Feedback
PPH just feels like it's sliding into the wild west at the moment. The quality control of new project postings is terrible. There's no companies asking for work - just individuals wanting something done 'on the cheap'. The going rate is sliding as too many people are willing to work for next to nothing. There's people just using the site as a jobs board. And then there's teams of people working under the guise of an individual profile, bidding on anything and everything. Quality freelancers will surely jump ship if this continues any longer. We simply can't compete with somebody willing to work a full day for a 1 hour fee. You've sacrificed quality for quantity and it shows. I don't wish to be harsh, just my own feedback based on how I see it :)
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Official comment
Thank you for your feedback Andy, we appreciate it and understand your frustration. We'd like to ensure you that we are doing all we can to monitor the site to make sure posts and profiles are as high quality as possible. However, with the volume of offers and profiles we received, it is inevitable that some slip through the net. This being said, there is always room for improvement and we are continuously assessing how to improve this process and will make it an even higher priority moving forward.
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Totally agree. Too many poor so-called broken English freelancers that promise the world for $10 and devalue the site. I am having to continually ask for offers to be removed as they copy and paste word to word what I do. Amazing how many fake portfolios, graphic design experts who just use canva or foreign sellers who use celebrity photos or models there are.
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I've found it has just got steadily worse over the last few years. I don't do offers and have to bid on projects and there are very few that I would consider as proper businesses trying to outsource a real project with a real budget. Most of them set fixed budgets and it is painful to read them when I see how much work is required for such a low budget. There was one for £6 recently that would probably have taken a couple of hours and there is no shortage of people bidding. Why do they even allow £6 projects? There is £2.50 in fees to come out of that. If you are VAT rated it is £5 + VAT and you get £2.50 take home pay. That project doesn't belong on the same platform as professional commercial work that is outsourced to a skilled freelancer.
It isn't just the quality of the jobs that has gone, the quantity has gone as well and any decent projects have so many bidders it is getting very difficult to win anything. The only new work I've had in the last few months has come from direct enquiries. The feedback I get from the better clients is that they don't want to be flooded with a huge number of low quality applications if they post a project.
If you look back to forum posts from a few years ago PPH were warned that if they didn't do something about the quality on the platform this is what would happen. -
Agreed. Here's another eye-opener from today. A job poster wants somebody to attend an event in London to talk to attendees and be their press officer for the day. This person needs a freelancer urgently, giving only 5 hours notice.
A Pakistan-based freelancer has bid on the job, despite that country being on the UK's 'red list' for travel. There's around 5 more bids from similar accounts. They clearly cannot read. Either that or it's their policy to bid on every single job post. My guess: a team. One person bids on everything and the team work on whatever they get.
The job is way underpriced as well for the task, even with a UK native poster. It's ridiculous. This proves what we've been saying but zero action is taken on quality.
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You will notice as well that a lot of bids go in within a minute or two of a job being posted. This is even for projects that have a detailed description and file attachments. Some people must be bidding with a bot or pasting standard text without reading the job description first.
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Quality is abysmal. I've had to cancel projects owing to not having received one bid that shows promise. People do not read the job briefs. They reply with a general 'Send me this. I work now' type of bid.
The number of projects on the boards has today dipped under 4000. Not so long back it was hovering at the 9000 mark.
There are plenty of entrepreneurs on this site trying to make a living. PPH needs to contact them and bid to learn some new business models and techniques. You have to look after your clients, otherwise they'll disappear and bring the whole thing down for everyone. They don't seem to realise this and / or they don't wish to listen.
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