I tried “saved searches” filtered by technology (for example ASP.NET and ASP.NET MVC). However saved searches are good only for monitoring new projects. But when I decide to look for a project, I’d like to review those that a few days old too. I don’t constantly monitor new projects.
Also tried to filter only by category “Web Development”. Obviously need to review much more projects. And most of them target other technologies. However there are projects from non-technical clients, who just don’t care about any particular technology. My favorite type of client by the way. They don’t force you to use any particular tech/lib/pattern, they just do what they have to do - explaining project needs.
Anyways, this is still “saved search”, therefore only good for monitoring new projects.
For me one of the most efficient ways is to search by “Similar Jobs”. At the bottom of each project there is section “Similar Jobs on Upwork”. So I open a project I like and then look into “similar jobs” section. Open those, review and then again look at “similar jobs”. Often navigating by similar jobs leads me to quite interesting projects. Sometimes they are few days old but client hasn’t found proper freelancer yet. Sometimes they are just not in the right category or skills are not specified, therefore low on proposals, etc.
However it is the most time consuming approach. I even started writing Chrome extension to be able to mark reviewed projects and filter out projects without activity or ones from few countries I’m not interested in. But maybe such tools already exist? Any suggestions? Please share your experience.