Welcome to Upwork Enterprise, where you can connect and collaborate with a global pool of talent. Here’s an overview of how it works:
Start with a strong job title and choose a job category. We’ll ask questions related to your category to help you finish your post.
The information you’ll need to provide includes required skills and experience, project scope and budget, a timeline for completing the work, and whether you want a fixed-price or hourly contract. You’ll be able to include preferences, such as freelancer location. If you’re an Enterprise Compliance client, we’ll ask additional questions about how you want to work with talent.
You can save a draft and edit your post later if needed, and you can control the visibility of your post at any time. (We recommend selecting only “invite” and “talent cloud” for best results.)
If you need help, you can ask our Upwork Professionals for assistance. They can review your job post before you publish it or help you scope out a project when you are creating the post. Reach out to your account manager to learn more or contact us by completing this form.
To fill a job, you can search for talent on our marketplace, ask an Upwork Professional for help finding someone, or invite a freelancer from outside of Upwork.
Search for talent
As an Enterprise client, you have access to Upwork Professionals, who can help by providing a shortlist of premium talent. You can also bring your own talent or select from BYO talent who have been invited by other members of your company by going to Jobs > BYO talent.
You can also search our marketplace for talent. From your homepage, choose Talent and you’ll see profiles of freelancers who might interest you. To keep looking, enter keywords into the search bar and then refine your search with filters such as talent badges, skills, success rating, and more.
You can search for individual freelancers or an agency, which is a group of freelancers who work together. You can also search for talent who are interested in contract-to-hire jobs, if needed.
Save talent who interest you by selecting the heart icon, and you’ll be able to view them under Talent > Saved Talent. You can also see talent you or your company have hired before under Talent > Your Hires and Talent > Company Hires.
Vet talent
On talent profiles you’ll see a description, work history on Upwork, and number of hours available per week. Talent may share a portfolio and their education and employment history.
To help talent stand out and provide you with more information, we offer identification verification badges, talent badges, Expert-Vetted status, confirmation of certificates through Credly, and specialized Upwork Skills Certificates for some categories. Freelancers can also display an availability badge to show they’re available for work right now.
When you see a profile you like, you can save it to your saved profiles. To communicate with talent, you can message, set up interviews with our built-in scheduling tool, and use video and voice features with Zoom, all from Upwork Messages.
Once you choose a freelancer or agency, you can send an offer. From your job post, choose the talent you want to hire and select the Hire Freelancer or Hire Agency button.
The contract offer will automatically populate from your job post. You can select a Talent Cloud and onboarding plan, if applicable, choose or add a P.O. number, and add an end date for the contract if you want. These details are specific to your company’s workflow.
If you’re creating an offer without posting a job first, you’ll need to complete all the contract details. This includes choosing between a fixed-price contract and an hourly contract.
If you’re bringing your own talent, you can invite them by going to Talent > Bring Your Own Talent, choosing the Invite Freelancer or Invite Agency button, and providing the requested information on the BYO form.
Note that if you’re hiring talent as an employee through Upwork Payroll, fixed-price is not an option, and you may have some additional steps to complete. This may vary according to country if you’re hiring outside the U.S.
If your company has opted to enroll in Enterprise Compliance services, we’ll complete a classification review for each contract to determine whether each freelancer you want to engage should be an independent contractor or an employee through our third-party staffing agency. This helps protect your company from misclassification.
We may ask you and your freelancer for additional information or require specific onboarding tasks. Once we receive all the necessary information, the classification review typically takes 3-5 days. We’ll notify you when the review is complete.
Learn more in our video introduction to classification services.
Note:
The classification review and all onboarding tasks, including any tasks required by your company beyond the classification review process, need to be completed before your freelancer can begin working. Work done before the contract has started cannot be billed through Upwork retroactively, so it's important that work does not start until contracting is 100% complete.
Digging deeper: additional resources and guides
Learn more about using Upwork Messages to collaborate with talent.
Learn more about worker classification and the differences between independent contractors and employees.
Frequently Asked Questions
Start with a strong job title that accurately describes what you need. This is the first thing freelancers will see. Then carefully select the required skills and give a clear description of the work. Consider reviewing your budget to make sure it’s comparable to what others are paying for the skills and experience you want.
If you need help, our Upwork Professionals can review your post before you publish it. If you would like help, reach out to your account manager or contact us by completing this form.
Some things to consider include the work’s complexity, how much experience and expertise it requires, how much responsibility talent will have, and whether you’re asking for a rushed deadline. You can also look at existing job posts on our marketplace and hourly rates of freelancers who have the level of skills and experience you’re searching for to get an idea of going rates.
A classification review is an assessment to determine how work is classified and whether the freelancer you’re engaging should be an independent contractor or an employee through our third-party staffing agency. If your company is enrolled in Enterprise Compliance services, we’ll complete this review on each contract.
We may ask you and your freelancer for additional information and require certain onboarding tasks. The review typically takes 3-5 days once we receive all the necessary information.
Work cannot begin on the contract until the classification review and all onboarding tasks, including any additional tasks required by your company, are complete. Work done before the contract has started cannot be billed through Upwork retroactively, so it's important that work does not start until contracting is 100% complete.
