Every Upwork interview invitation is an opportunity — but not every opportunity is worth taking.
As a business manager overseeing our agency’s freelance presence, I’m responsible for screening invites, protecting our team’s time, and ensuring we only engage with clients who align with our standards. In this post, I’ll walk you through my process — from receiving the invite to evaluating the project, identifying red flags, and crafting a professional response.
📌 Step 1: Reviewing the Invite
A few minutes ago, I received an invitation to a new project. Here’s what I noticed right away:
- Project type: Fixed price — $2,500
- Technology: AWS, CI/CD
On the surface, this is within our area of expertise. But tech alignment isn’t enough. The next step is assessing the client.
📌 Step 2: Evaluating the Client
Before anything else, I check the client’s:
- Location
- Total amount spent on the platform
- Number of jobs posted
- “Member since” date
In this case, the client was based in India. While I won’t go into detail here, our agency has political and ethical reasons for not engaging with clients from certain regions, particularly due to ongoing geopolitical tensions.
So even though we could deliver on this project, the decision is already clear: we won’t pursue it.
📌 Step 3: Analyzing the Job Description
The client is asking for help setting up infrastructure. Once complete, their internal backend engineers will take over. That alone raised some concerns.
Red Flag ⚠️
#1: Poor Internal Structure. If a company is outsourcing basic DevOps setup like a CI/CD pipeline — something their in-house engineers should manage — it often signals deeper structural or skill issues.
#2: Copy-paste Invite. The invitation was nothing more than a copied job description. No personalization, no context, no effort to actually engage us.
📌 Step 4: Budget Evaluation
They’ve set the project at a $2,500 fixed price. Sounds good, right? Not so fast.
From experience, fixed-price projects only work well when the task is tightly scoped — something that can be done in 4–8 hours, for around $200–$300.
But for larger, open-ended infrastructure work?
❌ Fixed price = Risky, unclear boundaries
✅ Hourly = Fair for both parties
So, I adjusted the milestone terms:
- Rate: $35/hour
- Why: It’s a fair and standard rate for our DevOps expertise. In fact, it’s on the lower end for the quality we deliver.
📌 Step 5: Crafting the Response
Even though we won’t take this project, we always maintain professionalism in our communication. Here’s the message I sent:
Why “Sophia”? That’s the DevOps engineer from our team who was invited. I respond on her behalf to keep things moving efficiently. If we do proceed, I transition the conversation to my account or directly to the team.
📌Step 6: Submitting (or Not Submitting)
I noticed other freelancers had already submitted proposals — and some even boosted theirs with 37 connects (!).
But since this was a direct invitation, we didn’t have to use any connects. I simply hit “Submit Proposal” at no cost.
And that’s it — now we wait.
⛔️Here’s why we’re ultimately declining this project:
- Misaligned expectations
- Lack of effort from the client
- Fixed-price model for a complex task
- Geopolitical/personal values
But here’s the bigger point: Even when you say “no,” say it professionally.
Your reputation is your brand — treat it with care.
🎥 Watch the full video here https://youtu.be/c9YzY5ZGocA
Thanks for reading — see you in the next one 👉
