The prospect of beginning a lucrative and exciting new job like mystery shopping can really fill you with a great sense of hope and anticipation. New mystery shoppers just can’t wait to get started working on their first few assignments! Some mystery shoppers will enter the job timidly, testing the waters to see how the assignments go, how the payment process works, and so forth. Others will jump in whole-heartedly, working on a dozen or more assignments in their first full week on the job. However you plan on getting started in this business, one thing is absolutely for certain – you need to find a few assignments to work on first!
Signing Up. Before you can hope to work on any assignments, you absolutely have to sign up to work with a few providers. You can find a number of great providers by visiting the website for the Mystery Shopping Providers Association. Here, you can get a free list of providers who are known to be legitimate. You can sign up to work with these providers online. While each provider will have their own unique sign up process, it generally just takes about five to ten minutes of your time for each provider you sign up to work with. You should know that the list of providers is not something you should have to pay for, and legitimate providers do not charge a fee for you to sign up to work with them.
Searching for Jobs. After you sign up to work with providers online, you will find that in many cases you can start looking for assignments immediately. Some providers do have a small waiting period while they process your information, and this may just be a day or two. Others, however, do let you start searching through online job boards immediately. Through these job boards, you can read assignment descriptions and request assignments to work on.
Different Types of Assignments. You should know that there are basically two different types of job requests that you can make on these job boards. Self-assign jobs are those that are yours as soon as you request them. There isn’t an approval process that you need to go through to get the job assigned to you. These assignments are great for new mystery shoppers. The other type of assignments is the type that you will need to request. Your request goes to a scheduler who works at the provider’s office, and it is the job of the scheduler to find the best mystery shopper for the job. Your experience level often comes into play with these assignments, and so you will find that you may have better luck working as a mystery shopping when you select self-assign jobs. After getting some experience under your belt for a few weeks, though, you can really enjoy working on both types of assignments equally.
The fact is that it is possible for you to be out in the field working on your very first assignment as a mystery shopper tomorrow! You can sign up to work for providers today and request self-assign jobs that need to be done immediately. You truly can enjoy a fast start in your new job as a mystery shopper!
I’ve been at this a couple of weeks now, and still getting nowhere.
Cheryl
A few weeks is to be expected. Even longer. Sign with as many providers as possible. Use roboform.
I ended up going through the list on volition.com and signing up with a ton of providers. It took a long time, but now have about a dozen I shop for regularly. After a while you will find those that have shops of interest closer to home. I do this as a side job with a regular full time job. I love that I can take time off when things get busy. I am only trying to make a $100-200 a month extra for fun.
thanks, I’ll try