I received an application from a sitter with no reviews or references. Her profile is very brief and doesn’t mention a love for animals at all. I don’t want to be unkind, but she’s not even a consideration for me.
How do you usually decline sitters who aren’t a good fit? Do you give a reason or just decline?
If she wrote a personalized application, i would decline with a message such as 'Thanks for your interest. I believe that i have found someone for this sit now." or similar.
if she wrote a very brief message, like one I got a few days ago - “Hi, I would love to sit for you” - I decline with no message. In that case, i waited an hour or so to see if she wrote a longer message before I hit “decline”.
@lala123 Depends on how much time and effort you want to take. I’ve been declined without a message from the pet parent and I’ve had folks send pleasant messages that they already have a sitter and others who do tell me why I’m not a match. And I don’t get offended by any of those ways of being rejected.
If you want to take the time and be nice - then from your description it seems this sitter applicant might benefit from you telling her that she doesn’t tell you anything about herself or why she would be a good sitter. The character counter in the app window shows that my application messages run 1400-1600 characters, FWIW.
I usually decline honestly in the case of people with no previous site experiences:
“I’m sorry. I’m declining this application because my pets have some special needs and I only consider sitters with site reviews and specific experience. Thanks for understanding.”
As a sitter, I prefer receiving acknowledgement from the host rather than the automated message saying my application was declined. Some have been as simple as “Thank you for applying! Best wishes” which by itself doesn’t sound like much, but since the message follows the notification from TH, I see it as a thoughtful acknowledgement to my application.
You could reply with a message that says “Thanks for applying. We look for sitters with a few reviews that tell us why they’d like to sit for our pets. Unfortunately we can’t see that in your application. Best of luck for the future.” Or similar and then maybe that will jog her to realise you have to put some effort in to win a sit. A friend who’s an HO received one recently that just said “Would like to sit for you, please read my profile for info.” Errrrrrr, nope. #effortpays
I like this approach - thank you! I want to be “helpful” but not rude, so this is good. And yeah, haha. Nope.
Thank you! I like this approach.
She did write a message but told me how she would love to come to my area, that our town is cute and she’s been here before, how old she is and that’s she was a Girl Scout troop leader 
. Oh, and that her adult sons live with her so they can watch her dog.
I like your idea of giving her a chance to come back with a little more - I may try that.
Some sitters, myself included, write very shrt initial messages for popular places, so that we can apply before the listing gets 5 apps and is paused. However, I say that in my first message and send my more detailed message within an hour.
Did this applicant mention your pets by name or use any other specific detail from your listing? If it was just a generic cut and paste message, I might tell her that most HOs prefer personalized messages. I might also not bother to tell her, depending on how generous I am feeling! It is perfectly OK to say you prefer to use sitters with some THS reviews
I’m just happy if a HO replies at all!
Just a polite ‘not this time thanks’ would be nice
A lot of HO dont respond at all or send an automated message saying ‘the dates didnt work out’ which is a polite way of declining
Replying knowing a sitter put a lot of effort in a profile and application is common decency to me
Not replying is rude
I have found that one does need to be firm about declining if you are certain it’s not a good fit. If you give a transient reason (eg “we’ve found someone else for this sit”) they may apply to your next dates. Or if you give a specific reason, they may try to argue/elaborate when you are just trying to end the conversation. Both of these have happened to me!
Typically I just say something like: thank you for applying but I don’t think this is a good fit, best wishes etc.
This is typically the hardest part of having a listing for me. I hate saying no to people and when I have more than 1 qualified applicants, it’s always a tough choice. When it’s not enough info like you’ve described, it depends if I have other applicants or not. If not, I might reply asking for more details. If I have other promising applications, I typically wait until I’ve secured someone then say thank you anyways, but I’m going with another sitter this time around.