I suspect it is hard to start. I tend to go for proven performers and even then it's full of low quality.
Some peeps I use do very well, are full on work (full time) with ever increasing rates.
I think the best strategy is to bid low, like crazy low. Yeah it sux but it's like starting your career again. You need to build reputation and take whatever job you can to get in the door. Make sure you get 5 stars. If you get a bad rating first few jobs I'd kill the account and start again as these are damaging without quality references to offset.
Approach with the restart mindset. Experience people who think they can join and get their real life career rate off the bat are likely dreaming. It seems a multi year commitment to build a network, and in the same way I filter 5-10 freelancers to get a decent one I'll keep working with, you likely need to do the same with clients.
And if I was trying to hack it, I'd ask existing clients if they mind using me on said platform to help build reputation faster.
And if your truly looking to work for top dollar, it's the wrong environment.
I hope to never use Upwork again to hire. The last three times i clearly put in the job posting: "Once you begin work: all work and payment will and must contine with the original upwork account! We will not switch accounts, we will not switch to paypal."
There MUST be better services!
They were called odesk back then though.
One thing that's TERRIBLE about them though is that any contract that finishes, if your client forgets to leave any review or feedback, it'll count negative towards your score.
You could have worked a $25,000+ contract with a client, and if they just say thanks and forget to leave a review, it will impact you negatively. It's something I wish they would change.
Reach out to your network and let them know what services you are offering. You're going to find more success and better clients with in your network.
You can win jobs on Upwork, but it will take some money upfront and effort to build your history of work and you need to make sure clients are totally happy so you get good reviews to get more work.
The best clients and projects will come from people you know, reach out to your network.
Beyond the fact it's a rat race, the other problem is that there's zero moderation nor penalty to weed out the monkeys who will bid unsustainable rates to every single job (regardless of their skillset - which is nonexistent btw but I digress), and then find a way to get a good rating despite delivering shit (if delivering anything at all). I've read stories of some freelancers withholding the deliverable until the client leaves a good rating.
It's difficult to compete by offering quality when every single task post is swarmed by these monkeys. For an unexperienced client they look like very good deals and the good rating makes them feel at ease. Of course, they'll end up disappointed, but at that point they'll either leave the platform for good, or not have any more time or money to pay someone better to try it again. In the end, everyone (but the monkeys) lose.
You can choose to withhold payment until the deliverables are delivered. IMO the bigger risk is that a lot of people on there are doing it part time and slow or absent. I've had a few people who also choose to back out. The system works great for small tasks (make me a map marker feature), not so great for bigger tasks (make me an app).
The downside is that there's some lock in with how they process payments and visibility. It's not terrible, but enough to put me off. I'd rather do something like Toptal to find work.
We always had about 30+ applicants for any posted jobs, with about 5+ of them really talented people. The only reason I stopped doing it was because I found it mentally tiring to reject all these nice people, and it feels a bit like a meat market.
If you want to get noticed then you will need to fill out your profile completely, do the verification over video chat.