Will I get My connects back if I withdraw my proposal from a job post where the client hasn't hired?

[#1]

There are tons of job posts that go without hiring any of the freelancers.

Will I get my connects back if I withdraw my proposal before the client hires someone?

Freelancers should get the connects back if they withdraw a proposal before a client hires someone on a job post. Why should the freelancers be charged for spam and unresponsive job posts?

UpWork could be posting jobs to fool freelancers and milk money from freelancers via connects. 

[#2]

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I S M H wrote:

Will I get my connects back if I withdraw my proposal before the client hires someone?

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No

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I S M H wrote:

UpWork could be posting jobs to fool freelancers and milk money from freelancers via connects. 

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Yes, of course they do. Just like Elvis is still alive and the earth is flat and the Easter Bunny is real...

[#3]

I  believe it will be fair if the freelancers get their connects back immediately if the client hasn't hired anybody via that job post. We could through restrictions like if a client doesn't hire anyone within 3 days of posting a job, the freelancers can get the connects back by withdrawing their proposals. 

What are your thoughts on this?

[#4]

When connects were free, people spammed every job post just on the off chance that they might get lucky. Clients were drowning in unsuitable bids. (If anything, I think that connects are too cheap, and Upwork should stop giving out freebies. But that's just me.)

Treat connects like all of your other business expenses, and account for them in the rate that you charge.

[#5]

I remember the Odesk days. There used to be more spam on Elance than Odesk. But I'm talking about 2022. I'm getting drowned in job posts that sound legit but I see no activity even after weeks! 

Client's shouldn't be allowed to post jobs for free! They should be charged connects too for posting a job. 

A CSS (Client Success Score) should also be in place where a client gets penalized for posting a job and leaving it to expire without cancellation. 

It helps the UpWork Business Model as they will be able to charge from accounts who have no intention of hiring via UpWork but gather some free education via customized proposals. 

[#6]

Client's shouldn't be allowed to post jobs for free! They should be charged connects too for posting a job. 
A CSS (Client Success Score) should also be in place where a client gets penalized for posting a job and leaving it to expire without cancellation. 

Deep down, I'm sure you know that these are really bad ideas. We don't want anything that might deter clients. You can't punish a client for not hiring. Maybe he has hired hundreds of people before, just not on this job? Because all the proposals he received were not good? I'm pretty sure that in your aim to get your connects back, you propose ideas that would make clients leave, without thinking it through. 

Anyways, consider connects like tokens you put into a slot machine. You don't run to the manager of the casino if you don't win, do you? Or if nobody else wins, either, right? But you still keep playing because you hope to win. Same thing. 

(For people that don't play slot machines like myself, I couldn't find a different example.)

[#7]

The bottom line is that Upwork needs more clients, but they don't need more freelancers. So, if unsuccessful freelancers get fed up with paying for connects and decide to leave, that's okay. If clients don't want to pay for connects and end up not posting their jobs here, that's not okay.

[#8]

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I S M H wrote:

Client's shouldn't be allowed to post jobs for free! They should be charged connects too for posting a job. 

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You're a 'digital growth marketing manager' and you think this is a good idea?

Please, in your marketing expertise, explain how on earth it is a good idea to deliberately increase friction for the people who pay money into the system...

[#9]

Hello Jamie,

Businesses/Entrepreneurs/Enterprises/Startups who are actually in need of leveraging the worldwide talent pool will pay and oblige to the bar that you set.

There are other platforms out there for people who don't know what they are doing and posting every idea that pops up in their heads. 

We are talking about a sophisticated clientele. UpWork has more than a decade of history behind it. It's deliberately a good idea to create friction and barriers to attract top-level clients.

I am in dozens of communities around Discord, Telegram, Forums, and Reddit. And these job posts which aren't actually functional give UpWork a bad name. 

Once a Freelancer gets to the pick at their career, they will become sophisticated clients of UpWork. So, UpWork shouldn't be caring about their pipeline. UpWork is a brand. It isn't positioned to attract spam. 

The higher LTV customers are leaving the platform because of these lower LTV customers. It directly impacts UpWork's bottom line. If I'm given the opportunity for a quarter, I'm happy to prove this with UpWork's own web analytics. 

[#10]

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I S M H wrote:

Hello Jamie,

Businesses/Entrepreneurs/Enterprises/Startups who are actually in need of leveraging the worldwide talent pool will pay and oblige to the bar that you set.

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I think that's idealistic and naive.

People are generally unwilling to pay for something if they don't know they will get value from it. And many people are certainly unlikely to try something out if there's friction such as the hassle of having to give payment details to a company they don't even know.

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There are other platforms out there for people who don't know what they are doing and posting every idea that pops up in their heads.

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And how are those platforms doing compared to Upwork?

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I S M H wrote:

We are talking about a sophisticated clientele. UpWork has more than a decade of history behind it. It's deliberately a good idea to create friction and barriers to attract top-level clients.

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Upwork attracts some of the biggest companies in the world. They do so without friction.

What you're saying makes zero sense. Maybe you're trying to say they should deter smaller business from getting involved? Which makes even less sense.

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I S M H wrote:

I am in dozens of communities around Discord, Telegram, Forums, and Reddit. And these job posts which aren't actually functional give UpWork a bad name.

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I'm in such communities myself, and people making these complaints are usually those who can't make the system work for them.

I'd rather listen to the people who can make it work for them.

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I S M H wrote:

Once a Freelancer gets to the pick at their career, they will become sophisticated clients of UpWork. So, UpWork shouldn't be caring about their pipeline. UpWork is a brand. It isn't positioned to attract spam.

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What?

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I S M H wrote:

The higher LTV customers are leaving the platform because of these lower LTV customers. It directly impacts UpWork's bottom line. If I'm given the opportunity for a quarter, I'm happy to prove this with UpWork's own web analytics. 

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Go on then...

[#11]

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I S M H wrote:

The higher LTV customers are leaving the platform because of these lower LTV customers. 

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You have proof of this? I think it's far more likely that Upwork loses clients due to all of the low-quality freelancers, and these freelancers will send even more proposals and scare off more clients if they have more connects to spend. 

[#12]

Apparently he can prove it with with Upwork's own web analytics.

I'm eager to see this proof.

[#13]

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I S M H wrote:

Businesses/Entrepreneurs/Enterprises/Startups who are actually in need of leveraging the worldwide talent pool will pay and oblige to the bar that you set

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No, they won't. They would laugh heartily, turn on their heel and go elsewhere. The reason why none of the platforms do something so utterly disastrous is because it would be commercial suicide.

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I S M H wrote:

Once a Freelancer gets to the pick at their career, they will become sophisticated clients of UpWork. So, UpWork shouldn't be caring about their pipeline. 

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LOL... No. Just no. That isn't how it works. Goodness...

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I S M H wrote:

The higher LTV customers are leaving the platform because of these lower LTV customers.

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Again... No. Just no. That is simply ridiculous.

And by the way, the company is called Upwork, not UpWork

[#14]

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I S M H wrote:

Client's shouldn't be allowed to post jobs for free! They should be charged connects too for posting a job.

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This idea is as appallingly bad as it is ancient.

Why this would be a complete failure and cost Upwork a fortune has been patiently explained literally hundreds of times.

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I S M H wrote:

A CSS (Client Success Score) should also be in place where a client gets penalized for posting a job and leaving it to expire without cancellation. 

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No. The client's JSS includes the same as the freelancers' - basically how successfully their contracts ended.

I wonder if that idea is in some way connected to your own  JSS?

[#15]

**Edited for Community Guidelines**

None of them hired anybody on those job posts. Why should I pay for applying to these job posts?

It makes sense if someone is at least hired! Then it's justified. (Purely Personal Opinion)

What are your thoughts?

[#16]

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I S M H wrote:

What are your thoughts?

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My thoughts are to treat connects as the business expense they are and to concentrate on the big picture.

When you send letters through the postal service, so you also whine at the Post Office that you want the cost of the stamps back if your letters didn't have the desired result?

Ultimately, nobody is forcing you to buy and spend connects. It is entirely voluntary.

But if you want to use Upwork and don't get enough invites to give you the income you are after, this is the (very low) price you pay. Of course, your shockingly low Job Success Score will scare a lot of clients off, but that isn't really anything to do with the policy regarding connects.

You get plenty of freebies for winning interviews etc as well. I really don't see what there is to whine about.

[#17 · Accepted solution]

There is a huge issue here!

I'm sure the Bangladeshi Freelancers (At Least 90%) of them face this issue. So, what's the issue here?

Freelancing is not regarded as a profession in our community and no Banks provide any business services to us. In Bangladesh, we have incoming of Remittance. But we can't pay or buy internationally using our Mastercard or Visa unless we have a dual currency credit card. 

Now, if I'm not among the top 5% of the country, no bank is going to give me a dual-currency credit card. In fact, as freelancers, we do not even get eligible to get a local currency credit card!

So, our only resort is Payoneer here! I'm talking about the majority. Now, we can't load our Payoneer accounts from our country. We can only withdraw it or spend it globally (Although there are limitations). 

Now, I'm in pretty bad shape! 20 Proposals Sent! No funds on Payoneer! And among those 20 jobs that I applied to, I see that hire was made in only 1 job post! So, my investments of 19*6 = 114 connect didn't yield me any fruit.

Now, it's not that I do not have the money to buy connects! I have! But it's in my local currency. As someone who has been using the platform for nearly a decade, I am in a challenging position. I have had challenging positions in the past which I overcame. 

But now, my roadblock is harder than all the roadblocks I had faced in the past.

Yes, I could have kept a minimum of amounts as a backup. But that's a different conversation.

I'm happy to collaborate with UpWork and integrate a local payment gateway through which Freelancers can buy connects. I could become an agent where I prepay UpWork for X amount of connects and sell them to the local freelancers who don't have the privilege of using a dual currency mastercard or visa. They can then redeem the connects via codes that I get from UpWork or things like that.

Now, do you see why I'm whining?

[#18]

I think Wise works in Bangladesh.
You should look at it.

[#19]

Payoneer Works. Wise Works too! I have money too! But the problem is I do not have money on Payoneer or Wise. Neither can we load Payoneer or Wise from Bangladesh.

Outgoing transactions (From Banglades to Other countries) is a privilege that the corrupt politicians only have at this moment along with the CIPs (Commercially Important Person).

We do not have Paypal in our country. So, you can guess the complex scenario here. 

Once we earn funds from the marketplace, we can use Payoneer and Wise and spend money online (Globally). Neither can we load funds on Payoner nor on Wise from Bangladesh. I have money! It's not that I don't have money to buy connects. But I find myself in a spot where I do not have a medium that I can use to pay for the connects. I drained my Payoneer and I have never used Wise!

[#20]

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I S M H wrote:

The higher LTV customers are leaving the platform because of these lower LTV customers. It directly impacts UpWork's bottom line. If I'm given the opportunity for a quarter, I'm happy to prove this with UpWork's own web analytics.

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Ah, you're back.

Any chance of seeing this proof?

[#21]

Give me access to the Marketing Analytics of UpWork and I will prove it (Backed by The Data). I do not have access to those data.

From my personal experience of working with clients, 2 of them explicitly stated to me that they see the job posts and feel bad that they are paying way more! They stated it to me and I communicated to them that it depends on Entry Level, Intermediate Level, Expert Level, and scope of work. 

I can share the personal details of those clients who explicitly stated to me that they are going to leave the platform due to what they feel is spam. Those two clients have spent a combined $800K+ in UpWork. 

[#22]

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I S M H wrote:

Give me access to the Marketing Analytics of UpWork and I will prove it (Backed by The Data). I do not have access to those data.

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So then you just made it up?

Quelle Surprise.

You've lost all and any credibility you might have had.

[#23]

I don't know if I typed wrong or you read wrong!

I'm not here to debate. I'm here to connect and communicate. You're drifting the conversation in a direction that doesn't solve my problem. 

The admins can see the info and messaging. So, they can guess which clients I'm referring to! I'm certainly not going to share those contact details with you!

Neither am I interested in useless discussions! I appreciate your feedback and if you're trying to prove that I don't have credibility, and found out that I don't, and feeling like triumphed, I feel good for you. Have a great day!

Do you feel good now?

[#24]

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I S M H wrote:

I can share the personal details of those clients who explicitly stated to me that they are going to leave the platform due to what they feel is spam. Those two clients have spent a combined $800K+ in UpWork. 

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How would your clients know anything about spam in the jobs feed? They must have meant spam from freelancers.

[#25]

Oh! Come on. The clients can see the job posts too!

Here is the screenshot of my client account.

**Edited for Community Guidelines**

Those clients who own a business and know what they are doing do research too on specific categories before posting jobs.

I have had contracts where clients gave me access to a co-worker login and I was responsible for hiring and managing teams on that contract.

I made sure that I follow the community guidelines and etiquette. It's a part of good etiquette to cancel a job post if the client decides he isn't going to hire someone.