Did Upwork Reject Your Profile?
If you are reading this you got the dreaded ‘Rejected Profile’ message from Upwork.
(Never Get Rejected Again With These Influence Tips)
If you are a new freelancer or new to Upwork in the last six months chances are your profile has been rejected.
Why did Upwork reject your profile?
First, it has nothing to do with you. I know it sucks but you aren’t the problem. It took courage to sit down and put everything together.
Seeing Upwork reject your profile sucks. It cuts into your rich life goals. You are probably thinking,
Upwork rejected my profile because i’m an imposter.
You are not. There are reasons to finding Upwork reject your profile.
What follows are my theories and solutions to why.
Why Upwork Rejected Your Profile
Upwork is exploding. New members are flooding the platform.
New members mean:
*Greater strain on the system
*Over saturation of certain skills
*And fake accounts
My guess is Upwork is dealing with this flood of profiles by using bots.
The bots probably review your profile and then filter you through the system. I’m guessing Upwork rejected your profile, along with everyone else, as a gatekeeping system.
‘Upwork rejected my profile. I’m a real person, what’s the deal?’
-You
The bots filter based on controlled data and barriers. I imagine almost everyone who applies get rejected at first.
This is smart. By rejecting people you put a barrier that filters out anyone not interested in going the extra mile. That means that the people getting on Upwork are more involved and more likely to use it.
This is similar to Zappo shoes training. Zappos is famous for offering you a buyout before starting the job. Their reasoning is that they only want the best on their team and will pay to keep it that way.
That’s bullshit.
The truth is Zappo’s does this is so you emotionally value the company.
They want you to think,
‘I turned away $1,000! I must love this job!’
(Create your own cult-like following)
The same thing is at play when Upwork rejects your profile. So how can you get past this? There are a lot of ways. I’m going to share the best method I know to get accepted, a guaranteed way to get started and avoid the secondary methods people are promoting.
Two Ways To Get Your Profile Accepted On Upwork
How do you get your profile accepted by Upwork if you are new to the platform?
Here are two fastest ways I’ve found. The first method takes a little bit of time but puts you in a great position once you get accepted.
The second method requires a different approach and will be harder to pull off if you don’t know the right people.
The ‘Test’ Method To Getting Your Profile Accepted On Upwork
Upwork is swamped with people all wanting to do the same things (mainly writing).
They want to keep the platform from being saturated so they reject profiles.
To get your profile accepted you need to create authority on their site. To do that you should take skills tests and score 100% in as many as you can.
Skills test scores will verify that you are an authority to Upwork and increase the bots chances of recognizing and accepting your profile.
You can either go niche and score in difficult but nuanced tests (PHP, Advanced SEO, etc) or load up twenty easier ones (Grammar, spelling, etc).
This takes time but it also provides great social proof when you are accepted. Imagine being a client and seeing that the person they are hiring has over 20 ‘100%’ ratings for skill tests they took.
The ‘Hired Right Away’ Profile Method
Upwork is automatically accepting profiles that clients hire. If you can find someone with a profile to hire you then Upwork will automatically accept the profile.
‘What if I don’t know someone to hire me?’
-You
This can be hard. You have a couple options. You could start a Upwork business profile and then hire yourself for a cheap project.
I don’t see this as the best option but if you are hungry to start then this will work.
If you want to take a more organic approach pick a couple of FB groups and ask around for people with Upwork business profiles. Offer to do a quick low-cost project in exchange for a hire.
This will get you the first gig, get your profile accepted, and not lose you money!
All this resistance raises a simple question…
Is Upwork Still A Good Option?
You’ve heard people crapping on Upwork, Freelancer, and Fiverr since day one. You’ve read the blog posts, nodded in agreement everytime someone posts their problems.
So you have to wonder…Is it worth it?
Let me answer with a question.
What’s your goal?
Do you want to freelance to increase your existing income?
Do you want to leave your job?
Do you want to support a new lifestyle?
Knowing what you want makes it easy to decide what’s right for you. Upwork is a great place to get started and build a portfolio.
Upwork is also a great place to create a nice side income. I wouldn’t use it as a sole source of income. And that brings us to the issue at the heart of all of this.
Interested in building a client base?
Then you need to write proposals that get you booked. Sign up for my mailing list. Not only do you get my ultimate guide to writing proposals that get you booked, you also learn the secrets to building a thriving client base that keeps you paid for months at a time.
Thank you and very useful
I am specialised Facebook Advertising and social media marketing.
I have helped clients on building their branding and start up.
However Upwork has rejected my profile a few times. I shall try the methods and see how it goes. Thanks!
I don’t quite understand.
You say “The ‘Hired Right Away’ Profile Method” but if you do not have an approved profile then you cannot get any jobs??
I’ve had a couple clients report this works fine. You send someone you find off Upwork with a client profile your profile to hire you. They do so and Upwork approves.
With that said the new changes might make this approach obsolete as well. When all the new changes are finalized i’ll revisit and update this article. Until then keep trying and also consider Working Not Working and Contently.
Thanks, very good post.
thanks for this post very helpfull article
Hi,
Great post. I tried both options but none worked for me. And by the way they have removed the skills test completely starting July 2019.
I’ve been following all the changes in Upwork and have been waiting to see how everything flushes out. Once they are done and the updates are finalized I plan to come back and update this post.
One thing you can consider is the ‘private hiring option’. It’s a great work around. Basically you find someone with an Upwork client profile and get them to hire you. Once you are hired you can get approved. It’s not my favorite work around and it requires finding someone to hire you but it’s a start.
If you are still stuck consider signing up for Working, Not Working and Contently (if you are a writer).