Applying for jobs you can't actually do.
I posted a project yesterday. Within minutes I received 23 applicants. None of these were suitable. In fact, I'd go as far as to say they were all dreadful. None had the required skill, competence or equipment to do the job. Some were incredibly pushy. When declined with a reason they wanted to start again, even demanding to do so.
Can you please stop people from applying for jobs outside of their skill set? Half these people couldn't even string a sentence together, let alone carry out a job which a TOP CERT on here expects when posting. The calibre of 'freelancers' is awful.
This is why this site is going downhill rapidly. You have allowed utter dross to this site and we are all suffering. If you want a thriving business, please deal with these issues.
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I've raised a ticket on it to customer support as it's not only a complete waste of buyers' time, but extremely detrimental to the site.
Something needs to be done to stop people without the necessary skills - and this is evident from their proposals and profile - from applying. I had one creditworthy applicant, who of course got the job by default, but the poor calibre shown by other applicants was a real eye opener. Absolutely terrible, as were people's manners when declined.
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Massively I am already considering other options as I am fed up of Indians telling me they are based in the Uk when it states different, providing no portfolios and using stock images as profile pictures. It seems like these people just sign up to canva and next minute they are experts. There should be a rule if you get 5 rejection for spam content then the account t should be suspended etc this would prevent this from occurring. I am also noticing that there seems to be people that have multiple accounts
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I don't think AI is doing this on its own, because this sort of thing has been going on for a long time. There is a section of the population who seem to think you can earn lots of money without actually knowing anything or being particularly good at anything. Edit an image in Photoshop and you are a graphic designer. Copy and paste text into translation software and you are a translator, etc. Added to this, there seems to be a feeling that it is possible to exploit the differences in pay and cost of living between different countries. PPH is attracting people like this and now we are swamped.
We have the added problem that jobs can be sub contracted. I used to look at Upwork regularly but I got fed up with seeing projects posted for $5 or hourly rates of $1 an hour. -
There is that problem too, Simon, but AI does have a lot to answer for here.
I posted a transcription job with an audio file so people could listen to it. I'm a professional transcriber myself, Pitman trained to type at around 90wpm, and I've been doing this for more than 30 years. The file I posted for applicants to listen to would have taken me around an hour to type up, so I guess around two hours maximum for others.
Within seconds I received the whole transcript back from a potential applicant! Proof that he'd run it through AI. Even more proof was the lack of paragraphing, accuracy and failure to attribute speech to each interviewee (which I had asked for). He seemed surprised when I told him the transcript was not to standard.
At this point I had received 15 other candidates telling me how they could do this. All were graphic designers, data entry experts or programmers. None were in GB. When I asked how they would do this task, all mentioned Otter Transcription Software - which my first applicant had used and had not taken the time to edit or wait till I actually awarded the project!
I've raised a ticket with PPH on this because I firmly believe this is driving away potential buyers. This has been a reputable freelancing site for many years, but now the calibre is generally so poor that you can't blame buyers for keeping literacy projects in house.
Have you noticed how many freelancers on this site can translate between any language, yet cannot string a sentence together accurately? No one can translate between every language. It's run through software, which you can train an infant school child to do. PPH have acknowledged my ticket, but not returned with a solution.
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The drivel I got for a social media job was incredible. I asked for UK-based freelancers and 90% were foreign quoting up to £700 to manage one platform for a month. They had zero portfolio or they used Canva templates. Some even lied about where they were from or used images of women hoping to lure you in.
No doubt this is a major turnoff for people (I have sourced great candidates from LinkedIn). As it is a UK site the majority of freelancers (80% at least should be from the UK and the rest should be top talent from across the world). I am not knocking international freelancers but these new unskilled people are destroying the site. You only have to look at the desperation and the fact they can't command basic freelancing skills. They copy offers (I have had over 100 copies in 6 months) and frankly make the site look unprofessional.
If they want to attract newly-skilled freelancers then perhaps PPH should target students from UK universities. But a must for this site to survive is to ban new applications from abroad.
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And three weeks on - this is the reply I have received from PPH in an email...
We apologise for our delayed reply, unfortunately we have been receiving an unprecedented amount of requests which has resulted in delays.
Due to an administrative error, we can’t currently access your customer service ticket. If you are still facing the same issue, please create a new ticket so that we can assist you accordingly.
Please accept our sincere apologies and thank you for your patience and understanding.
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If they can't access my customer service ticket, how did they know I have one!!
Blind eye, it's called. Saddened to realise that yes, you're quite correct, Adam. They just do not want to see this site improved. There are a lot of Top Cert freelancers here with business acumen to call upon - it's like a networking group at your fingertips, but no, ostrich syndrome applies - bury head in sand and ignore. We can no longer rely on PPH. We have to do our own marketing to survive now.
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Ok, what I don't understand is why you would let a site disappear in the way that it is? It has been thriving for over a decade and has always worked well for us freelancers, so what is the change? I understand that costs have increased but there was always enough work on the platform to go around and there is no way that orders/projects have just disappeared for no reason. I am stumped as to what is happening, I really am because as far as i was concerned, this site had it all and was working very well.
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I am 50% down on revenue this year but increased significantly on the ranking. I assume the economy has been a major issue and the younger self-employed are using their personal brand to network and gain work on LinkedIn. Peopleperhour doesn’t attract good calibre freelancers anymore to signup. Without a consistent and good pool of freelancers then you wont get people coming to the site. Likewise they have no support and it seems to be run from a bedroom now with a few staff where everything is outsourced.
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I am also the same on revenue. That is mainly down to losing two large external clients but still, my orders are down on PPH too.
The thing is, I guess there have always been poor freelancers below us good ones but where have all the good ones gone? If the work dries up then the freelancers are going to disappear which is what has happened but even during Covid when everything stopped, I actually picked up more work. I understand that the economy is on its knees but even then, PPH has provided a simple, yet effective way of finding freelancers. I just find it all very odd and something just doesn't add up. The drop in support, the drop in orders, the lack of freelancers, the lack of projects, it's as though everything has come at once.
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I am lost on why it has just dropped. I just dont understand how they can't get UK freelancers on the site or why there is no support or even any decent marketing of active freelancers.
I still can't believe they just up the price of promoting offers by 50% for no initial benefits and failed to communicate it.
I am still in the top 20 and I won't make the 7-day clearing time this month, putting even greater pressure on cashflow. It is very alarming.
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I had some feedback from a client who I managed to get a job from completely randomly.
They had about 70 applicants showing up in the inbox within an hour, all unsuitable, I was really lucky I got that job.
The client said that they had tried this site in the past and when they got so many applicants they just cancelled the job.
It would be really easy for PPH to implement geofencing for buyers so that they could exclude certain areas.
The real freelancers are still there on PPH (although a lot have given up).
I'm a UK based designer with over 20 years experience - I know my job - but when my bid is mixed up with 70 other applicants, most from India, most unsuitable, I just can't get noticed.
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Wouldn’t matter.I spoke with PeoplePerHour over my experience with a screenshot to show the calibre but now these people are now using VPN and claiming they are from other countries (US is popular. No identity check done on signup).
Personally 5 reported spam bids should lead to a week of suspension but again no staff to implement and like you buyer I have just used another source.
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I'm finding now that when a suitable project is posted, there are so many applicants it is not worth submitting a proposal. The limit for me is around 20, and once there are that many bids before me, I will leave it. The kind of jobs I do have that many bids within 15 to 20 minutes. I used to find that I would submit a proposal for a project and the buyer would view my profile and frequently reply quite quickly. If I was selective about where I applied I could get awarded a project every 3 or 4 proposals. Now I'm finding I don't get a view on my profile and I don't get a reply. There are also fewer projects to bid on.
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This is exactly what I do Simon. If a proposal has more than 20-30, then my bid will just get lost in all that.
By the time the buyer has had 30 proposals in their inbox, they will have either cancelled the project or awarded it already.
I also see jobs from buyers that have so little information in them you wouldn't want to waste your bid and couldn't even seriously bid on them without more info. This bids have routinely 10+ bids on them already.
There's something just not right going on on this website, it doesn't benefit serious buyers or serious freelancers.
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The buyers with little information for their projects usually cancel them. They're fakes, spam, scammers, call them what you will. They gauge reaction with a deliberately vague project and then when someone enquires, they mention the word 'telegram' because they know if they put that in the original brief we will not bid.
There a couple of factors at play as to why this site isn't working.
A. Lack of support. Customer support here is dreadful. The whole point of freelancing is to help a client get a job done quickly. If there's an issue who wants to wait 10 days for a copy and paste answer.
B. A market flooded with poor calibre freelancers, and I use that word very loosely. The numbers should be limited. Buyers just do not want to receive replies which are badly spelt, show no proactivity or even skill set to carry out the project. Plus, a lot of these applicants are rude when declined. It's not a particularly positive place to work from.
C. AI has taken a toll on transcription and written projects. If you post for a written job and ask for samples, you'll get a Chat GPT generated response, which someone wants you to pay £50 to £100 for.
My private work has picked up massively this week. Earnt £700. I'd be climbing the leaderboard ranks with that, which tells me this site doesn't generate much for even the top earners now.
Moral of the story - do not place all your eggs in one basket!
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