Score Freelancer Proposals from PDF with OpenAI GPT-4o Mini

Score Freelancer Proposals from PDF with OpenAI GPT-4o Mini—automatically generate a client-ready evaluation

If you review proposals manually, you’ll love this n8n workflow: it takes a client’s requirements and a freelancer’s proposal PDF, extracts the PDF text, and uses OpenAI GPT-4o Mini to produce a structured, criteria-based scorecard—rendered as an HTML report right on the form completion page.

What this workflow does

• Collects inputs via an n8n Form: the client requirements text plus an uploaded proposal PDF.
• Extracts the full PDF text from the uploaded file.
• Scores the proposal with OpenAI (GPT-4o Mini) by sending the client requirements and extracted proposal text to the model.
• Returns strict structured JSON containing a verdict, strengths, weaknesses, red flags, and improvements—scored across five criteria.
• Converts the JSON into an HTML scorecard with a styled score breakdown and feedback sections.
• Displays the report on the form completion page so stakeholders can review results immediately.

Use cases

• Freelance hiring: quickly evaluate multiple proposal PDFs against your requirements and compare strengths, weaknesses, and red flags.
• Agency operations: standardize scoring across reviewers using consistent five-criteria outputs from GPT-4o Mini.
• SaaS proposal intake: turn PDF submissions into an audit-friendly HTML evaluation without manual summarization.

Technical details

• OpenAI credential + GPT-4o Mini chat model node to score proposals and generate strict JSON.
• Form Trigger to receive client requirements and uploaded files through the production URL.
• Extract from file to read the uploaded PDF binary; ensure it uses the correct field name "Proposal_PDF".
• Code and HTML rendering logic to parse AI JSON and generate the styled scorecard report.
• Additional nodes used include form, sticky note, and the n8n-nodes-langchain / LLM integration.

Perfect for n8n automation workflow users who want a reliable, criteria-based proposal scoring pipeline powered by OpenAI and delivered as an instantly readable HTML report.