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Guidance to Help New Talent Craft Cover Letters

MichaelJ
Community Manager

A couple of weeks ago, we began testing changes to the proposal submission page. We recognize that our marketplace has a range of experience levels and, after receiving feedback that some guidance around proposals would be appreciated, wanted to ensure we were able to offer support. As a way to help those who struggle with this step, we’re testing the addition of guidance around the cover letter.

 

Originally, we tested dividing the Cover Letter prompt into three separate sections. That test has ended.

 

After receiving feedback, we are now testing guidance and examples to accompany a single Cover Letter entry field as seen in the image below:

cover letter new.png

 

We understand that freelancers who are experienced on the platform may not find this guidance to be helpful. As part of this test, we are collecting both qualitative and quantitative data. We’re grateful for the feedback that has been shared in the discussion thread and we encourage you to continue sharing your experiences.

 

Below, our product team responded to the most common questions we’ve seen so far.

 

Is this still a test? Was it turned off completely or is it coming back?

The test was temporarily paused on February 10th due to feedback we received from the Community. Based on this feedback as well as initial findings, changes were made to the test.

 

Why did you decide to change the cover letter format? 

When our talent lands on the Submit Proposal page as it was, we offered no guidance on what a Cover Letter is or what information clients expect talent to provide. To better support new talent, we are testing the addition of guidance around the cover letter as well as providing an easier way to construct a cover letter.

 

The feedback about this in the discussion thread is overwhelmingly negative. Upwork, are you listening?

We are listening and grateful for the thoughts being shared! We have shared many pieces of feedback with the product team that will factor into post-test discussions. This includes, but is not limited to, the following most common pieces of feedback:

  • Some experienced talent feel that the suggested guidelines are problematic. 
  • Some experienced professionals would like the option to opt out of this experience.

The following two most common pieces of feedback have been addressed with this latest test:

  • The first field has a character limitation that prevents talent from writing their whole cover letter in one go as they’re used to.
  • Some talent are concerned that formulaic submissions will be discouraging to clients.

As this is a test, the new experience will not be visible to all users. Please continue to share feedback and ask questions in the Community discussion thread.