Hiring the Hobby Pet Sitter and the Career Pet Sitter

In my last article I talked about how to find a particular type of pet sitting employee, the part time petsitter.  As a recap there are 3 types of pet sitting employees;

#1 Hobby sitters – These are the people who want to take care of animals for the pure joy of it. They don’t need the money but they want to do something to stay busy and earning some extra income while they do it is an added bonus.

 #2 Part-time sitters – This is by far the largest bucket. These are the people who have another job that is likely their primary source of income. They are looking for a secondary job to supplement this primary income doing something that they feel would be fun and meaningful. If they don’t have another job, they have a partner or spouse who provides the family’s primary income and they are looking to supplement that.

#3 Career sitters – This is the smallest bucket. These are the people who do nothing but pet sitting. It’s their primary and sole source of income. The reason this is the smallest bucket is that it’s difficult to make this work.

 Strong companies have a variety of different types of people. Some new, some senior, some fully dedicated, some only partially dedicated. Each type of person brings something different, and needed, to the table. You have different types of clients; it makes sense to have different types of sitters to best meet their needs.

 Today I want to talk about how to attract the other two kinds of sitters, hobby and career sitters.  

 Hobby sitters – Remember that these folks are not in it for the money. They want to occupy their time and think pet sitting might be fun. They find joy in caregiving and want to give back. Retired people who’ve spent their careers in caregiving jobs such as nursing or childcare fit this bill.

 Career sitters – These are the serious folks who are looking for a company that they like and feel they can be with long term. They are true professional pet caregivers so look for them in the professional arenas.

As we talked about last time, the best job ads today are fun, engaging and immediately spark interest in potential candidates. Not only that, the best job ads are targeted toward specific people.

You have customer avatars carefully defining your perfect customer. Now you need to have employee avatars carefully defining your perfect employee.

 Let’s look at a couple of examples of avatars specifically for the hobby and career pet sitting employees.

 Retired people make great hobby pet sitters. They’ve got a lot of time on their hands, they’ve likely spent their lives caring for children and they are full of practical life experience! Here one for an avatar that I call Margaret the Mature;

Margaret the mature -the hobby pet sitter

• Female
• 50-65 years old, married
• Financially comfortable, retired
• Kids have moved out
• Looking for a way to spend her free time and wants to stay active and healthy
• Wants to do something that is challenging but meaningful to her and earning money while doing it would be a plus

Younger people and millennials make great career pet sitters. They’ve just finished school and gotten out into the job market. They’re looking for something more and want to explore options. Here’s an avatar I call Millicent the millennial;

 Millicent the millennial – the career pet sitter

• Female
• 25 years old, single
• Earned her college degree 1-2 years ago
• Is finding her primary job isn’t providing as much income as she needs and she wants to supplement
• May want to cut back on her primary job hours to do something more meaningful and fun
• Still has some financial support from parents but she still needs to work

Once you’ve defined your ideal part time sitter you can write ads targeted specifically to them. Here’s an example of some ad verbiage for Margaret and Millicent.

Margaret

Are you looking for a way to stay active in your retirement and earn extra money at the same time? Do you love animals? If so, this is the job for you! Company xyz does in client’s homes pet sitting and dog walking in the xyz area. We’re looking for someone to join our team as a Pet Care Specialist. If you’re interested, please contact…

Millicent

Do you love animals? Would you like to earn extra money to supplement your primary income? Or would you like to do something more meaningful? If so, this is the job for you! Company xyz does in client’s homes pet sitting and dog walking in the xyz area. We’re looking for someone to join our team as a Pet Care Specialist. If you’re interested, please contact…

Your ads don’t need to be long and they don’t need to explain every last technical detail about the job. The examples I’ve given don’t even mention hours or pay rates. These ads are designed to get the right people interested so that they want to know more. The sole purpose of these ads is to get potential candidates to give you their contact information so that you can follow up with them with next steps. This may be a screening questionnaire, an interview, a phone call or whatever your process is. These are targeted at the people you want to attract and will get your employee pipeline flowing.

You have a limited amount of sourcing dollars and you want to attract the right type of employees. Don’t just throw a line out into the employee stream and hope someone bites. Go after the type of fish you really want and your team will be amazing!

 Another article you might like;

How to protect your business…From your employees

https://www.thepetbusinesscoach.dog/protect-your-business/

About Eliza

Eliza is the owner of two successful pet related businesses; Preferred Pet Partners, a pet sitting and dog walking company, and The Pet Business Coach, offering coaching and resources to aspiring or current pet related business entrepreneurs. She maintains two awesome blogs. One for pet parents https://preferredpetpartners.com/blog/ and one for pet business owners https://thepetbusinesscoach.dog/blog-page/.  Eliza also supports various animal rescue and shelter organizations. Eliza and her husband have a growing pet family. Visit her websites: www.preferredpetpartners.com or www.thepetbusinesscoach.dog.