Every job posting can get a huge amount of proposals. 1
Here there are 15. That's already a lot, right? 2
But it's actually on a smaller side. 3
Clients can get more than that. Usually 20 to 50 and sometimes even more than 50 proposals. 4
Is the client going to go through each one? 5
Not really. 6
They'll keep their eyes on the very top. 7
What does that mean? 8
You've got to find ways to end up on the top. 9
Upwork puts best matches on the top, and even adds this shiny best match badge on their proposal. That 10
puts those freelancers miles ahead over everyone below. As a freelancer, you don't see if you've got this 11
badge or not. But potential clients do. And you should always aim for it. 12
So how do you get that badge? 13
No one really knows what's the algorithm behind this. Upwork doesn't really share that information. 14
But after analyzing proposals that I usually receive, I have nailed down several key ingredients. 15
When you create your profile, Upwork will ask you to choose your experience level. 16
This same question is asked to clients when they post the job. 17
You can easily see that experience level that the client has chosen for the particular job. 18
Apply to matching experience level. 19
This is probably the most important factor in determining this badge. 20
The job that I had posted, I was asking for expert level and most proposals were from intermediate and 21
entry level freelancers. 22
What are they thinking about? 23
It's a waste of everybody's time. 24
There are enough jobs in each level, so apply to matching ones. 25
If you don't like jobs in your experience level, then change your level in the profile. 26
Easy as that. 27
The second most important criteria seems to be the skills. When clients post the job, they are asked to 28
select specific skills they are looking for in a freelancer. 29
They are given the same database of skills as you have used in your profile. And you can see this information 30
on the job post too. Apply to jobs with matching skills. 31
For example, I don't have any of these skill selected in my profile, so if I apply to this job I wouldn't 32
get a good match score. 33
So, always check the skills that the client has selected for the job. And make sure that you have those 34
skills in your profile as well and they match. Because that will definitely increase your chances of 35
being the best match. 36
Now, Upwork only allows you to select maximum of 10 skills. So there will be some related skills, that you 37
might have to leave out. But sometimes you'll see a job that uses exactly those skills that you had to 38
leave out. What you could do in this case, is to remove some and add those missing skills from the job 39
and to create a match. 40
This might be a little hack that Upward might be aware of, so that algorithm might ignore last minute 41
profile changes, but it's still worth a try. 42
At least the client will see that you have the skills they were looking for. 43
When client is selecting the desired experience level of a freelancer, underneath each level 44
it shows a approximate price range to be expected. 45
You want to match your bid to the Upwork's suggested range. 46
If client selected expert and was fine to pay more than $50 an hour, Upwork it isn't going to 47
like it 48
if you bid $30 per hour. You're making both you and Upwork lose on higher revenue. 49
To find out what's the current price range for your level, you can almost post a job at to get to this 50
step. And you'll see the most recent price ranges. 51
Doesn't take anything to do this. You don't have to post the job in the end, it's just one of the steps 52
in the job posting wizard. And you can do this from time to time, to have most recent values.