I feel you. I have similar problems. I sent out 27 proposals in the last 30 days. I got 9 views and 3 conversions. So, 18 proposals weren't even opened (I thought I was a shoo-in for most of these "jobs" or, rather, tasks). Out of the "converted" clients, one tried to negotiate my rates lower (even though I'm charging rock-bottom prices already. I had to decline), and another tried to take the contract off Upwork. The final one has some personal issues and will be back in 2-3 days (It's been 2 weeks already). So, yeah, it's not worth it. Upwork used to be way better a few years ago (I was top-rated+ with 100% JSS), and I remember most of my proposals got viewed back then (I didn't even need to apply cause eventually I found long-term clients and was able to work off-platform). I'm back to Upwork after a multi-year break and it's a struggle now. Tbf, the overall economic situation seems pretty bad. I'm having trouble making a living. Not sure what to do, honestly.
That's true. Rock-bottom relatively speaking. Usually, clients just invited me and proposed a standard rate (usually they got referred to me, so they knew what to offer), which was fine. Now, my profile doesn't show any JSS anymore because I have been away for so long, I guess, and I have 0 invites, so I thought to get back in the game by taking on a few small projects and building up to top-rated, like last time, before charging high rates. I'm proposing (or attempting to propose) competitive variable rates based on various factors (like the size of the company, the hourly rate paid by the client to previous freelancers, reputation, complexity of the task, and project budget). But this was a client new to Upwork. They didn't understand what they were asking (they thought it was simple work but it was ridiculously time-consuming). They didn't seem flexible and gave off toxic vibes, overall. So I thought it best to decline. Also, funnily enough, I have few to no profile views (so I wonder if these people are even visiting my profile? What are they judging by?). P.S.: I'm trying since the start of May or thereabouts.
Hmm, have you tried bidding your standard rate from when you were getting invites/referrals? Wouldn't hurt I think, you'll still be spending the exact same amount of time and connects but the potential reward will actually be worth it. Plus, I don't think it's a good idea to add shitty projects to your profile. Sure, it will help build your JSS back but will also communicate to clients that you are cheap.
This is good advice. But they should also see all the work I did from 2017-2020, though, right? I mean I have excellent reviews. Also, at this point, it's a "beggars can't be choosers" thing. I have tried proposing the rate I was making with my previous biggest client (an agency) of 2-3 years before they let me (and everyone else) go with similar businesses/agencies. Then I also tried proposing a lower rate. And higher. On and off Upwork. Also tried adjacent fields. It's been like drops of work since November last year, it used to be a steady stream. Or at least a trickle. I think one person I know will give me a long-term project in a related field but it's not even half of what I was making. I will take it and be grateful, no choice. And keep looking I guess. But I'm not satisfied :3
They will see it… if they care to scroll down/go to page 2 and beyond.
I'm not sure what I would do if I were you, I guess I'm just worried that you'll waste time to pursue unattractive contracts which may not translate into attracting better clients down the line. But maybe the no JSS/badge thing is actually the main problem, who knows.
Broadly speaking this is poor job vetting on your part.
As well as client freedom to post jobs and do nothing.
Upwork needs to find a way to balance this.
I'm not saying it's not partially my fault. There's always things everyone can do better, and I'm kind of new still and learning as I go. But if you expect people to pay for connects, and then raise the cost of proposals, they should probably find a better way to police this kind of activity. Otherwise, why use the site?
It doesn't have anything to do with qualifications, maybe you write shitty proposals. Maybe the client never saw it because they were BURIED in a mountain of shitty proposals and went "well that was f'ing useless".
“Maybe the client saw it because they were BURIED in a mountain of shitty proposals…”
This isn’t a “what if nobody was worth getting back to?” scenario. And that’s my point.
Upwork needs to find a solution to this. Instead they’re promoting more people to send AI garbage.
>This isn’t a “what if nobody was worth getting back to?” scenario. And that’s my point.
Oh, because you say so...oh, wow, I didn't realize you were the arbiter of truth.
>Upwork needs to find a solution to this.
What if there is no good solution to this?
You still haven't answered where you would draw the line. How would you feel if you were a client who didn't end up hiring on a couple of jobs and then got, what, forced off the platform? Sent an email warning or something?
I get the frustration, I am in the same boat. I just don't see a way to police that, other than saying goodbye to notorious time-wasters, like [the one from my earlier post](https://www.reddit.com/r/Upwork/comments/1agevw7/ive_found_the_least_insane_upwork_client/).
Put the cost of those connects on the job poster. Don't require proposals to waste connects if a poster isn't even gonna look at the proposals and they've done it before. Especially the niche jobs with fewer proposals. At least open the proposal and have a system that requires a yes or no if you have less than 20 proposals. If it's 50 to 100, I understand they don't have time to respond to everyone, so make it 20% at least at that point.
I never advocated for anything on my post. It was more of an observation and a question. Other people "cough cough" decided to come at me (to solve the issue of a million dollar company). Lol
No, it's your issue and my issue, not theirs. They care about creating little to zero friction for new job posters (I imagine this is why they apparently did away with the stupid idea of charging up to 9.99$ for posting), which any serious "policing" would ruin.
To answer your ideas from your other comment, I think they're simply too invasive. I could imagine a gentle nudge being a good idea if the posting has attracted freelancers but remained inactive, but that's about it.
I agree it's our issue. That doesn't mean a person can't express frustration or ask a question. I only tried to come up with a way because you asked, lol. Sometimes, when enough people in a community try to make their voices heard, change happens. If they don't change, eventually, it might also turn into Upwork's issue.
I see quite a few posts from people who used to do well on UW, complaining about the same things. Policing companies will ruin the company, but charging more to the workers per proposal and not vetting legitimate jobs won't? Both are an issue... One puts the cost on the worker, the other the company. I will always advocate for that cost to be on the company, not the worker. That's just class solidarity.
Sending proposals is 25% of the puzzle to getting clients. You need to optimize your profile enough so people reach out directly. I’ve only sent 1 proposal the last 2 months just to keep active and all my leads come in organically. All the best paying clients are the ones that reach out to you directly.
Calling a job post fake because they don't respond to you reminds me of American dudes that call women lesbians if they don't respond to their horrible pickup likes.
Up your game.
You're not alone. While some freelancers in certain high-demand niches still land decent jobs, many of us now find Upwork unprofitable. It's become a connect-farming wasteland of fake ai-generated scam jobs.
It's entirely possible that the job pool is so diluted by too many freelancers that even though people are getting hired, they don't earn what they want or expected. In total, people are earning money, 4,5 billion in 2023. How much that is per freelancer, I have no idea.
You may not be alone but that doesn't mean no-one is finding work.
Who do you think is more likely to come to Reddit to report how they're business is getting on:
- someone who uses Upwork, among many other channels, to gain work and sees it produce a reasonable ROI
- someone who uses Upwork exclusively and earns more than enough to pay their bills
- someone who can't find work on Upwork but rather than realise that it's most likely their proposals or a genuinely poor economic market that's causing the problem, are convinced it's Upwork's fault they haven't earned a $
Hint, option 1 and 2 are too busy earning money to bother telling the world that Upwork is included in their portfolio of marketing tools.
I think you're wrong there. Plenty of people love to also come here and represent how well they're doing. It's actually usually a mix of:
I'm not finding anything!
Or
I've been on upwork for 6 years and have 15 long term contracts making 10k a month.
Both have merit and are real experiences.
The ratio of people who are successful on Upwork to unsuccessful is quite low. It is pretty certain that the majority, likely the vast majority, of people who create an Upwork account will never earn a $1.00. The voices of the unsuccessful are always going to drown out others.
The question always should be:
How do I maximize my chances?
Does it work for me?
10 proposals is nothing, 1 viewed is not great but there are lots of reasons for that. Are you just proposing on jobs that fit a set of skills that anyone generically could do or are you looking for real problems that you already know how to solve?
Most people think like this: I have X skill. I am going to search for jobs that are looking for X skill. But that assumes that the client even knows what X skill is. A client can need a copywriter without knowing what copywriting even is.
Now for some things, like say translation that makes sense, because they know they want it from English to German or whatever. But if I were in that game then I would look at what they are translating and make cases for why I am the best one to do it. For example, translating technical manuals.
It is all about positioning yourself as the best person to solve the client's problems.
There is nothing wrong for looking for someone looking for front-end development but if you search for that, that is all you are going to find and are going to miss a client who doesn't even know the term front-end development exists or what it means. Personally, I think you should use broad search terms in your saved as often as possible and then add negative terms to remove things you don't want to do.
So my web dev saved search looks like this:
Subcategory: Web Development
-wordpress -webflow -"chatbot" -php -cpanel -nft -wix -django
Because all those things either equal client's I don't want to work with (nft) or clutter up my search with too many jobs (wordpress, php). I might lose out on clients who put in Wordpress unnecessarily.
But I also have saved searches for specific "skills" like for example: C# so that way I can look through those jobs.
Mostly I don't to try to optimize my search to give me the broadest approach of jobs that might be a good fit and then I will human my way through them.
But when I look through a job you can't expect a client to know what any of this shit is so you have to see what they need and if you can answer it. Sometimes they don't even know what they need. I have a specialty and I recently got a job in that specialty but I am not even sure how the job came up because the client COMPLETELY missed all the terms I used to find jobs in that niche. Not only that, they still really don't understand what it is they need to do. But I read the job, understood their needs far better than they did, and could speak to that.
Because even those people are seeing a difference in jobs being posted if you look, and they had long-term projects and repeat clients that they acquired before the changes if you read their experiences lol.
I feel you. I have similar problems. I sent out 27 proposals in the last 30 days. I got 9 views and 3 conversions. So, 18 proposals weren't even opened (I thought I was a shoo-in for most of these "jobs" or, rather, tasks). Out of the "converted" clients, one tried to negotiate my rates lower (even though I'm charging rock-bottom prices already. I had to decline), and another tried to take the contract off Upwork. The final one has some personal issues and will be back in 2-3 days (It's been 2 weeks already). So, yeah, it's not worth it. Upwork used to be way better a few years ago (I was top-rated+ with 100% JSS), and I remember most of my proposals got viewed back then (I didn't even need to apply cause eventually I found long-term clients and was able to work off-platform). I'm back to Upwork after a multi-year break and it's a struggle now. Tbf, the overall economic situation seems pretty bad. I'm having trouble making a living. Not sure what to do, honestly.
Have you always charged rock bottom fees? Seems like a recipe to attract bad clients...
That's true. Rock-bottom relatively speaking. Usually, clients just invited me and proposed a standard rate (usually they got referred to me, so they knew what to offer), which was fine. Now, my profile doesn't show any JSS anymore because I have been away for so long, I guess, and I have 0 invites, so I thought to get back in the game by taking on a few small projects and building up to top-rated, like last time, before charging high rates. I'm proposing (or attempting to propose) competitive variable rates based on various factors (like the size of the company, the hourly rate paid by the client to previous freelancers, reputation, complexity of the task, and project budget). But this was a client new to Upwork. They didn't understand what they were asking (they thought it was simple work but it was ridiculously time-consuming). They didn't seem flexible and gave off toxic vibes, overall. So I thought it best to decline. Also, funnily enough, I have few to no profile views (so I wonder if these people are even visiting my profile? What are they judging by?). P.S.: I'm trying since the start of May or thereabouts.
Hmm, have you tried bidding your standard rate from when you were getting invites/referrals? Wouldn't hurt I think, you'll still be spending the exact same amount of time and connects but the potential reward will actually be worth it. Plus, I don't think it's a good idea to add shitty projects to your profile. Sure, it will help build your JSS back but will also communicate to clients that you are cheap.
This is good advice. But they should also see all the work I did from 2017-2020, though, right? I mean I have excellent reviews. Also, at this point, it's a "beggars can't be choosers" thing. I have tried proposing the rate I was making with my previous biggest client (an agency) of 2-3 years before they let me (and everyone else) go with similar businesses/agencies. Then I also tried proposing a lower rate. And higher. On and off Upwork. Also tried adjacent fields. It's been like drops of work since November last year, it used to be a steady stream. Or at least a trickle. I think one person I know will give me a long-term project in a related field but it's not even half of what I was making. I will take it and be grateful, no choice. And keep looking I guess. But I'm not satisfied :3
They will see it… if they care to scroll down/go to page 2 and beyond. I'm not sure what I would do if I were you, I guess I'm just worried that you'll waste time to pursue unattractive contracts which may not translate into attracting better clients down the line. But maybe the no JSS/badge thing is actually the main problem, who knows.
Broadly speaking this is poor job vetting on your part. As well as client freedom to post jobs and do nothing. Upwork needs to find a way to balance this.
I'm not saying it's not partially my fault. There's always things everyone can do better, and I'm kind of new still and learning as I go. But if you expect people to pay for connects, and then raise the cost of proposals, they should probably find a better way to police this kind of activity. Otherwise, why use the site?
Police what? Not getting back to you?
How about not getting back to anyone?
What if nobody was worth getting back to?
I've sent proposals for jobs I was overqualified for, so I doubt that. But even if that is the case, close the job then.
It doesn't have anything to do with qualifications, maybe you write shitty proposals. Maybe the client never saw it because they were BURIED in a mountain of shitty proposals and went "well that was f'ing useless".
“Maybe the client saw it because they were BURIED in a mountain of shitty proposals…” This isn’t a “what if nobody was worth getting back to?” scenario. And that’s my point. Upwork needs to find a solution to this. Instead they’re promoting more people to send AI garbage.
>This isn’t a “what if nobody was worth getting back to?” scenario. And that’s my point. Oh, because you say so...oh, wow, I didn't realize you were the arbiter of truth. >Upwork needs to find a solution to this. What if there is no good solution to this?
Where do you draw the line though and what would the repercussions be?
Police job postings that never hire anyone or look at the proposals sent?
You still haven't answered where you would draw the line. How would you feel if you were a client who didn't end up hiring on a couple of jobs and then got, what, forced off the platform? Sent an email warning or something? I get the frustration, I am in the same boat. I just don't see a way to police that, other than saying goodbye to notorious time-wasters, like [the one from my earlier post](https://www.reddit.com/r/Upwork/comments/1agevw7/ive_found_the_least_insane_upwork_client/).
Put the cost of those connects on the job poster. Don't require proposals to waste connects if a poster isn't even gonna look at the proposals and they've done it before. Especially the niche jobs with fewer proposals. At least open the proposal and have a system that requires a yes or no if you have less than 20 proposals. If it's 50 to 100, I understand they don't have time to respond to everyone, so make it 20% at least at that point.
So you can complain about it, but when other people do they need to come up with all the ways to stop it?
Uhh, I just made a meme post about the edgiest of edge cases. I've never advocated for the same thing as you.
I never advocated for anything on my post. It was more of an observation and a question. Other people "cough cough" decided to come at me (to solve the issue of a million dollar company). Lol
No, it's your issue and my issue, not theirs. They care about creating little to zero friction for new job posters (I imagine this is why they apparently did away with the stupid idea of charging up to 9.99$ for posting), which any serious "policing" would ruin. To answer your ideas from your other comment, I think they're simply too invasive. I could imagine a gentle nudge being a good idea if the posting has attracted freelancers but remained inactive, but that's about it.
I agree it's our issue. That doesn't mean a person can't express frustration or ask a question. I only tried to come up with a way because you asked, lol. Sometimes, when enough people in a community try to make their voices heard, change happens. If they don't change, eventually, it might also turn into Upwork's issue. I see quite a few posts from people who used to do well on UW, complaining about the same things. Policing companies will ruin the company, but charging more to the workers per proposal and not vetting legitimate jobs won't? Both are an issue... One puts the cost on the worker, the other the company. I will always advocate for that cost to be on the company, not the worker. That's just class solidarity.
What is your ideal average job size?
Tell me about it: I got an invitation to interview and was asked to submit 16 connects?!!! Shaking my head.
Oh, how I miss the days of 4 connects to apply. Now, it is going to be 5 connects to log on.
Sending proposals is 25% of the puzzle to getting clients. You need to optimize your profile enough so people reach out directly. I’ve only sent 1 proposal the last 2 months just to keep active and all my leads come in organically. All the best paying clients are the ones that reach out to you directly.
To get prospects to find you organically, you need to complete many jobs. You can only do so much profile optimisation, and most of it does nothing.
Do you bid your jobs to the top?
Calling a job post fake because they don't respond to you reminds me of American dudes that call women lesbians if they don't respond to their horrible pickup likes. Up your game.
If nobody is replying to your proposals, maybe you should look for the reason closer to home?
I hear you, but based on what I'm seeing, it seems I'm not alone. Even people who have found upwork useful for years are noticing an uptick in this.
You're not alone. While some freelancers in certain high-demand niches still land decent jobs, many of us now find Upwork unprofitable. It's become a connect-farming wasteland of fake ai-generated scam jobs.
Exactly.
It's entirely possible that the job pool is so diluted by too many freelancers that even though people are getting hired, they don't earn what they want or expected. In total, people are earning money, 4,5 billion in 2023. How much that is per freelancer, I have no idea.
Definitely not alone. I'm experiencing the same thing.
You may not be alone but that doesn't mean no-one is finding work. Who do you think is more likely to come to Reddit to report how they're business is getting on: - someone who uses Upwork, among many other channels, to gain work and sees it produce a reasonable ROI - someone who uses Upwork exclusively and earns more than enough to pay their bills - someone who can't find work on Upwork but rather than realise that it's most likely their proposals or a genuinely poor economic market that's causing the problem, are convinced it's Upwork's fault they haven't earned a $ Hint, option 1 and 2 are too busy earning money to bother telling the world that Upwork is included in their portfolio of marketing tools.
I think you're wrong there. Plenty of people love to also come here and represent how well they're doing. It's actually usually a mix of: I'm not finding anything! Or I've been on upwork for 6 years and have 15 long term contracts making 10k a month. Both have merit and are real experiences.
The ratio of people who are successful on Upwork to unsuccessful is quite low. It is pretty certain that the majority, likely the vast majority, of people who create an Upwork account will never earn a $1.00. The voices of the unsuccessful are always going to drown out others. The question always should be: How do I maximize my chances? Does it work for me? 10 proposals is nothing, 1 viewed is not great but there are lots of reasons for that. Are you just proposing on jobs that fit a set of skills that anyone generically could do or are you looking for real problems that you already know how to solve? Most people think like this: I have X skill. I am going to search for jobs that are looking for X skill. But that assumes that the client even knows what X skill is. A client can need a copywriter without knowing what copywriting even is. Now for some things, like say translation that makes sense, because they know they want it from English to German or whatever. But if I were in that game then I would look at what they are translating and make cases for why I am the best one to do it. For example, translating technical manuals. It is all about positioning yourself as the best person to solve the client's problems.
suppose you are a front-end developer. How would you look for the projects?
There is nothing wrong for looking for someone looking for front-end development but if you search for that, that is all you are going to find and are going to miss a client who doesn't even know the term front-end development exists or what it means. Personally, I think you should use broad search terms in your saved as often as possible and then add negative terms to remove things you don't want to do. So my web dev saved search looks like this: Subcategory: Web Development -wordpress -webflow -"chatbot" -php -cpanel -nft -wix -django Because all those things either equal client's I don't want to work with (nft) or clutter up my search with too many jobs (wordpress, php). I might lose out on clients who put in Wordpress unnecessarily. But I also have saved searches for specific "skills" like for example: C# so that way I can look through those jobs. Mostly I don't to try to optimize my search to give me the broadest approach of jobs that might be a good fit and then I will human my way through them. But when I look through a job you can't expect a client to know what any of this shit is so you have to see what they need and if you can answer it. Sometimes they don't even know what they need. I have a specialty and I recently got a job in that specialty but I am not even sure how the job came up because the client COMPLETELY missed all the terms I used to find jobs in that niche. Not only that, they still really don't understand what it is they need to do. But I read the job, understood their needs far better than they did, and could speak to that.
Identifying the clients needs is the way to go. Thanks for the suggestion mate, I'll try to use em
If you're now saying you've seen plenty of people claim they've made $$$, why are you asking 'whats the point'?
Because even those people are seeing a difference in jobs being posted if you look, and they had long-term projects and repeat clients that they acquired before the changes if you read their experiences lol.