Upwork getting started (my experience)

[slager889]

From what I gathered, there's a lot of fake jobs, most probably for people to boost their profile. When submitting for a job, make sure the poster is verified or has awarded different jobs to different people in the past.
There are many many jobs that you won't get a reply for no matter how good you reply.

Very good point. One of the skills new Upwork users need to learn is how to spot the scammers and other morons posting jobs. Best bet is to only apply to jobs posted by people who have already spent money on the site. The more money they have spent, the more likely they are to look at your application. Best clients in my experience are those who have spent at least 10k. These people mean business. They know what they want and they are experienced enough to appreciate a professional freelancer.

 

[Amirab]

Any tips to get appvoed?

There is one on here by @anthokaz I think, search a lil you should find it.

 

[Alex1759]

What is the speciality that pays so well?

 

[Bob M]

good, thank for telling

 

[dakz0r]

UPDATE from today: signed for 7-8 more jobs, my connects are dropping really fast.
Still no new work sadly... I am refreshing every 10mins, even sending certain examples of graphic to all jobs that i am applying.
Was searching A LOT on the web and here about tips, but no results so far. On a side note - every apply is not a copy - paste, i am actually writing every single one depends on niche and needs.

 

[Manipulative]

Been working on my freelancer profiles to beef up the reviews and have yet to make the transition to upwork knowing full well the difficulty for newbies on their platform when compared to others. So this was a good motivator to pull the trigger sooner. Nice post mate.

 

[slager889]

Ive made a fortune on Upwork in the last one year. Don't treat this as a replacement for your job, but a full time business, and you will make fortunes too. All the best budd.

Guessing you've formed a team you outsource to. That's my next step since I currently treat Upwork as my job since freelancing has always been my job.

 

[Directionx]

Thanks for sharing

 

[dakz0r]

BIG UPDATE: Got a job with testing a game for a 5$ - i know, it's not a big deal, but hey you need to start from somewhere. Guy who posted a job was very friendly and before he went afk for 2 hrs he payed me a milestone for finishing few tasks in game.

I am keeping an eye for "no experience needed" jobs, hopefully more will show up soon. Signed up for 3-4 more in last 2 hours.

 

[stepdub]

BIG UPDATE: Got a job with testing a game for a 5$ - i know, it's not a big deal, but hey you need to start from somewhere. Guy who posted a job was very friendly and before he went afk for 2 hrs he payed me a milestone for finishing few tasks in game.

I am keeping an eye for "no experience needed" jobs, hopefully more will show up soon. Signed up for 3-4 more in last 2 hours.

You're on the right track budd. See the magic, how it will scale in a few weeks. Now that you've got some traction, don't lose it.

 

[dakz0r]

You're on the right track budd. See the magic, how it will scale in a few weeks. Now that you've got some traction, don't lose it.

Thanks mate! I will keep bidding and watching for more jobs. Refreshing it every hour or so I believe that more jobs will come really soon. I am happy that i got amazing reviews from previous jobs, and looking forward to new ones.

I hope that people will recognize honest and hard work from my side.

 

[Lets Make it]

Keep it up dude,
things will get easier by time and this will help out even after the pandemic

 

[TeslaFan]

The secret when you apply is to think like the scumbag cheap employer and write the sales copy so they want it. Pretend you are in a bar with a pretty girl, what do you tell her in order to take her to your flat? It's the same thing. Took me a while to figure it out. Tons of job on freelancing sites are from people who want something for cheap, and that is what you are selling. I can get that sold what i"m trying to learn now is to upsell them into something more expensive, but my advice to you is get some deals closed even cheap then you can improve later. Good luck.

 

[nobodysHero]

BIG UPDATE: Got a job with testing a game for a 5$ - i know, it's not a big deal, but hey you need to start from somewhere. Guy who posted a job was very friendly and before he went afk for 2 hrs he payed me a milestone for finishing few tasks in game.

I am keeping an eye for "no experience needed" jobs, hopefully more will show up soon. Signed up for 3-4 more in last 2 hours.

Awesome, don't give up, I would say first 5 jobs has to be cheap, more like charity kinda thing. Then start building up your rates slowly.

 

[dakz0r]

Awesome, don't give up, I would say first 5 jobs has to be cheap, more like charity kinda thing. Then start building up your rates slowly.

Yeah, I am thinking the same way to be honest.

Keep it up dude,
things will get easier by time and this will help out even after the pandemic

Thanks for the support mate, I really hope that you are right!

So current UPDATE I got an interview from a trustworthy person, he needs some simple tasks, google sheets copy/paste, etc... Waiting for his response from last night and hopefully, I will get a job.
From my Upwork profile update - did a video interview with staff members to verify my account. + added google certification and successfully finished Upwork test. So my profile will be 100% tonight most probably which is a great thing.

 

[dheer]

Ive made a fortune on Upwork in the last one year. Don't treat this as a replacement for your job, but a full time business, and you will make fortunes too. All the best budd.

Tried to do that but it's really tough to find good bidders. I have hired full time 4 bidders and at a very good salary and they couldn't bring$1k business a month. I have heard that people fake their reviews to get too rates and it brings more jobs.

 

[stepdub]

Tried to do that but it's really tough to find good bidders. I have hired full time 4 bidders and at a very good salary and they couldn't bring$1k business a month. I have heard that people fake their reviews to get too rates and it brings more jobs.

Yes, getting fake reviews to boost your profile is a common practice and super helpful. You can buy them on the BHW marketplace.

When hiring full time bidders, make sure you pay them an incentive besides the fixed salary. I used to pay salary + an incentive for each bid that gets a response + an incentive for every job won.

The bidders role is only to bid at scale and get responses. Once a prospect replies, you need to close the client yourself. You can't expect closing clients from your bidders.

 

[dheer]

Yes, getting fake reviews to boost your profile is a common practice and super helpful. You can buy them on the BHW marketplace.

When hiring full time bidders, make sure you pay them an incentive besides the fixed salary. I used to pay salary + an incentive for each bid that gets a response + an incentive for every job won.

The bidders role is only to bid at scale and get responses. Once a prospect replies, you need to close the client yourself. You can't expect closing clients from your bidders.

I believe that is where I stuck. I tried to get client converted by them as well. My model of salary was also not incentive based but a fixed salary. Over the past few years I have learned that if you want to hire a sales person you must have inventives but the irony is here in India even if you do this it is extremely tough to get good bidders as they will keep getting their pay checks monthly without any inventives and in the end we got to fire. I have not also used the fake reviews thing too which I will try now. I'm quite busy with other side of direct business but it amazes me when I see many companies where we have headquarters having millions of dollars of business on Upwork.

I have a perfect setup as well all the required resources but getting business from Upwork is still a nightmare.

 

[stepdub]

I believe that is where I stuck. I tried to get client converted by them as well. My model of salary was also not incentive based but a fixed salary. Over the past few years I have learned that if you want to hire a sales person you must have inventives but the irony is here in India even if you do this it is extremely tough to get good bidders as they will keep getting their pay checks monthly without any inventives and in the end we got to fire. I have not also used the fake reviews thing too which I will try now. I'm quite busy with other side of direct business but it amazes me when I see many companies where we have headquarters having millions of dollars of business on Upwork.

I have a perfect setup as well all the required resources but getting business from Upwork is still a nightmare.

I hired a bidder for INR 12,000. And I set up this incentive structure:
INR 100 for every reply they get on their bid
INR 1000 for every job that is closed successfully - even though I was the one closing the clients, I was still paying INR 1000 to the bidder, so that she is motivated. This way everyone gets to eat well and we take care of each other

She averages INR 30,000 to 50,000 per month (including incentives), for just 2 hours of bidding per day (there aren't many jobs posted on Upwork in my niche).

What do you do on Upwork?

 

[dakz0r]

I hired a bidder for INR 12,000. And I set up this incentive structure:
INR 100 for every reply they get on their bid
INR 1000 for every job that is closed successfully - even though I was the one closing the clients, I was still paying INR 1000 to the bidder, so that she is motivated. This way everyone gets to eat well and we take care of each other

She averages INR 30,000 to 50,000 per month (including incentives), for just 2 hours of bidding per day (there aren't many jobs posted on Upwork in my niche).

What do you do on Upwork?

Hmm, that is really interesting concept mate... I never considered giving someone else to write bids for me. I was reading A LOT of examples, but most of the articles that I found on google were click baits or something obnoxious. Still struggling to get actual advice for bids.