101–110 of 115 posts
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Lifetime, in theory. In practice, you can move the relationship off Upwork after 2 years. See https://support.upwork.com/hc/en-us/articles/360043210654-Mo...
> Taking a relationship outside of Upwork without first paying the Conversion Fee is a serious violation of the our Terms of Service. This sounds like something a pimp or a mob boss would say.
When I started out as a freelancer / independent contractor, I made the conscious decision to not use any of these platforms, out of fear for my client base or finances being tied up and taken away from me due to a simple ToS violation; the fees never sat with me either. Admittedly, it took so much longer to get a consistent base of clients (1-2 years), but it feels like a fresh of breath air over having to rely on a…
The advertisement of your service seems like the best part of Upwork though. If you already have clients, there's no point in using it.
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Has anyone paid this fee? I think when it gets to the point of dropping 12% of a freelancer's annual income to just talk outside of the platform it's simply not worth it.
If you wait two years per grandparent's post, the fee is only $1, which probably is worth it. If you want to convert sooner, it's a percentage of the income for that specific client/freelancer relationship, and not total work for the freelancer. So it is probably a more palatable amount, assuming the freelancer has multiple clients.
Why are they still afloat? Last time I checked you couldn't find any work there: - You could only find jobs if you were ready to underbid everyone else. - The disproportion between the amount of work and job-seekers was abysmal. - The platform did nothing to protect the workers from untruthful or exploitative clients (from anecdotal evidence). - Upwork attracts clients who can't find contractors any other way, mostly…
It is like it's own career. You start off being underpaid to get a reputation, and work your way up.
Weird story: I started my career on odesk (before it was called upwork) and finished 50 or so contracts before I moved 3.5k miles to my first bay area job.
Which was across the street from the odesk office.
Weird world.
How's Upwork nowadays? I tried getting some gigs there for 3+ years and got nothing. I had more success with r/forhire and Craigslist and the good thing is there's no middleman. Heck, I even spent for Freelancer Plus and I just lost my connects to people who didn't even consider to read my proposal and check my profile
I used it many years ago and it was decent, but not good. Tried again recently and it’s way worse than I remember. Pretty much every client expects you to enter a bidding war starting at $100 (and going down, obv) to build them a multiplatform app with backend and a mountain of features. What I don’t understand is who accepts these jobs? Scammers? I can’t imagine that Upwork has many happy clients.
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When I'm hiring an employee, I'm looking for you! A generalist who will apply their wealth of database experience to my problems and learn what they need for my specifics along the way. I expect to pay some on ramp time where I don't get much in return. When I'm hiring a contractor, I'm not really interested in paying them to learn, I'm interested in getting my need fulfilled as efficiently as possible. If the proble…
Makes sense, but I do not completely agree. In my 11 years of experience as a consultant, people hire me because they need a square zinc sink fixed, but as soon as they see that I know much more than that, they ask me to redo the living room wall and trim the topiary. Being an expert gets me through the door, being a generalist keeps me around. The problem is that the square sink expert filter is the biggest obstacle…
Why are they still afloat? Last time I checked you couldn't find any work there: - You could only find jobs if you were ready to underbid everyone else. - The disproportion between the amount of work and job-seekers was abysmal. - The platform did nothing to protect the workers from untruthful or exploitative clients (from anecdotal evidence). - Upwork attracts clients who can't find contractors any other way, mostly…
What is the best 'other way', though? Situation: Technical guy at a small company or nonprofit who needs _X_ more complicated technical task done. The choice is either to learn some new skill (lots of time) or find an expert. What other expert marketplaces are there that offer a substantially better environment or experience for all parties?
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The advertisement of your service seems like the best part of Upwork though. If you already have clients, there's no point in using it.
Isn't it against the ToS? If you advertise yourself as an independent entity you basically lure people outside of the platform.