A house sitting profile gets replies when it answers, before anyone reads a word of it, the handful of things a homeowner can narrow the sitter directory by: where you will actually sit, how many years you have cared for animals, and whether your ID and police check are complete. Those are not presentation choices. On Sitterly they are the fields the search runs against, so a thin profile is usually not being rejected. It is not being returned.
Your application message matters too, and our guide to why house sitters do not get picked covers that half. This is about the profile behind it.
One of the two routes to you never sees your writing
You apply to a listing and your profile travels with the message. That is the route every sitter thinks about. The other is the sitter directory, where a homeowner opens the list of sitters, narrows it and messages somebody who applied to nothing. That route sees a card and a profile page, and nothing you wrote to them.
| The filter they apply | What it matches | What that means for you |
|---|---|---|
| Location, typed as free text | The suburb and state saved on your profile, as text | Not a distance search. Your location has to contain the word they typed |
| Minimum years of experience | The years number in your experience section | Blank or zero removes you from every search set above zero |
| Age group | The band you chose when you created the profile | Required, and not hideable. Write the bio that makes it irrelevant |
| Police check | Whether your uploaded police certificate is approved | A check you applied for is not a check that shows |
A profile saved as a draft is not in the directory at all
The form ends in two buttons, Save as Draft and Publish My Profile, and only a published profile is searchable. A draft clears no filter and appears in no result, which makes it the quietest reason for silence there is. A photo is required to publish, so a profile without one cannot go live.
Ordering is worth knowing too. Profiles are listed most recently created first, with no freshness or quality score behind that, so editing your bio at midnight does not move you up and an older profile is not pushed down.
The two minute version
Open your own profile the way a stranger sees it. If it is still a draft, if the location is empty, or if the years of experience field is zero, fix those three before you write another word of bio.
The location filter matches your words, not a map
A homeowner types a place into a free text box and the search compares it against the suburb and state on your profile. There is no radius and no suburb-to-city lookup, so someone typing Melbourne will not find a profile whose location says only Brunswick, and someone typing Sunshine Coast will not find one that says Maroochydore. A state name or abbreviation finds everyone in it.
So save your state, because that catches the broad searches, and do not assume a homeowner two suburbs away has seen you. Applying to listings yourself is still the reliable route into a capital city inbox. With no location saved, your card reads Location not specified, which is the least persuasive line a profile can offer somebody about to hand over a key.
The first two lines of your bio are the only bio most homeowners read
On the directory card your bio is clamped to two lines. On your profile page the first 420 characters show, roughly 65 to 70 words, and the rest sits behind a Read full introduction toggle plenty of people never open. Whatever decides the question has to be inside that window.
That is why the standard opening fails. Every sitter in the country has written some version of loving animals their whole life, so it separates nobody and it spends the one paragraph you were guaranteed to have read.
Say the things the form never asks you
There is no vehicle or licence field on a sitter profile, so the answer exists only if you write it, and regionally it decides applications: on a property outside Bendigo or Mount Gambier the vet may be forty minutes away and no bus goes there. Say whether you have a car, whether you hold a full Australian licence, and whether you would drive the owner's vehicle if their insurer allows a nominated driver, which is a question for their insurer rather than an assumption either of you should make. If you travel with a caravan and can park it, say that too. Rural homeowners who want somebody on the land often care about it more than anything else on the page.
Your own animals do have a tick box, with a description field that opens beside it. Use both, and repeat it in your first message, because raising a dog once somebody already likes you is how sits fall over.
The same profile, written twice
Both are illustrations. Neither is a real member.
“I love animals and have always wanted to be a pet sitter. I am reliable, clean and trustworthy and would take great care of your home and your pets. Available anywhere in Australia. Message me to find out more.”
Nothing there is false and none of it is usable, because it would fit any sitter in Australia. Here is the same person, with the same experience, written to survive being skimmed.
“Kalgoorlie based, own car and a full licence, happy to drive anywhere in the Goldfields or down to Perth with a fortnight of notice. Twelve years with my own dogs and cats, including a diabetic cat I gave insulin to twice a day for two years. I work remotely four days a week, so nobody is left alone for long. I travel with a small desexed kelpie who is calm around cats.”
The second claims no more experience than the first. It names a place a homeowner might type, answers the car question in the opening clause, ties the medication claim to a specific animal rather than to willingness, discloses the sitter's own dog while that costs nothing, and fits inside the 420 characters shown.
Tick only the care you could defend to a vet
The profile carries four care declarations: puppies under one year, senior pets aged seven and over, administering medication or managing medical needs, and pets with behavioural challenges. Homeowners write listings against those same categories, so a box you cannot back up puts you in front of the sits you will struggle with.
Behaviour is the one people over-claim. RSPCA Australia's Knowledgebase on what to do when a dog is anxious with nobody home describes what separation-related distress looks like, including toileting indoors, destructiveness, excessive barking and attempts to escape. If you have managed that in a real animal, name it and say what you did. If not, leave the box unticked and win a different sit. Anything specific to a particular animal is a question for its vet.
Four qualifications can be recorded, First Aid Certificate, Police Check, Vet Nurse and Dog Trainer, alongside five extra photos. Pictures of you with animals you have actually cared for beat another paragraph.
Verification is a filter, not an endorsement
Verification runs in two layers: email, which is automatic, and a police check document. The check is optional, started by you rather than applied to everyone, and reviewed by Sitterly's admin team within a stated five business days. Police check is the badge shown over your photo, and the only verification filter a homeowner can apply.
The Australian Federal Police charges $56 for a National Police Check and $113 where fingerprints are required, calls the certificate a summary of your offender history in Australia, and says most digital certificates arrive within a few days for online applications while fingerprint checks take at least 15 working days. Bodies accredited by the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission also issue them at their own fees, so confirm current figures before you budget.
None of it is a character reference. As at 22 August 2026 no Australian platform in this market ran criminal history screening as standard, this one included. Consumer Protection WA's guidance on house, pet and baby sitting services, last updated 21 November 2024, tells people to check a National Police Certificate has been obtained and to read their own home policy, because many exclude deliberate damage or theft by someone invited into the home. The caution you keep meeting is advice they were given.
What Sitterly does and does not do
Sitterly supports the connection. Homeowners and sitters remain responsible for their own arrangements. Verification is optional and started by the member rather than applied to everyone, and completing a tier is not an endorsement of that person by the platform.
Your reply rating is the one trust signal you can build this week
Your profile carries a reply rating from one to five, calculated from how quickly and consistently you answer messages. The badge stays hidden until you have more than one genuine exchange behind it, then reads as replies in about an hour, about four hours, same day, within two days, or slow to reply. Reviews only unlock once a booking reaches completed status, so on a newer platform there are few on either side.
Speed counts for more than it looks, because Australian sitters regularly report listings going live while they are asleep and applicants in other time zones getting there first. Check in the morning, answer the same day. Our guide to getting a first sit with no reviews covers the school holiday windows when homeowners have fewest options, and building house sitting references from scratch covers what to offer while your review count is zero.
Questions Australian sitters ask about their profiles
- What should I do when a homeowner never replies?
- Send one short follow-up after about four days that adds something new, such as an offer to meet or a video call, then let it go and apply elsewhere. Do not hold the dates for someone who has confirmed nothing in writing, because holding dates is how sitters lose two listings instead of one.
- Is a police check required to house sit in Australia?
- No. It is optional on Sitterly and not required by law for this arrangement. It matters because some homeowners filter for it, so an unchecked profile is left out of those results before anyone forms a view of you. It confirms the outcome of a criminal history check on the day it was issued, and nothing more.
Publish it, then improve it
Fixing a half-finished profile is an evening, not a project. Create or open your sitter profile, add the photo, save your suburb and state, and press Publish rather than Save as Draft. Then rewrite your first 420 characters until they could not belong to anybody else, and go and read what is listed right now.
