If I am the first to apply for a listed sit I imagine I would be the first message to appear in the owners inbox. If the owner doesn’t read my application immediately and other sitters apply, I would imagine my application would be shuffled downwards with the latest application sitting on top of the owners inbox, which logically means that they will be read before mine or mine will never be ‘read’. I can’t offer any logically way that the first application could stay at the top of the list but it might be something that could be considered by the team at THS.
NB I only post this this after reading that some owners post in this forum that they pick the first applicant and wonder if this should read ‘they pick the first application they read’.
I’m in NYC. I get five application at a time. I go through each one and make a decision about who will make it (if anyone) to the next round. I wouldn’t stop reading even if the first application was “perfect.” The order they are received doesn’t make a difference.
I have had owners tell me that my profile was great but they picked the first person that applied. To me that seems like a poor criterion to choose a sitter - that they were faster with the clicker finger than me.
@jcvbva We had that happen the other day- we were number 3 and the host wrote straightaway ‘there are two applicants ahead of you- if neither of them take the sit we’ll get back to you…’
Obviously not much interested in who sits for them so we just withdrew our application! We prefer to be consciously chosen!
Hi Ziggy, sorry if you think I should be choosing solely on the basis of order of the application. It’s not a lottery. It’s the life of my pets. So yes, I vet sitters pretty carefully. I have sometimes found perfect sitters from the first five applicants and sometimes had the need to decline and unpause until I could get more candidates. I support the right of sitters and homeowners to be choosy. It’s not a “first come first served” situation. I responded to your question about order of applicants. It also never occured to me when I’ve applied as a sitter that HOs would simply choose based on first come/first served.
@Marion never stated or said the slightest thing that you mentioned in your reply at all. I simply quoted ONE sentence from your original post, “who will make it to the next round” which to me, sounds like a football match and who makes it to the Superbowl.
Each to his own interpretation of how we read things and I’m sorry you felt that way. I am a sitter but was also a homeowner using sitters help also so I do know exactly that it’s about the life of our pets. Enough said hey, let’s not have a play on words back and forth x
I just had an application where the HO said they’d set up appointments with two sitters who’d applied earlier, but they loved my profile and reviews and thought I’d be a good fit for their pets. Then they ended up picking one of those sitters before we ever interviewed (we never set a time, because it was assumed that the first two sitters had first crack), but they said they’d be happy to have me sit down the line.
@Karen65 from what I read, the sit will remain in ‘reviewing’ mode (which means you cannot see the dates requested) until the HO selects and confirms a sitter - at which point you cannot apply - or the HO declines one or more of the ‘5’ which opens up the listing for other sitters to apply. So you would have to stay vigilant to be aware of the status of that sit. Of course remembering that the sit will revert to ‘reviewing’ as soon as the magical number is reached again.
I’ve had a homeowner tell me that although they liked our profile, they were choosing the first applicant because, “it’s only fair”. I don’t know if it was really the first applicant or the top of the list. Trying to avoid being in the middle.
