Upwork offers built-in tools for interviewing freelancers, including audio, video, and Zoom options, as well as instant interviews via Uma™, Upwork’s Mindful AI. Clients can initiate interviews via the Messages feature directly from proposals. To maintain safety and fairness, pre-contract communications must stay on-platform, and sharing personal contact details or offering extra rewards is not allowed.
Once you have found a potential freelancer for your project on Upwork, you'll use our messaging tools to discuss the work, terms, deadline, and more.
An interview gives you this opportunity to communicate your needs, ask questions, evaluate the freelancer’s spontaneous responses, and negotiate terms of the contract. It can help you decide if the freelancer is the right match before making an offer and helps set the tone for future communication.
To make interviewing easy, we offer audio and video interview options, including Zoom, or, if available to you, Upwork’s video meeting service, right in Upwork Messages. Some job posts also offer instant interviews with Upwork’s Mindful AI, Uma™, as a first step.
Begin an interview message thread
- Go to Hire talent > Job posts and proposals and open the job post
- From Review Proposals select the Send Message button to contact the freelancer or agency
Once you send the message, we automatically move the freelancer to your Messaged section. Your message thread will embed in the proposal view.
Then you can continue communicating through Upwork Messages and set up a time to interview. Learn about our best practices for video interviews, sharing files, and more here.
To help you stay as safe as possible, we require that you do not request or share any contact information and keep all direct communications on Upwork until you start a contract. This means you cannot share your contact information in your profiles, proposals, job postings, invites, or other pre-hire contacts.
We provide secure tools for clients and freelancers to communicate directly from Upwork Messages. Once a freelancer accepts your offer, you can choose to share your contact information and use other tools to manage your project, too.
We always recommend that you be cautious when sharing any sensitive or personal information with anyone you do not know and respect the freelancer’s need to do the same. Learn more about best practices for online safety here.
Note:
To keep things fair, neither clients nor talent can offer the other extra rewards for winning a contract. For example, a freelancer should never request or offer you anything of value (like a gift card, money, or additional services) for giving them the contract. And you shouldn't request or offer anything besides the contracted funds. But you can always pay a bonus for excellent work, if you'd like.