Hiring the Part Time Pet Sitter

In my last article I talked about the different kinds of pet sitting employees. I’m not talking about personal characteristics like punctuality, attention to detail, caregiving or customer service skills. I’m talking about your candidate’s role in your organization. I said pet care candidates can be divided into 3 main buckets;

#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.

We talked about which type you want to attract to your business and that 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.

We also talked briefly, very briefly, about how to attract each one of these types of employees. Today I want to unwrap that further and go into some practical detail on how to attract the biggest group, part time pet sitters, to your organization.

Remember these are the people who are in it for the money but not as a primary income source. They simply want to supplement their family’s income and do something interesting in the process. Veterinary technicians, moms and college students fit this bill.

Gone are the days when you can place a general job advertisement listing the hours, duties and pay. The employment market today is too good to rely on what used to work. 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. The hiring manager needs to know exactly who they’re trying to attract and simply saying I want to attract the best person for the job doesn’t cut it anymore.

Think of attracting employees the same way you think about attracting customers. If you’ve done it right, you have defined exactly who you’re target customer is, their demographics, location and even buying habits. Some people call this a customer avatar. It’s a detailed description of everything about your target customer including the issues and problems they face.

You can do exactly the same thing with an employee avatar. Let’s look at a couple of examples of avatars specifically for the part time pet sitting employee.

Vet techs make great part time pet sitters. They’ve already chosen to work with animals and they are likely not very well paid so they often take other jobs on the side. Here one for an avatar that I call Vonda the vet tech;

• Female
• 35 years old, divorced
• Has an associate degree as a vet tech
• Loves what she does but doesn’t make very much money at it
• She has a child at home
• Looking for ways to supplement her income and still work with animals
• Needs a secondary job that has a flexible enough schedule to accommodate her primary vet tech job

Another great source of part time sitters is stay at home moms. This one I call Mona the mom;

• Female
• 30 years old, married
• Has small children at home
• Has a spouse of partner as the primary breadwinner (doesn’t strictly have to work but the extra income comes in handy)
• Would like to earn extra money in a job that she can do while kids are at school
• Wants to do something meaningful, not just any part time job

 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 Vonda and Mona.

Vonda

Do you work with animals? Would you like to earn additional income in your spare time also working with 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…

Mona

Are you a stay-at-home mom looking for something to do while your kids are at school? Do you love animals and like to be active? 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;

I told you this would happen – Advice you wish you’d gotten

https://www.thepetbusinesscoach.dog/advice/

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.