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budsybaby
Community Member

Ironies confront this new user!

I'm new here. But I have encountered many ironies so far. As a software engineer, I have had some curious things happen when trying out job proposals. Say, somebody wants a way to unlock Word files. Before I make the bid, I try it out. I whip up a quick C# console app for testing, and solve the problem in 12 minutes. I make the bid, only to be confronted with "Your proposal has been declined because you are unqualified."  Yeah. Sure.

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tlsanders
Community Member

Reasons are generally selected at random, if at all. Most won't respond at all. It's just a checkbox, and many clients check the same one for every freelancer they don't choose. Those are the good ones. Most just leave you hanging.

 

It's best just to bid and move on, never giving a job another thought unless you're invited to interview.

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tlsanders
Community Member

Reasons are generally selected at random, if at all. Most won't respond at all. It's just a checkbox, and many clients check the same one for every freelancer they don't choose. Those are the good ones. Most just leave you hanging.

 

It's best just to bid and move on, never giving a job another thought unless you're invited to interview.

jcullinan
Community Member

Well, first things first: don't work before you have a contract.

 

Doing the work before you even have an interview is just, well, not smart. And if it's a twelve minute job, why is someone with your experience even looking at it? Screen clients to match the level of work you can actually do. Cheap quickies are more headache than they're worth.


@Jess C wrote:

Well, first things first: don't work before you have a contract.

 


 I work before, just to make sure like OP that I can deliver.  It's a curse, but I am perfectionist. But of course I don't give them.  If I win the contract fine.  If I don't it is part of my training/learning expense!


@Prashant P wrote:

@Jess C wrote:

Well, first things first: don't work before you have a contract.

 


 I work before, just to make sure like OP that I can deliver.  It's a curse, but I am perfectionist. But of course I don't give them.  If I win the contract fine.  If I don't it is part of my training/learning expense!


You also constantly complain about freelancers getting ripped off by clients. If you waste your time by doing the work before you've even been interviewed, that's on you. This is very simply not professional behavior, or any way to run a business.


@Jess C wrote:



You also constantly complain about freelancers getting ripped off by clients. If you waste your time by doing the work before you've even been interviewed, that's on you. This is very simply not professional behavior, or any way to run a business.


 They both are unrelated.  Do you read?  I also said that I don't give them.  I also don't give them for the time it takes to copy paste the solution.


@Prashant P wrote:

@Jess C wrote:



You also constantly complain about freelancers getting ripped off by clients. If you waste your time by doing the work before you've even been interviewed, that's on you. This is very simply not professional behavior, or any way to run a business.


 They both are unrelated.  Do you read?  I also said that I don't give them.  I also don't give them for the time it takes to copy paste the solution.


Not unrelated in the least. Working without a contract, before you even get an interview, shows a certain mindset, where you make a habit of not serving the client but pandering to them, while wasting a whole lot of your own time. Then you wonder why they walk all over you.

 

If you have to wonder if you have the skills to complete a job, to the point where you have to "try it" first, before even applying, then perhaps you're in the wrong field to begin with.

Jess C writes:

"If you have to wonder if you have the skills to complete a job, to the point where you have to "try it" first, before even applying, then perhaps you're in the wrong field to begin with."

If you can't take the time to whip up a quick trial solution in 20 lines of code for some of these job postings, you're in the wrong field to begin with.


Jess C wrote:

 

If you have to wonder if you have the skills to complete a job, to the point where you have to "try it" first, before even applying, then perhaps you're in the wrong field to begin with.


 Hi Jess. It sounds like you're not a software developer, or you would know that we are constantly learning new skills and doing things we haven't done before. I doubt if I've ever done a software job where I didn't learn something new. What's appropriate for your field is not necessarily appropriate for ours.

  1. Prashant P wrote:

"I work before, just to make sure like OP that I can deliver. " 

Yeah. It can be really embarrasing when you think you can solve that odd problem with bad audio on an opus codec problem, but you end up as stumped as the programmers who hired you.

Jess C writes:

"Well, first things first: don't work before you have a contract."

But isn't that a little like saying 'don't practice your violin until you get the gig.'  ??  

 

Jess C writes:

"Well, first things first: don't work before you have a contract."

Not necessarily. Doing a quick feasibility check is fine, especially if it takes about as long as filling out a proposal, and if it scratches an itch.

 


@Robert D wrote:

Jess C writes:

"Well, first things first: don't work before you have a contract."

Not necessarily. Doing a quick feasibility check is fine, especially if it takes about as long as filling out a proposal, and if it scratches an itch.

 


 Sure, it's "fine." If your goal is to get a lot more rejections because someone else landed the job while you were doing it without a contract.

resultsassoc
Community Member

UW flags my responses that I am neither a native-speaker nor bilingual in English. I respond anyway. If the client cannot conclude from my response that my English is native, I don't want the client.

 

The biggest irony on Upwork is for issue-based management consultants (I'm one of maybe a dozen). My greatest value is in identifying the real issue. But, the client won't consider my non-standard solution until I give that away.

 

A job post sought a high-powered management consultant full-time for three months. During the free one-hour chat exploring a fit, I identified the issue and solution. He did pay me for an hour.

 

Another post sought help in selling a business. In a one-hour session I told him how to keep it, and referred him to someone better-qualified than I at implementing the solution. I got $200, the other consultant got $10K.

 

I'm also a client, and respond personally to every applicant to every post. Why others don't do this is a mystery. The freelancer put in effort trying to help me, and a large number of my hires, or my clients' hires, are from the freelancers who didn't win the first job. I usually tell freelancers why they lost, hoping it will help them become better for when I do hire them.


@Bill H wrote:

UW flags my responses that I am neither a native-speaker nor bilingual in English. I respond anyway. If the client cannot conclude from my response that my English is native, I don't want the client.


This is easily solved by choosing the correct option for your level of English proficiency on your profile. Click the pencil icon next to the language and you'll see this window:

 

Screen Shot 2018-03-27 at 1.53.43 PM.png


@Bill H wrote:

 

 

I'm also a client, and respond personally to every applicant to every post. Why others don't do this is a mystery.

 

You must have a lot of time on your hands and not value it very highly. Back on elance, I posted a simple, roughly $200 design job and got 272 bids. At one minute per, that's more than half of a work day to respond. When I was hiring writers regularly, the numbers were even larger.

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