I am new to upwork.com. So far, I have submitted 20 proposals, but I did not see any reaction to them. I have about 11 years of programming experience, and it's not good that I can't communicate how effective I can be.
How can I write a good proposal that best relays my qualifications?
On a platform such as UpWork, a client who posts a project will get anywhere from 50 to 100 proposals and invite 5 people to interview. Turning the numbers around yields that it takes 20 proposals to get one invitation. So, your experience is normal.
You might want to change which posts you respond to and how you respond.
To improve your chances, it helps to identify what you have as a "unique value proposition" - what makes you different from any other programmer with 11 years of experience. Unless you have a massive cost advantage, typically cost is not the value proposition.
Some questions to help you identify your value proposition are:
Do you have experience with a specific industry and understand how business in that industry is different from other industries?
Have you provided notable solutions to an industry?
How have your efforts helped your clients solve problems, save money, increase sales, reduced costs, or increase profits.
Do you have any Intellectual Property (such as libraries you developed on your own time) that gives you an edge in solving business problems or problems for a specific industry?
Notice that none of these questions are about your technical qualifications. These are all business questions. You might want to limit which posts you respond to certain industries that you have experience with.
The goal is to talk business to business owners, not submit resumes to "hiring managers". Business owners control the budget. Hiring managers are out to reduce costs. Posts on Upwork that are basically job advertisements are out for the cheapest person.
