Welcome, Andrei!
When I was in grad school at Caltech, I knew several Romanians. So the country always has a soft spot in my heart.
I’m now in Texas, so it’s been relatively easy to start locally. Sadly, I see Romania has only one sit available in the entire country. First, I’d set up a saved search for your country, so you can be notified as soon as any new listings pop up. Perhaps you can get in a sit or two before London, or at least after. Play the long game.
Another thing that’s tricky is to consider from the standpoint of the HO. You may be the most experienced sitter in all of Romania, with a wonderful heart, but how can the HO know that? Or how will you compare to more experienced sitters, or even new sitters from the UK, Western Europe, or the U.S.? Your English is very good, BTW, but it’s clearly not your first language, so some may hesitate from that.
Some ideas:
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Think about the stages, and try to focus on bottlenecks. The first stage might be to get a reply from a HO (or what % of HOs reply). Second might be to get a video chat (or what % of HOs agree to a chat). Third would actually being offered a sit. Similar to job interviews: Your resume gets you the interview; the interview is what actually gets you the job. You want to figure out where your bottleneck is.
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Consider applying outside your planned radius, or play the long game. The long game would be similar to what @dingobob suggested. But if we’re focusing on the UK, what if you expand your search beyond London to the rest of the country? I’ve seen recent posts where HOs in the UK countryside were begging for Christmas applicants.
Perhaps you have an agenda in London that requires you to be close by. Then as @Angela_L noted, flexibility is key. It might just be that you have to take this as a learning experience: Many sitters book months (a year?) in advance, especially for longer sits or sits in popular areas. As London is so populated, I’m sure there will be many more Christmas sits coming up, including last-minute ones. I don’t like to hurry, so applying to those might stress me out. But you’ve probably got more youth and energy! =)
Above all, just remember that the rejections aren’t personal. The HOs have limited info, time, and energy to choose a sitter.
Have you ever sat outside Romania? It might be good to have that as a reference, even mentioning it in an application.
In your apps, you can try to alleviate any concerns from your background (e.g., no sits yet, younger, male, ESL, maybe people are less familiar with Romania, etc.) and/or emphasize what makes you special. Think outside the box!
Think about ways you can show, not just tell. E.g., one can say, “I care deeply about any pet I am around.” But a photo can be worth 1000 words! Or I might have a story, like the time I stayed up all night in a freezing barn to help rehabilitate an old horse (true).
I just thought of another idea: Definitely don’t try to game the system, as, well, that’s wrong. But if you have HOs in Romania who could use a sitter, ask them to sign up for TH! There’s some win-win membership stuff if you get your friends to sign up (e.g., free months), and that would give travelers to Romania more sitting options in the future! Or bring more tourists to Romania! Plus, you might be able to (honestly) sit for your friends via TH to get some rep.
Good luck!