Disappearing Sit Opportunities

Sitter Questions, Advice & Chat
1

Happy New Year to this group!

I have saved sits and get emails re new posts. I go immediately in to the app and there are no sits listed. Can you help me to understand this?

Also, is there a way to proactively let house sitters know when I will be in their area so they can reach out to me re opportunity?

Thanks, Laura

2

The sit has probably reached 5 applicants and gone into review-mode. This can happen quite quickly for the very sought after locations. Thousands might have favorited the listing and gotten instant notification. Many have a draft ready and can quickly submit an application.

Hurdles can be

Type of membership. The Basic membership does not give instant notification, while Standard and Premium does.

Type of notification might matter. I get push-notifications on my phone. Even for places I know is highly sought after, I most times am able to get the application tab if I go in relatively quickly (within a couple of minutes). I would guess it takes longer to get an e-mail-notification?

A sitter can only contact a host with an application. I see that some use an opportunity to apply even if they canā€™t do the dates, asking the host to keep them in mind for the future. The problem is that sitters will usually do this, I think, for highly sought after sits - and those hosts can wade through applicants.

Iā€™ve seen listings where hosts beg sitters not to use applications to say such, as they fill up the spots and the host then canā€™t get applicants that can actually do the listed sit. So I can imagine that could backfire and just be annoying to the host.

For Low application-locations that do not get many applicants it could be an advantage. Iā€™ve seen such hosts say that they can work their dates around the dates of a sitter.

It can be useful to know that if you do get to the listing - open up the application tab immediately. As long as you keep that open you can still view the listing while you write your application. You then have a few minutes (at least 10 min., I think) to write and submit. The only thing I havenā€™t figured out how to see while writing is the sit dates. So i just note the dates before I open the application tab.

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3

No, last time we experimented with this there was no timing difference. The THS advertises ā€œinstant alertsā€ but that is not really true. Push notifications come between 6 and 10 minutes after a listing is published. I believe that they can be sent out even when already five applications have come in.

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4

Thanks, Garfield, this is all really helpful! I wasnā€™t getting text notifications, I have since fixed that based on your advice. And I also now have a draft application email ready to go!

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5

I have premium and notifications are not instant. When I get notifications, sits in popular locations are always already reviewing before I get the notification.

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6

I am a sitter but also host on couchsurfing, and I really hate receiving cut and past requests.

But obviously you will lose the chance to be in the first 5 if you take the time to write a personalised message.

A solution Iā€™ve seen somewhere here is that some sitters send a placeholder message, something along the lines of ā€œthis is just a quick message to say Iā€™m interested in your sit and am writing a personalised message which I will send to you later today.ā€

Hope that helps

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7

Thanks for that heads up. I think I found the site you were referencing. There are only a few active sits right now but itā€™s very interesting as I see a number of listings that I recognize from prior years on THS.

8

That is not true. After clicking the apply button, the application page opens. You can then take as much time as you need to compose a message. It may arrive as number 6 or 7, that does not matter.

Or you can decide to close that page later on the day.

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9

Right. I use this opportunity for more or less every application.

10

Thanks, I didnā€™t know that.

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11

Hi @ljhuber
The notifications for most popular places to sit are useless tbh. They are sent post listing and some of these listings get the full 5 applicants in 10-15 minutes before you ever see the email.

12

That is my experience. I have gone to the listing immediately upon getting the push notification only to see itā€™s already ā€˜reviewing applicantsā€™

13

Problem sending a placeholder message according to posts on this forum is that some HOā€™s hate it and will reject your application due to such.