I am newer to this process. I have invited 3 sitters that have saved my dates but no one has applied. I am also surprised that they don’t communicate at all if they are interested. Is this typical?
@Cologirl Welcome to the forum. Sitters who mark your listing as a favorite, but don’t apply are usually doing that because they can’t sit for your current dates, but your listing is of interest to them for the future. As a curtesy, they should respond and decline your invitation.
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The likelihood of finding a sitter by inviting those who have saved your post is very small. As a sitter, I will mark a sit if I’m interested but the posted dates don’t work for me. If I was able to apply for the posted sit, I would apply right away. I mark them as favorites so I’m notified when you post future sits.
As a sitter, I always respond to invites with a message.
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Thank you.
We reply whenever we get an invite just to be polite, but usually if we have saved a home owners profile without applying it’s because we are all ready booked for those dates. It isn’t your ‘dates’ they saved, it’s your actual place and pets.
Also, I am not sure how long you have waited, but just take into account that there may be a time difference to those that saved your profile.
Hopefully you will get people applying for your place, but if not you can post again on here to get some feedback on your listing. Just incase others can see anything that may be putting people off, but by the sounds of it you shouldn’t need any help if sitters are already saving your profile anyway.
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This is very helpful and reassuring. Thank you!
Welcome to THS.
They have saved your listing rather than those specific dates as they are probably interested but just not available for those dates. They will be alerted automatically in future if you post any new dates.
They probably should reply to your invitation but if you just sent a blank invite or they get a lot of invites (at one point I was getting several a day) they may just ignore it or it got buried in the awful THS messaging system (I have several ‘unread’ messages going back years that I have never, ever been able to find.
Inviting sitters is generally not very effective. Either you invite people in your area as that’s what it shows you and most sitters want to travel and not sit in the place they live, or you invite ones who have favourited your listing but the dates aren’t good for them.
Post your listing dates and wait for sitters to come to you. If you don’t get much luck add your listing to your forum profile and post here asking for and suggestions for tweaking your listing.
@Cologirl did you sent a message when you sent the invite?
When I’ve invited a sitter, I always send a message to introduce ourselves & let them know that I’d love for them to care for our cat (if not the dates I sent, then down the road). As a sitter I’ve received invites with no message & it just rubs me the wrong way.
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Ditto @Peg otherwise it feels like they’re just fishing for a sitter bite 
from anyone not specifically you & your skill set.
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As sitters I look at the locations on the dates we are looking for, if I see a sit that I think would work for us I will favourite it, the date might not work that time, however it alerts me when you list other dates, so if those dates work, I would write an application to you. I have had Owners send to me when I have saved their sit, like yourself and quite a few we have sat, if we can’t due to the dates, I write them a message explaining it and have had them send to me in before they list their next dates and ask are we free.
Do you want local sitters, a single person, couple, family etc, are you happy for out of area or overseas sitters, you have to feel comfortable with who you choose, from there based on that, if for example you would like local sitters as you might want to see if they could be regular sitters, then I would then draw your search down to your local area and then go from there (sorry I am sitter, so tbh I don’t know how it works for an owner as far as searching goes etc) I am sure you will find lovely sitters.
Wishing you all the best.
@Peg and @Cuttlefish we agree! If we receive a generic invite with no message we tend not to reply and just decline the invite. If the HO has written a personalised message we reply explaining why we are unable to sit.
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Thank you all for your feedback. It has been very helpful. When TH sends emails encouraging me to “invite” a sitter I did and included a personal message in each. I am hopeful someone wants to come play in the Colorado snow in February. Cheers and again thank you!