interview v. proposal invitation

[mcrobbins]

Upwork notified me via email that I had been invited to submit a proposal, and the message included from the client also invited me to submit a proposal. 

In my account, the action button says "Accept interview", with a caption about discussing the job. What's the difference between interview and proposal here?  Does this give me the option to submit a proposal or just notify the client I am interested in an interview, in which case I would expect to be contacted? 

Thank you!

[petra_r]

Basically it's both a proposal and an interview. The client is asking you to apply, but it's a "warm proposal" as the client has already shown interest. I usually create a slimmed down version of my usual proposal, because te client already looked at my profile and liked what they saw. 

Accepting the invite creates a message room.

[mcrobbins]

Thank you!

[kinector]

I have similar process as what Petra describes. A few additions, though.

If the client looks like having gone through my profile in detail, e.g. their invitation is something more than the default text "I'd like to invite you to take a look at the job I've posted. Please submit a proposal if you're available and interested." I might just accept the interview with a one sentence reply like "happy to discuss" or something. They already have an idea of what I can do for them.

If I only see the default invitation, I check the stats of the job and the client. If it looks reasonable, I might send that slimmed down proposal.

But if I see the client sending dozens of invitations, I reject it and mark it as spam. They are just wasting everyone's time (including theirs without realizing it) by shooting an invitation everyone in the widest category of the job they have in mind.

Not long ago I spotted a job with 2,865 invitations which I thought should have triggered Upwork to finally put a maximum limit on the invitation count. Let's see how it goes.

So, you'd need to read the invitation right. What did the client see and what are they really asking for?

It's not complicated, you'll get it soon enough, I'm sure.

Roughly 10% of the invitations I get turn out to be actually interesting. But then those 10% are absolutely dynamite!!

Good luck! 👍

[mcrobbins]

Thanks very much!