Ok first let me say: I'm DEFINITELY starting to understand why people keep the local jobs under wraps! It's a lot of work spending the time to try to find companies in your area! That said, I hope my question doesn't fall into that category but if it does, feel free to say "find the answer yourself!"

I've only been mystery shopping for about 2 weeks now. I've done about 25 shops but am running out of options! There are only a few companies that are even offering jobs at all for next week! Is there any way (other than jobslinger.com) to search for jobs in my area? I've now registered with about 70 companies. I've signed up for 20 just tonight looking for something and haven't found A SINGLE COMPANY that has ANY shops in my area.

Also, once I've signed up for companies, is there any way to do a mass search instead of signing into each company's website? Should I be checking every day? Are there times of the month that are just super slow? Thanks in advance for any feedback!

Welcome to the MS world! You have already named the easy ways of finding who has shops in your area, I fear. Where are you located and how far from home are you willing to venture in a day if you can do 3 to 10 shops during the day? That info will help posters tailor their remarks to better fit your situation.

Next, yes, there are busier times of the month. Early in a month, and especially early in the first month of a calendar quarter is when the most shops may be posted. Late in the month you will start to see the distressed schedulers begin adding bonuses and releasing shops that may have been assigned without ever being on the job boards before, with bonuses because someone flaked or was ill or botched a shop. Finally, some companies, like A closer Look, begin posting the following month's shops around the 18th or the 20th of the current month and their supply of shops that a new shopper may see is limited and goes very, very fast. Be sure to try to snag a few of those shops, do well, and then you will begin to have access to their other postings. (ACL seldom has fees, but they are a good place to learn to write a great report!)

Finally, one way to fruitfully use any day when you do not have shops is to sign up with 10 more MSCs. And, yes, until you start receiving enough email offers to fill your schedule based on your past performance, you will need to check the job boards even morning and every night. However, once you build up a record of well scored shops with many MSCs you will start getting email offers. That will take a couple of months, at least for each MSC. Unfortunately, some MSCs entirely rely on shoppers to take shops off the job board unless they are "rush" shops.

Welcome to the forum and to mystery shopping, Liz. As walesmaven said, you seem to have a good understanding of the best way to find the jobs in your area. I would say keep doing what you are doing, keep signing up with companies, and keep checking the e-mail and Jobslinger.

If you've only been shopping two weeks, it sounds like you have made a really good start. Within your first 2 weeks, 25 shops AND signing up with companies, checking JobSlinger, you have found the forum, AND you have researched and planned and you GET IT about the job search and the competition. You are ahead of the game.

Jobs do come out at certain times of the month. Some companies posts periodically all month, but others throw all their jobs out at once. A lot of jobs with a lot of companies are usually posted within the last week of the month for action the following month. I expect many of my client companies will post August jobs between July 24 and July 30. Most will be grabbed immediately because of the competition. Be ready and be fast. Most companies do not have jobs sitting on the job board all month. There may be more companies that have jobs in your area - but you didn't see them because the jobs were already gone for the month by the time you registered and started checking.

Other companies post at different times, and, after working a couple of months, you will pick up on their timetables. For example, the MSC that posts my favorite lunch shop will throw those shops on the job board around 8 AM on approximately the 4th of August. They will send an e-mail about 11 AM. Those who are checking the job board rather than waiting for e-mail will have first choice. By 11 AM when the e-mail goes out, the best locations, if not ALL the locations, will either already be scheduled or will have several applications already sent to the scheduler.

Also - a new shopper doesn't necessarily see all the jobs. Build a good track record. Show that you are detailed and observant and you write a good report. Show that you are reliable. Many shops are e-mailed to me and never hit the job board. Not sure how helpful any of this is but just observations from an 8-year shopper who was "trained" by this forum.

What do you think the tipping point is for becoming known and liked by a scheduler? About how many shops (performed well with a high quality report of course) do you think it takes before schedulers will begin to reach out to a shopper? Five, ten, twenty? I've been attempting to do multiple shops for a few MSCs to become known and liked by those, but it's more challenging than I thought due to availability and my time commitments (I work a pretty busy full time job). After shopping for about three weeks, I have done 1 shop each for nine companies, 5 for one company, and three each for two more companies. In the long term, I would love to just shop for 5 or so companies that are a really good fit for me. I'm just wondering if that will take a few months or a few years!

@anneshop wrote:

What do you think the tipping point is for becoming known and liked by a scheduler? About how many shops (performed well with a high quality report of course) do you think it takes before schedulers will begin to reach out to a shopper? Five, ten, twenty? I've been attempting to do multiple shops for a few MSCs to become known and liked by those, but it's more challenging than I thought due to availability and my time commitments (I work a pretty busy full time job). After shopping for about three weeks, I have done 1 shop each for nine companies, 5 for one company, and three each for two more companies. In the long term, I would love to just shop for 5 or so companies that are a really good fit for me. I'm just wondering if that will take a few months or a few years!

Those are good questions, and, as I think you already know, no one can answer them for you because there are so many variables. How long it takes for a scheduler to reach out to a shopper may be a week and one report if there is no competition in that area and the scheduler needs a shop completed OR it could be years. It depends on how many assignments in your area need to be filled and how badly the scheduler needs to fill them. If there is a lot of competition in your area and some of the competition are good, long-term, dependable shoppers with great writing skills, it will obviously take a lot longer to impress a scheduler.

Just to add to what AM said, some of the largest MSCs have so many schedulers on a region/client that it may be more hit and miss as to when or even if you become known to a scheduler for that MSC. This is a good reason to work for more, and more medium and small size, MSCs. It took me about 4-5 months of working for a couple of dozen MSCs at least 4-10 times each before I was busy enough from emailed invitations to not have to look at all of the job boards almost every day and sometimes twice a day. I spent the first 3 weeks of shopping by signing up with 5-10 more MSCs a day, 7 days a week on any day that I did not have at least 2 shops.

Edited to add: at the 3 month mark, I started video shopping and never looked back. With video, almost all of the jobs are assigned without ever seeing a job board. But video may not be for those with a M-F 9 to 5 jobs, since most video needs to be done M-F and usually before 6 PM (when new home models close in summer, earlier in winter).



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/19/2015 01:54PM by walesmaven.

Thanks all for your advice! I do have several things working against me. 1) I live in a smaller town and the closest big city is about 3 hours away (and not a big glamorous city at that). I live in New Mexico--HELLO desert! 2) I'm a stay at home mom so my shops are mostly limited to evenings and weekends. BUT, I'm not looking to make a career our of this. We want to take a big family vacation next year so I have a goal of bringing in $100 a week. This next month may be slim too as I'm 8 months pregnant so I'm trying to be careful not to book too far out because I don't want to have to bail because I go into labor!! Hopefully after that though I can get into a routine and get some higher paying jobs so I'm not limited to the $10 cell phone shops. Thanks again! I've learned SO much from this forum and appreciate all of you experienced folk taking the time to help us newbies!

Liz, With that attitude and dedication, you will go far. And, btw, remote locations can be good for MSers who watch for and seek out highly bonused assignments in hard-to-fill locations. Our colleague Servanne (who sometimes posts) made a good income from just such a rural location, with 2 toddlers in tow) for many years. He family, toddlers, dog and husband, did several cross-country trips, shopping all the way, with daddy often staying in the car with the girls while Servanne performed shops and audits. They made a family adventure, complete with made-up, silly songs and word games. Grocery store shops along the route produced lunches and snacks, gas stations for fuel, a few hotel shops with negotiated delayed deadlines, and they made money while having family fun.

Get to know your schedulers by being sure to communicate the good news to them; they so often only hear about disasters and complaints that you will be memorable even if you just email to say, "Victory! I finally got that target!" Email them to say that you are available on certain days of the week to do hard-to-fill shops within x miles of home for an adequate bonus and are willing to make routes of such shops! You may even be able to negotiate to take the little ones with you on certain shops.

And, enjoy!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/19/2015 03:21PM by walesmaven.

And checking job boards is the way you will find the more prime jobs as schedulers won't bother mass emails until they have shops nobody will take.

I suggest that you set up bookmark folders in Firefox. Bookmark 15-20 login pages per folder and use something like LastPass to remember your login name and password for you. Every time you sign up with another company, bookmark their login page to your most recent folder of companies. Have one folder as 'useful companies' of companies you are working with and when you accept a job from a new company, bookmark it into your 'useful companies' folder.

When you have a minute during the day, open the folder of 'useful companies' log in and check their job board. If you have another minute, check another one of the bookmarks. It takes me about 35 minutes to log in and check all of the companies I am signed up with that still exist. They are distributed through 10 folders of about 25-30 each. So the bookmark of my 'useful companies' can readily be checked multiple times per day readily, especially during the times of month I expect them to be posting. Granted, when I do my bookmarks that are not 'useful companies', they may have jobs I have taken the time in the past to read through so a quick glance down the page lets me know there is or is not anything worth exploring further.

Didn't read through all the posts so this might have been posted already but you could also try Presto Maps to locate work in your area.

Also ISecret Shop and MSjobboard

I just wanted to take a second to say that this thread is the reason why I like this forum: smart questions from newbies... smart, helpful answers from experienced shoppers. excellent.

@Liz36:
You might also try the shops where you have tradesmen come out to your house to provide estimates or services. Keep signing up with different MSCs... I've seen Carpet Cleaning, new flooring estimates, window treatment consultations, and tree trimming services offered in my area. They'll come to you at home ... maybe you could plant the kiddos in front of a movie or something to be sure they're quiet and out of the way for the appointment.

Good luck!

Thanks for the tip CaliGirl! I was actually SO excited when I saw some companies offer carpet cleaning services because my carpets DESPERATELY need to be cleaned (thanks a lot, kids ) but the closest one was several hours away. I'll keep signing up with more companies in the meantime.

I know what you mean about needing a carpet cleaning: I am in DIRE need of a car wash. It's bad. But there's a drought here in California, so I feel guilty about getting it washed. I think that guilt would be offset juuuuussssstt enough if I were getting paid to assess the car wash location.
I could wash it myself, but I actually use more water than the efficient car washes now. Also, laziness.

Hello my name is Jeanna. I am a scheduler with Mystery Researchers. Last year Mystery Researchers acquired Beyond Hello and Insula Research. We run all of our jobs on Beyond Hello's site. Please go to www.beyondhello.com to register as a shopper with us. We have several nationwide accounts. Contact me for more info. I have shops in IL right now in particular that I need assigned. If I knew where you were I can also direct you to other shops with our company in your area and helpful sites to find jobs. I look forward to talking to you!
jeanna.griffin@mysteryresearchers.com
Beyond Hello

If you are interested in non-undercover theater shops that can be done weekly, contact Tim Phillips at movieassignments@gmail.com about jobs in IL.

I don't live in Illinois, I live in New Mexico.

There are several job aggregators aside from jobslinger. KSS is another one that can really help, and they actually let you schedule other MSC jobs through them. They'll often sign you up for something you're still out of rotation for, however, and you'll get cancelled afterward. So you have to keep track of that.

Something that helped me early on was making a spreadsheet of the companies I signed up with, shops I had observed them carrying, and the date I saw it. A lot of companies just do a monthly dump of jobs and you'll never see anything from them otherwise. Some stagger out shops over the month. There's usually a rhythm, so keeping track of when you see what can help. This also helps me note which companies I just don't feel like working with. It's very work-heavy at first, given the shifting nature of the business, but it pays off in the long run.

However, a lot of companies are also happy to answer that question if you just email them directly. It might not be a precise answer, but you'll have something else to add to the list.

Later on, a lot of the companies may just start seeking you out if you've been awesome. Meritocracies are rare, but worth inserting yourself into.