How to create a stellar house sitting profile

Now that youโ€™ve decided to add housesitting as one of your options toย travel the world for free, you need to create a profile that will make homeowners trust you. And today, I am going to teach you how.

I didnโ€™t have any idea that venturing into house sitting would be really difficult. Homeowners prefer sitters who have previous experience and references โ€” so what if you are new?

What if youโ€™ve never house-sat before? Would there be a chance that youโ€™ll be able to land one?

I am not sure, to be honest. I donโ€™t have any idea how homeowners choose their sitters (aside from profile references from previous homeowners) but I think having a well-presented profile will really help.

First, sign up withย Trusted House Sitters, a website where homeowners and sitters all over the world connect. Once youโ€™ve completed the signing up process, the following tips will help.

House-sitting profile tips

A strong headline

A headline is one of the highlights of your profile. It is kind of similar to the โ€œcurrent missionโ€ that you have to fill out when creating an account on CouchSurfing (CS). However, in CS, itโ€™s really not as important as it is on Trusted House Sitters. Here are some examples of headlines that you can refer to upon completing your profile:

  • Animal-loving vegetarian ready to take good care for your home and pets.
  • Maximum awesome couple who is about to start a one year โ€™round the world journey by house sitting.
  • Five foot two multilingual girl from Poland currently house-sitting in England.
  • Honest, hardworking and reliable backpacker from the state of Texas available for house and pet sit.
  • Newbie house-sitters available worldwide for any house-sitting gig. We donโ€™t know where to go yet but weโ€™ll come to you!

Make sure that your headline reflects who you are. Who are you anyway? If I am a homeowner, what will make me hire you to take care of my house and pets? Why would I allow you to enter my home even? Flashy and highfalutin jargons are not a requirement. As the saying goes, โ€œbe yourselfโ€ and everything will follow.

Profile: be personal

This is where you have to sell yourself, most especially if you do not have any previous house-sitting experience. It is usually difficult for people to understand online profiles so being articulate and straightforward is preferred. Introduce yourself briefly, including what have you been doing before you started traveling the world, your career background, a little something about where you grew up, your hobbies and what made house sitting an interesting choice to sustain your travels. Remember that most homeowners are not after your skills. They are not looking for a cleaner โ€” they are looking for real people who are outgoing, charismatic and kind to trust their homes with.

Mentioning that you love for pets and having an experience in owning a home (long-term) are plus points. Put yourself in the homeownerโ€™s shoes and focus on the information that is relevant.

Experience

Of course, your experience should be the best highlight of your profile. Where have you house sat? How many pets have you taken cared of at the same time? The experience should be authentic and not too staged. Tell them about how you loved being around pets and how youโ€™ve taken cared of a huge house in Melbourne (or any place in the world).

If you donโ€™t have any previous experience, it is advisable to:

  • State how many pets youโ€™ve cared for (personally) and for how long.
  • Tell your experience in looking after your parentsโ€™/relatives house while they were on vacation.
  • Share your experience about taking care of your nieces and nephews when your brother needs to ran an errand for the house

Remember, any relevant experience will help! Since you donโ€™t have references yet, these real-life situations can help you in making homeowners believe that you can do it despite having no previous house-sitting background.

Photos

High resolution (and good) photos should be up on your profile. Make sure that the images are clear and that they reflect your personality as a person. Do not stage photos like you raking leaves outside your backyard or even cleaning the kitchen. Photos make lasting impressions and if you present your true authentic self, you can surely land a house-sitting assignment anywhere in the world. Show yourself in different situations:

  • Put some pictures from your travels. This way, they can see how much youโ€™ve trotted the globe and most likely, it will reflect that you have the โ€˜outside worldโ€™ experience aside from your comfort zone. Home owners love travellers, I tell you that!
  • Include photos with pets. (This is a must!)

House sitting applications are never easy but as long as you know how to fill out your profile seriously (not like in a Facebook-ish way), Iโ€™m pretty sure you can land on any house-sitting assignments anywhere in the world.

Good luck and may the force be with you! If youโ€™ll need help, just e-mail me anytime and Iโ€™ll try my best to help out.

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9 Comments

  1. Great post Trisha – thank you! We will be leaving for our big trip next year and are really keen on House Sitting… so this is very useful! One question… If you have no house sitting experience but do have a Couchsurfing profile with references, would you recommend linking to that?

    Big thanks
    Gabby

  2. Awesome tips! I never really thought about house sitting as a viable option for travel (mostly because I don’t take exceedingly long trips), but I’m going to look into it for short-term travel!

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