Why is it important to respond to volunteer applications?

Worldpackers encourages empathy and collaboration not only in your exchanges, but also during your entire recruitment process. So it’s important for hosts and travelers to commit to responding to messages, because this is the first indication that both parties are committed to having a positive experience together.

Response Rate

On our Search Page, we feature positions from hosts with a high response rate, because this is a sign that a host is active on our platform and searching for volunteers. We also promote positions with fewer applications to balance the number of people interested in each one.

Volunteers don’t expect all of their applications to be accepted, but they do expect to receive responses from hosts, even if they’re negative. This high responsiveness is one of the things that differentiates Worldpackers, increasing confidence in our platform and attracting more volunteers to contribute to the thousands of host projects in our community.

When someone who applied to your position isn’t a good fit, decline their application: this avoids disappointing them with no response, and keeps your response rate high. So chat more and pre-approve applications from people who are a good fit for your project, and always respond to keep your place at the top of our search results.

Our hosts have super busy schedules at their projects, so we recognize the importance of good organization to keep the recruitment process smooth and efficient. To help you with this, we offer Quick Message Templates where you can save quick responses to send to applicants. Save time and respond to volunteers quickly and easily!

Response Time

You can exchange as many messages as you like with potential volunteers, but we ask that you respond to applications within a maximum of 3 days, including the day you receive them. After four days with no response, we’ll direct volunteers to look for other opportunities instead.

To avoid missing applications from excellent volunteers, always pay attention to your notifications and email, and download our Worldpackers for Hosts app, available for iOS and Android.

If voice messages make your life easier, we have good news: Your Host Inbox on both our website and mobile app lets you send and receive voice messages: 

Track your performance

Travelers have access to info like Response Rate and Response Time for all positions:

You can also track how many applications you’ve received and responded to in the past 30 or 90 days in the Performance section:

Remember: Worldpackers is not involved in the recruitment process, so it is our hosts’ responsibility to complete this process using the tools our platform offers and the materials and tips shared by our team.