Discrimination by nationality
Answered
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Official comment
Hi all,
first of all thank you for your opinions.
From our side I have to say this:
It is our job to provide to users every tool they need to make the right decision. How they will make this decision however is completely up to them.I feel that by removing the flag is like adding an extra layer of complexity and "shadow", instead of making things more clear. We are here to help, not to obstruct.
Hope this clears things a bit.
Regards,
Haris
Product Manager @ PeoplePerHour
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I have taken the time to check this problem and almost all clients do the same thing.
Why should it matter where we were born, or where we live as long as we can provide quality work?? Seriously, this is masked nationality based discrimination!
Out of five UK clients, four hired UK freelancers in 95% of the time. What would anyone call that? I call it discrimination. I really doubt that from all the received proposals, only those from UK freelancers were worthy of being awarded that project. And that is why I strongly believe our nationalities shouldn't be displayed on our profiles. -
As a buyer and a TOPCert seller, I recently requested a job on the pph board and specified for UK buyers only. The reasons are due to time difference, language, experience and to prevent get twenty+ unqualified individuals quoting even though they still do with fake portfolio profiles. Moreover, business costs for the freelancer will be different depending on the country, so it is right to state location.
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I am not talking about that type of project you had Adam. And not about mentioning that you want UK based people.
But about those that do not mention anything about nationality, and need VA's for example. An assistant who needs to deal with emails, data entry, posting ads, writing articles and so on. So nothing that would involve any costs for the freelancer.
Time zone- For example I'm in France. There is a one hour time difference. Other European countries have a 2 hour time difference. So no reason to disqualify them, especially for projects that do not involve a schedule.
Language- as long as a proposal is written grammatically correct, and the freelancer's profile has no spelling mistakes, things should be fine. Trust me, I've seen aaaa loooot of English natives that made terrible grammar mistakes so...
Experience- what does experience have to do with nationality? Calls are calls, office work is office work, Web design is Web design etcetc.
Only a few things might be different, but those are related to the customer's requirements. Such as using a certain software and so on.For example, I applied for a project that involved web research to make a guide with UK touristic places.
I applied, and then I took a look at the freelancers which that client hired before... Guess what? 97% UK ones got his projects, although he NEVER mentioned he wants only British people.
I realized I stood no chance to get it. Although I always, always, aaalways write my proposals on the spot. I told him how much I love that project, because I truly did love what it involved. And I also sent a small sample I did right then, on the spot, to show him I was extremely interested. I think it was the first time since I've signed up with pph, when I kept looking at the screen, and refreshed it for about half an hour hoping I'll be awarded that project. But nothing happened.
And it was not the only time when I wrote such a proposal.
But still, people prefer those that use copy pasted proposals filled with pompous words, and especially prefer those that have a certain nationality even if they don't say it... -
Some people only want people to work on their projects from their own country due to timezone differences language abilities and such.
This is the way life is and as a business owner this makes complete sense.
I would not want to hire someone for a job and find out afterwards he is in australia and that i will need to stay up all night just to communicate with him.
If PPH were to put in a policy of hiding flags and countries i will leave this site as will most others to a website where i can display my country and flag.
PPH will loose a lot of business if they were to hide flags and countries.
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Karl I believe it would be enough for someone to mention a time zone and that they require good English.
But to mention a certain country to me it is discrimination and that's that. And I know that because even when I was looking for a job in London everyone was looking for "UK experience". Your experience didn't matter one bit.
But guess what, when I did get a job, my contract was for one month and the employer loved my work so much that I stayed for another 4 months there. And it would have kept going if i didn't have to move to France. So you see, work is work and it doesn't matter where you come from as long as you have certain abilities and knowledge.
I bet you any day that if one of those people that are stuck on "UK" would have to choose between two freelancers, both having the same knowledge, one from another country and one from UK, the client would still go with the UK one. -
Next topic will be "Why male clients are always awarding tasks to beauty girls (or to accounts with photo of such girls)?" :)
Answer is: simple because.
You not able to influence to decisions of other people :)
And it's not a discrimination, nope.Flags does not matter. Only your skills is matter :)
Happiness to everyone! :)
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So, you only the one who's able to see the truth, that's right?
Greta?! Is it you? :)
Now seriously:
I'm working here on PPH for 5+ years already, so probably I'm able to see a small amount of truth.
Flags is not about discrimination and flags are needed and helpful for both sides: buyers and freelancers. That's my opinion :) -
Burcea, I honestly believe that displaying the flag of the sellers is a big thing, together with the name and the profile photo. In a virtual world, the more details you have about whom you are facing, the better. In my opinion it is mandatory to display the flag for both buyers and sellers. I wish PPH would also return it to the seller's feedback widget. It did exist in the past (next to every received review) and for some unknown reason PPH decided to remove it.
I can definitely attest that I haven't been discriminated for being located in the Philippines (it isn't my nationality though). I have been active in PPH since 2012 and I'm ranked as TOP Cert constantly for the past two years. Most of my buyers are from the UK, I would say 80%. Sometimes they approach me through my Offers, and in other times I send proposals to the jobs they publish. You can claim that the TOP Cert gives me an edge, but nowhere along the way while reaching the TOP Cert, have I felt that being discriminated by my location. It's very likely that some people would opt to choose fellow countrymen to do a job. Whenever I see this in the requirements, I'm looking down on it as in my opinion it doesn't really make a difference in the delivered quality. BUT, some people have preferences, for whatever the reasons are, and preferences have to be respected. It is not about racism at all.
I can tell you that I personally do have my own preferences when I choose service provider. For example, I would like to avoid dealing with any people from South Asia (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, etc.) because their English accent is never clear to me. Communication is a key, right? I think it's very important to show where people are located, as it can prevent future difficulties in that regard.
Putting aside nationality / location preferences, there are a lot of other reasons why buyers will not choose you. Starting up a fresh profile in a sellers-crowded platform is tough, but becoming successful is not mission impossible. It does require a lot of hard work at the beginning while taking the right steps. You need to understand one thing, the fact that you have rich experience out of the platform, doesn't mean you have credibility as a freelancer, which is a very important factor. A freelancer's credibility is earned by landed jobs and the reviews we receive for them. Working for free or half-free at the very beginning, albeit not recommended by PPH, is one of those sure ways to start climbing up the mountain.
A highly recommended starting point in your PPH quest to success, is to have an outstanding profile. That does have some sort of signal on credibility even if you have zero sales. You have to make it look highly professional, so that even if a buyer is biased towards hiring a countryman for a job, reviewing your profile will change their mind! It's all about how you are marketing yourself. Allow me to specify the key factors to make your profile outstanding:
- A catchy cover photo to market your skills
- Detailed "About Me" text (the first paragraph is very important)
- Portfolio with any relevant work for your listed skills
- Publish Offers (it might land some prospect buyers if you are lucky)
- Professional profile photo
Now with no intention to offend, strictly to help you, your PPH profile lacks all these and require a comprehensive improvement. Simply Google my name with "peopleperhour" to get some inspiration how it should look like.
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Hi Haris, thank you for supplying the feedback and supporting our common sense to keep the flags.
May I ask what was the reason that PPH decided to remove the flags from the reviews widget in the sellers' profile?
Can the flags be returned to the said widget? I believe if prospect buyers see I have a lot of UK buyers who left me good reviews, it would increase my chances to be hired by a UK buyer, so I think the flags should return to the feedback widget if these flags help buyers make better decisions whom to hire. I hope you understand what I mean.
Karl & Alexander - Thank you for your feedback, I hope my tips would help you make more money in PPH :-)
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It's curious because I am seeing the opposite in my area:
All buyers are mostly from the UK, and some from the USA and other countries.
Their offers are very low price. And I have already been rejected in all proposals. I have been able to investigate some cases, and these buyers accepted freelancers from countries from south Asia or others with flags that I don't know where they are.
From my experience as a drawer and designer, it is totally the other way around:For example:
An American buyer wanted somebody for a work that needs 4h work (if it is a simple drawing, because he didn´t even specified in detail the total tasks to be performed.
He set a fixed price of $130. And I sent my proporsal of $150:I asked him if he could be gently and tell me why he rejected my proporsal: "The average proposal (out of 80+) was about $90, while yours was over $150"
(*explanation of my proposal: $150: from those I would received $115 (that is 88 GBP). And that is what usually your earn for 3hours work in UK.)
I investigated and discovered that most of the freelances who bit for the project where from India, Bangladesh, Egypt, Sri Lanka and Pakistan. The freelance who was chosen for that work is from Pakistan.
If you take a look: In Pakistan for the price the American offered, you can live a month. I would have to charge £800 to get the same end.From my point of view:
There is no way to work here if you live in an European country. It's a waste of time.
For the rest: This is a f****g bargain!
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Patricia, I understand your frustration but it is really dependent of the niche / industry you are trying to sell your work in.
I'm offering programming services, Oftentimes I send my proposals using the buyer's budget and I'm still winning projects when I'm sure the South Asian counterparts are probably bidding with the lowest amount PPH system allows them (At least now there is a min cap for a proposal as a percentage from the budget the buyer has published the job with, prior to 2018 you could bid with any amount above GBP10, so that's already an improvement).
Probably there's a higher competition in the graphical work market than there is in programming. Sellers who bid almost half price of yours with an impressive portfolio and credible tracked record backed by positive reviews from buyers, have most chances beating your proposals which are sent above buyer's budget.
I presume you are a new seller who hasn't yet succeeded securing any sales so let me give you a beginner's tip. If you try competing with the South Asians by applying British pricing logic AND you have no history in PPH, sad to say, you would not take off. Unfortunately this is a very competitive market and you have to adjust accordingly. I do not say work for free and I also do not suggest to work for cheap. But in order to start picking up credibility in a new platform, and credibility here worth a lot, at least bid with the budget the buyer gave. If you think it's too low for you, don't waste time (and credits) sending a proposal to such jobs and instead focus on sending proposals only to those jobs that are worthy your time and effort.
If and when you become a PPH superstar, only then you can enjoy the benefit of sending proposals with what you think it should really be paying you. Good luck reaching to that point. It's not impossible.
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Keep in mind the minimum cap for a bid is NOT placed on the very first Freelancer. They can bid what they want. The minimum cap is only placed on the second freelancer and onwards. Not fair for the Freelancers who are not the very first as they have the imposed cap. Especially considering the "normal" 20% commission + other fees taken off Freelancers.
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