additional credits to boost.  

To be sensical, it would stand to reason that there is something intervening after submission but before a client can open the proposal that might decrease the probability of the proposal from being viewed.


It's not a feeling.  It's real.  Read about that here:  https://community.upwork.com/t5/Freelancers/Is-there-an-quot-Other-quot-list-for-proposals/m-p/14019...

William T's avatar
William T C Community Member

There are too many proposals per client job post which causes many of the prosposals to be ignored.

 

Have in-demand skills to obtain client jobs.

Mark's avatar
Mark L Community Member

My skills are the among the most in-demand skills in the industry.  Again, please stop saying that's the cause of proposals not be VIEWED, since it's impossible for the person hiring to know someone's skills without first viewing the propsal.  "Have in-demand skills" is a non-answer to the question why are proposals not being viewed.

Christine's avatar
Christine A Community Member


 wrote:

My skills are the among the most in-demand skills in the industry.  Again, please stop saying that's the cause of proposals not be VIEWED, since it's impossible for the person hiring to know someone's skills without first viewing the propsal. 


It's not impossible. There's some confusion between proposals being "viewed" vs. being opened (which isn't helped by the terminology used by Upwork in the stats section of our profiles). A client can look at the list of proposals and see your name, photo, profile title, earnings, JSS, badges, skills, and - perhaps most importantly - the first two lines of your proposal. They then have to click to open/see the rest of your proposal, and it's only when they do this that your proposal is counted as "viewed".

 

Most of the time - especially when a client gets a long list of proposals - it's not necessary to click/open each one, because they can rule out most of the people on the list just from glancing at the basic information that they're given. Some clients will eliminate candidates based on price, or insufficient Upwork experience, or a bad JSS, all of which they can easily see but won't count as being "viewed" in your stats. For example, when I post a project, I automatically eliminate anyone who addresses me as "Dear Sir" or starts their proposal with something time-wasting like, "I hope this message finds you well, my name is so-and-so and I live in blah blah." If the first two lines don't grab my attention, I don't read any further, and you'll find that most other clients do the same. Therefore, it's important to make those first two lines count, generally by getting straight to the point and telling clients how you'll solve their problem.

 

However, even if you write top-notch proposals, most of them won't be viewed - that's just how things are here (and on every other freelancing site), and a relatively small fraction will result in a hire. If you charge high enough rates and/or get long-term clients, you can still make it work, but it isn't easy.

William T's avatar
William T C Community Member

Your profile is set to Private and can't be viewed.

 

Ops!

Lindsey's avatar
Lindsey T Community Member

I'm also wondering if Upwork has client accounts automatically set to email them with updates to their jobs. I'm willing to bet not. So these companies post and ghost because they get busy. There needs to be more notification settings in place I feel.

Radia's avatar
Radia L Community Member

They get  notifications, although it can be turned off.

 

A mod mentioned that it still "encourage" clients to click, thus triggering the 'proposal viewed' routine.

 

Whether it's buggy or not, the 'proposal viewed' is a big thing to me as it tells me that my view:sent ratio is so low, at least for me (some people don't experience it) where it's often "so weird". This case from not too long ago, client finally hired someone with still my proposal not seen and still less than 10 proposals received by the client.