There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a pet sitter. For example, did you know that they make an average of $11.08 an hour? That's $23,038 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 16% and produce 51,700 job opportunities across the U.S.
There are certain skills that many pet sitters have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed compassion, customer-service skills and patience.
When it comes to the most important skills required to be a pet sitter, we found that a lot of resumes listed 22.2% of pet sitters included customer service, while 13.7% of resumes included dog kennels, and 11.6% of resumes included clients homes. Hard skills like these are helpful to have when it comes to performing essential job responsibilities.
If you're interested in becoming a pet sitter, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 33.3% of pet sitters have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 2.8% of pet sitters have master's degrees. Even though some pet sitters have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a pet sitter. When we researched the most common majors for a pet sitter, we found that they most commonly earn high school diploma degrees or bachelor's degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on pet sitter resumes include associate degree degrees or diploma degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a pet sitter. In fact, many pet sitter jobs require experience in a role such as cashier. Meanwhile, many pet sitters also have previous career experience in roles such as volunteer or sales associate.
Tell us your goals and we'll match you with the right jobs to get there.
As you move along in your career, you may start taking on more responsibilities or notice that you've taken on a leadership role. Using our career map, a pet sitter can determine their career goals through the career progression. For example, they could start out with a role such as nanny, progress to a title such as lead teacher and then eventually end up with the title account manager.
Tell us your goals and we'll match you with the rights job to get there.
Use Zippia's Salary Calculator to see how your pay matches up.
Designing and figuring out what to include on your resume can be tough, not to mention time-consuming. That's why we put together a guide that is designed to help you craft the perfect resume for becoming a Pet Sitter. If you're needing extra inspiration, take a look through our selection of templates that are specific to your job.
Learn How To Write a Pet Sitter Resume
At Zippia, we went through countless Pet Sitter resumes and compiled some information about how best to optimize them. Here are some suggestions based on what we found, divided by the individual sections of the resume itself.
View Detailed InformationAmherst, MA • Public
Lubbock, TX • Public
Randolph, VT • Public
Commerce, TX • Public
Fargo, ND • Public
Loretto, PA • Private
Findlay, OH • Private
Canyon, TX • Public
Waterbury, CT • Private
Fort Collins, CO • Public
The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 22.2% of pet sitters listed customer service on their resume, but soft skills such as compassion and customer-service skills are important as well.
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a pet sitter. The best states for people in this position are Massachusetts, Alaska, Maine, and New York. Pet sitters make the most in Massachusetts with an average salary of $25,134. Whereas in Alaska and Maine, they would average $25,113 and $23,559, respectively. While pet sitters would only make an average of $23,078 in New York, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.
1. Rhode Island
$22,977
Avg. Salary
2. West Virginia
$21,359
Avg. Salary
3. Massachusetts
$25,135
Avg. Salary