Over the years, many sellers have asked it they can connect their LinkedIn profile to their Fiverr account. Until today, the answer was “no”. So long as you’re a Pro-Verified seller, you can take advantage of the new freelancer work experience feature to do just that.
It’s been a hot minute since Fiverr dropped its Q1 2024 report and the freelance platform is already onto its next big thing. The (somewhat uninspiringly named) freelancer work experience is here to help Pro sellers demonstrate their off-Fiverr experience to an audience of buyers, all with the click of a button.
Except it doesn’t really work like that. Unless you spent a while reading through the documentation, you could be forgiven for thinking that Fiverr was forcing Pros to connect their LinkedIn profiles. So far, so Fiverr. However, that’s not true. Pro-Verified sellers can also add previous projects without connecting their Fiverr account to their LinkedIn.
I read everything so you don’t have to. Here’s everything you want to know about the new freelancer work experience for Pros. It just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?
Freelancer Work Experience Launched Quietly
On May 16, Fiverr sent out email to Pros sellers with a request to share their Linkedin profile URL with the freelance platform:
The button lead to this opt-in form to share a LinkedIn profile with Fiverr and a link to a Help Center page about freelancer work experience:
At the time of writing, there is very little other information about this feature.
Why Is Fiverr Doing This?
Fiverr claims that using this feature will help to enhance the credibility of Pro sellers who opt into using it. In theory, it should turn their profile into a landing page that demonstrates their best work.
Fiverr believes this new feature will help Pro-Verified sellers to show how they can assist buyers with very specific work experience highlights. In turn, this new information will help buyers to make better decisions by providing more detailed insights into the seller’s services.
While details are light, some sellers who opt into this feature will be able to:
- List up to 15 LinkedIn work experience entries on their Fiverr profile
- Curate a specific work history for a more targeted profile
- Link other (unspecified) professional networks
Pro sellers also have the option to opt-in to sharing their professional network information. Another opt-in approves sharing network information with potential clients.
I am so far unconvinced and will wait for more information before taking the plunge. This sounds like a good idea in theory, but why should sellers need to have a connected LinkedIn account to use Fiverr’s freelancer work experience?
It’s an important question.
There Are Potential Downsides To Fiverr’s Latest Feature
On paper, this sounds good. However, Fiverr doesn’t address any potential concerns about privacy. Instead, it refers users to its privacy policy, which only has this specific snippet about LinkedIn:
Another concern is how Fiverr will police imported work experience. LinkedIn does verify work experience, but only for employees. At the time of writing, there are no tools to verify freelancers who worked on a contract for a company.
It is almost certain that some of Fiverr’s Pro freelancers will be tempted to invent work experience, despite the reputational risk. The fact that Fiverr is championing this as a credibility-booster when it’s so easy to game makes it questionable at best.
The Fiverr Community’s Reaction to Freelancer Work Experience
So far, the Fiverr Forum’s reaction to linking Fiverr profiles with LinkedIn is leaning to negative. Many believe this feature is mandatory rather than optional (Fiverr’s email writing team rarely hits the right notes). Fewer still are convinced that LinkedIn is anything more than a spam dungeon for positivity gurus.
Other users are concerned about their privacy. One poster asked if Fiverr would spy on sellers’ LinkedIn data to factor data into the Success Score. It’s a good question, since the integration doesn’t offer a huge amount convenience for users. The initial import might save time, but then what?
The community’s lukewarm reaction is primarily Fiverr’s fault; the poorly-worded email together with a lack of explanation or further information from staff means that nobody really understands the point of this feature, even if it does, in theory, have some potential benefits.
Fiverr focused too much on a poor integration and not enough on the benefits of the feature itself. That Pro sellers on Fiverr can add custom work experience to their profiles – with or without integrating LinkedIn.
That is a benefit. It’s remarkable to see how badly Fiverr missed it in its messaging.
How Fiverr’s Freelancer Work Experience Work
Adding freelancer work experience on Fiverr is easy – just visit your Fiverr Pro profile, scroll down, and click on “add experience”. A side-screen will open up and you can add your experience. You can choose to connect your LinkedIn (or another professional network) or fill out the details manually.
Fiverr Continues To Revamp Everything in 2024 – But Who Asked?
Nobody can deny that Fiverr’s having a very busy 2024. Every month something new comes to the platform – for better or worse. Sellers, however, seem more concerned with Fiverr’s drop in traffic and the increasing monetization of seller services.
It’s good to see that this feature isn’t locked behind Seller Plus, although that does mean this feature will not be available to Fiverr users who are not Pros. However, the community reaction is one of underwhelm and negativity. Is this a useful feature? Yes. Does it resolve any of the frustration that sellers have with a platform that is increasingly treating them as a source of revenue? Not really.
It’s hard to know what to make of this; a tepid feature that, realistically, freelancers should be allowed to use without needing to be a Pro. New sellers who are not new freelancers could benefit from this feature, but they are left in the cold. The apparent lack of verification is also a reasonable cause for concern for buyers; there seems to be nothing stopping freelancers from adding falsified work experience.
The question isn’t how freelancer work experience helps Fiverr sellers, but how it might help Fiverr. As more and more sellers complain about the stress of working on the platform, the company might do well to start listening to what its sellers really want.
