How to set your availability so the right jobs find you

Key points

• Your weekly hours are a pattern that fills in about eight weeks ahead. You can change a single date.
• A job appears only if you are free for each day's hours (a job can run on 1 to 14 days), in a trade you hold, within your travel distance.
• Turning a job down never counts against you.

Weekly hours first

Start with the pattern that is true most weeks: the days and hours you are normally free. Save it, and GapCrew fills in your free time for about the next eight weeks. A window can cross midnight, which helps if you work nights.

Then the exceptions

Real weeks differ from the pattern. Mark a single date as free or unavailable without touching your weekly hours. The more accurate your time is, the better the jobs that reach you, because matching reads these dates and hours.

Add where you are and how far you will go

You enter a ZIP code, not a street address, and choose a travel distance. The default is 25 miles and the maximum is 50. A job reaches you only within your travel distance. Employers can narrow the list of workers they browse and invite, but cannot widen your distance. Be realistic: distance is measured in a straight line, not by drive time.

Choose your trades

Pick the trades you want work in, mark one as your main trade, and list skills for each. Jobs appear only in trades you hold. A fuller profile, with experience and tools, helps an employer who is deciding whom to confirm. Profile photos and document uploads are not available yet.

What happens when you get a job

When an employer confirms you, that part of your free time is marked as booked so no overlapping job can be confirmed. If the job covers only part of one of your free blocks, the rest stays free. For a job on several days, each day's hours are booked and the nights between stay free. If the booking is cancelled, the days that are not over go back to free.

The steps at a glance

1. Set your weekly hoursChoose the days and times you are normally free and save them. GapCrew fills in about eight weeks ahead.
2. Adjust single datesMark any date as free or unavailable without changing your weekly pattern.
3. Add your ZIP code and travel distanceEnter a ZIP code and a travel distance from 1 to 50 miles. The default is 25.
4. Choose your trades and skillsPick your trades, mark a main trade and list the skills you want to be known for.
5. Respond to jobs that fitSee jobs in your trades, inside your free time and within your travel distance, and respond to the ones you want.

Common questions

Related guides

• What happens when plans change: declining and cancelling on GapCrew
• How ZIP-based privacy works
• Framer, carpenter, general laborer or something else? Choosing the right help
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