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Scott's avatar
Scott P Community Member

Your thoughts: Bidding on jobs with many proposals?

This is something I struggle with: In your opinion, is it worth spending your connects on applying for jobs that already have 15, 20, even 50+ proposals? Please share your experiences.

 

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Jenna's avatar
Jenna V Community Member

I don't tend to apply for jobs these days since I've got some great long-term clients, but it's certainly something I look at. If I receive a request to apply, I look at how many people they have requested to interview and how many interviews are underway. If there are quite a few, I don't bother.

 

And when I see more than, say, 5 proposals, I don't bother. It's not that I'm not confident in my abilities, but there can also be a longer wait time to receive a yes or no response from that potential client. By the time you get that yes or no answer, your needs for new work may have changed. It's also basic maths that your chances of winning the job are lower with more applicants. 

Tonya's avatar
Tonya P Community Member


Scott P wrote:

This is something I struggle with: In your opinion, is it worth spending your connects on applying for jobs that already have 15, 20, even 50+ proposals? Please share your experiences.

 


I would assume that some of those first 15 to 20 bids are probably farmers, bots, or similar low-value proposals. So, if you have relevant skills, you still have a chance to land the gig. A gig that has 50 proposals? I would assume that it is one that doesn't require a lot of skill or specialization so it would be harder to set yourself apart. 


Upwork does not display bids in order of arrival. However, the client may stop looking at new incoming bids if they have already found someone worth considering. So, in most circumstances, I wouldn't bid on a gig that had been sitting around for weeks with lots of proposals.

Scott's avatar
Scott P Community Member

Thank you both for your thoughts.

Mikko's avatar
Mikko R Community Member

Scott, don't worry about the number of proposals too much. As indicated earlier, the early bird does not necessarily get the prize over here. The best matching bird does. 🤑

The only number I looked at (when I was still sending proposals) was the number of invitations. 0 means good. If it is a new Upwork client, they don't know yet how to invite. Therefore, potentially interesting. If not new to Upwork, they just don't invite as their policy.

If 50+ (and I've seen as many as 231) invitations, simply stay away. Just calculate how much time it would take to send that many invitations with care to those who are a genuinely good match vs. just pressing the Invite button on any profile you happen to see. That calculation tells you a lot about the client. 😉 No need to consider.

The other factor is the budget proposed, assuming it is not a 20-buck placeholder. If the budget is tiny but it looks realistic for the job, there will be a lot of applicants, most of them first-timers. No need to apply for those jobs in general, of course.

So, in short, only focus on being the BEST applicant in class and only apply to those jobs you know you're able to ace way better than most in your widest category of competitors. If you know you're the most attractive guy in your specific narrow category, that would be the sweet spot. You can almost own your niche in that case (i.e. get all the top clients for yourself and leave the second-best ones to other freelancers to fight for).

Scott's avatar
Scott P Community Member

Thanks Mikko, excellent points!