I just spent the past two-and-a-half hours signing up for all the Sassie shops. Of course, only 7 of them actually have jobs in my state.. and three of those are just a little too far for me to drive.

I'm looking at the larger list of other MSCs...and whimpering.

I guess this is the right of passage for new MSers, huh?

Pass the Icy Hot, please!

Yes, rites of passage Generally it works better to do 5-10 per day. But you do have them ready to go as shops for August begin getting posted.

For me, legwork far outweighs time spent doing shops. Try not to add up time spent looking for work; it can be depressing. Think of it as an investment, or as you say, a rite of passage. And keep in mind, MSPs and their clients change. So, you may have a leg up!!

But, boy wouldn't it be sweet if we could google who shopped whom in what State? We can dream . . .

Jobslinger Plus would have been the ideal way to tackle the Sassies. Highly recommended way to sign up-one click service using your profile and your free trial.

I spent the better part of 3 weeks signing up with MSP's. Tedious as hell, but worth it.

But it will continue as long as you are a shopper. Whatever list you are/were using will obviously not contain them all. It is estimated that there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 800 companies out there. Some of them are inactive, some of them do not support a job board, some of them use outside schedulers only, and new ones are frequently popping up. Once you have made your way through a credible list or two the process becomes more difficult as you need to do your own research as to whether a company is likely legitimate or not and that process is time consuming.

I started with the two lists posted here, and now the only additional companies I sign up with are ones I discover in posts here, on on the MSPA or Jobslinger job boards.

My 'goal' per year now is to find 2 new-to-me companies per month. Sometimes I can, sometimes I can't. I too watch posts here and on other forums of companies that aren't on my list as already being signed up and most of them turn out not to be comfortably legit.

You did it! Good job. Yes, right of passage! One day you'll receive an email from a company you signed up with a year ago but didn't have any shops in your area!

Ironically, I thought I had to sign up for all the Sassies PRIOR to signing up for Jobslinger.. Ugh! If I had only known they would do it for me. Oh, well. You appreciate more what you have to work hardest for! I did sign up for my free trial of Jobslinger Plus. So far I'm pretty happy with it.

Next I'm gonna sign up for all the Prophet companies, since that can be done in one spot, too. Then I'll spend the next couple weeks researching all the others I can find to see who I might want to sign up with.

I wonder if anyone at Prophet has thought about making a software like Jobslinger? It sure would make MSing more cost-effective if there were.

Flash -

Other than the sites mentioned (here, Jobslinger, etc.) how do you go about finding more companies?

Jobslinger I find mostly is a useful tool for new shoppers to find companies they know to be shopping their area. I figure there is no point in signing up for 50-100 companies until you have at least a few shops under your belt and know that it works for you and your work is acceptable to the companies. Very few shoppers 'survive' more than 6 months and it is of dubious merit for them to sign up with lots of companies before they know if this works for them. And although most folks promote signing up with everything you can, I really think a more measured approach makes more sense. You know from every forum that outfits such as Market Force and Corporate Research International and Maritz have shops in virtually every community across the country. While these are not good paying jobs, the reality is that a newbie is not likely to land good paying jobs right off the bat, so they are 'get your feet wet shops'. They have the advantage of being beginner friendly companies, providing training that for newbies is pretty complete but for experienced shoppers chafes as a waste of time and energy because it is what we do automatically all the time, every time, anyway.

I do check Jobslinger about once a month to see if there are any companies I am signed up with who now have clients in my area I did not know about. I have never found a new-to-me company on Jobslinger.

I have an excel spreadsheet of companies I have heard about on forums but have not had an opportunity to explore thoroughly. On occasion I Google various terms that may elicit some listing of companies and I collect their data to my spreadsheet. Be aware that Google changes its search algorithms frequently to avoid having folks game the system, so the selection you get returned for a specific search is likely to be different in a month or so from what you find today. I have had lists pop up with companies whose last copyright date was 1997 and with no sign of current activity. Most of the time you can't tell how old the list is except by having watched 5 years ago as this company went belly up and that company was bought out/merged with another company three years ago.

Over the years I have acquired a network of shoppers with whom I PM and email and if I see a job in Suzy's area I may ask her if she is signed up with XYZ because they have a nice shop near her. Suzy generally does the same for me and since some companies I never signed up with because they were adamantly regional (and not in my region), it may be a lead on a company I never heard of before or that I never bothered with because they only shopped Outer Mongolia.

The trick here is to keep your eyes and ears open. Keep a good list of who you ARE signed up with because with many/most of them if you don't visit their website within 3-6 months you may well find that you have been dropped from their shopper database but can't sign up again because that SS# is already in use by your dropped/expired self. I make it a point to go to the profiles and change something to refresh it--since in any 3-6 month period my weight has probably gone up or down by 5# that is a simple enough change to refresh the profile if everything else has stayed the same.

Flash:

Right now I am registered with about 100 MSPs. I check the job boards of about 45 of them daily because they all regularly have shops in Arizona (not necessarily Tucson. I check another 30 weekly just to see if anything out here has popped up. The rest said "Don't call us, we'll cal you" when I registered. I have done shops for about 20 of them, and multiple shops for about half a dozen in the 3 months I've been doing this. I definitely took a "try it and see" attitude when I first started.

Where on Jobslinger can you find who shops where? Other than the job board or recruitment board, I've never seen any useful information.

They won't tell you who shops whom but rather if XYZ posts they have a bank shop in your area you can usually figure out who they are shopping one way or another. And indeed you may need to go to their job board to figure it out. But simply knowing they are now shopping in your area is the primary usefulness.

Your last two posts here have been so insightful, full of great advice. Thanks, Flash.

my arms hurt as well... actually my eyes too.. just last night i signed up for probably another 40 companies.. it took from 10pm until 5am... all from volitions list... you are not alone so far im pretty sure i have a 5% success ratio of finding companies with shops in my area...

i definatly agree with flash when he says CRI and Certified have shops every where (i will check out maritz thanks too) and are great for beginners such as myself... i wouldnt count it off as a failure... just think of it as looking for work... if i had a 5% success ratio of getting jobs for all the times i have applied i would be much better off than i am now... but that rarely happens... for one we dont have a thriving economy right now and jobs are scarce... two you may like me not live in a major metropolitan area... where most of the mystery shops and other jobs are... three you may be like me inexperienced and not have the same amount of pull with companies as some of the other people here do... it happens all the time...

you are not a failure..

And some of this stuff will revisit you. I got an email early this AM telling me about some fine dining restaurant shops that I was entitled to see but other shoppers who checked to see if there was something near them could not. I have been signed up with the company for more than a year and never saw anything on their job boards. I picked up two and they each pay a small fee and fantastic reimbursement for dinner for two. My questions to the scheduler were answered quickly, politely and the reports are a piece of cake as they require even less than what I usually look for.