A Beginner's Guide to the Employment Agency

One thing many people overlook as a simple way to make their pet extraordinary all-around is the Faerieland Employment Agency. Located in Faerie City directly above the Faerie Bookshop, the Employment Agency employs thousands of pets each and every year. If you go to a pet's lookup, you will know immediately if they have ever been employed there, because it will be listed right under their pet's Intelligence. It will list how many jobs their pet has succeeded in, and how many they have failed; it will also give the pet a Job Rank, like Novice or Journeyman.

Upon entering the Employment Agency, your eyes will probably be drawn to the colorful list of Job Coupons down at the bottom of the screen. I will tell you this: Ignore them. Job Coupons are very, very expensive, and probably not worth your hard-earned Neopoints to buy. I don't know for sure, since I've never used them, but I *have* looked at the price of coupons plus the price of the items you'd have to buy for the job vs. the reward you get, and it doesn't look at all profitable.

Up at the top of the page, there are four links; you will be concerned with the ones that say "Status" and "Basic Jobs." There is also a link called "Super Jobs," and I know that probably sounds exciting, but you must have a Job Coupon to do any of the jobs listed there, and like I've already said, Job Coupons aren't worth it at all.

Click on "Status." You will see your pets listed there, and it will list the same things it does in their lookups about how many jobs they've done/failed and what rank they have. It will also list their current job, if they have one, and it will also have a link to their resume. A resume is a list of the recent jobs they've done, including what items they had to get, what time the job was completed at, the time it took them to complete it, and what their reward in Neopoints was. This page isn't really that important, but it's really fun to scroll down once you've done a lot of jobs.

Now that you've been there, go back and click on "Basic Jobs." The page that comes up will probably have a message in italics about how there aren't any jobs right now--that's okay, though. Jobs only come in once every ten minutes, like this: 6:00, 6:10, 6:20, 6:30, 6:40, 6:50, 7:00.... When jobs come in, they're all gone within about 30-40 seconds, so you have to be really fast...right?

Well, not really. I have this little trick I use that I'll tell you in a minute. It doesn't matter how slow your computer is, you can do as many jobs as you like using my method.

When you have gotten to Basic Jobs at the right time and see all those jobs parading down the page, you will be tempted to click on the first one you see: DON'T. Like I said, there is a trick to it, and the trick has to do not only with actually getting the job, but with getting a good job that will make you Neopoints instead of sending them down the hole, never to be seen again.

In each individual job listing, there is a picture of the item you must get, the posting-number, the name and quantity of the item, the time limit for returning with the items, the reward you will receive, and a link to apply for the job. The first two don't matter, and the third one hardly ever matters (I'll tell you why in a minute). The last three matter a very great deal, though, so pay attention.

The time limit and reward are THE most important thing to look for. The time limit is important because you don't want to be rushed; 50 minutes is a much better time limit than two minutes, because it gives you more time to look for deals instead of rushing and maybe even getting back to the job too late. It's very easy to glance over the job before you click; just make sure the time is in the double digits, and you're probably good.

The reward is important because the more Neopoints you make off each and every job, the better off you'll be. Job rewards usually go for something in the two digits up to something in the four digits; I almost always go for four digits myself, because they tend to have the biggest payoff even after you have to pay for the items it wants. The reason the number of items wanted doesn't matter is that, most of the time, you can find all of the items cheaper than the job reward and make Neopoints, and you'd have to have all the prices memorized to be able to be that picky.

Once you see the job you want, click the link for it as fast as you can, double-check the screen that comes up to make sure you remember how many of which item you need, and run off to the Shop Wizard to find what you need. If you've taken my advice, you can take your time refreshing to look for deals so that your profit is even greater once you return. But don't take too much time, because if you return with the items quickly enough, you will receive a bonus in Neopoints.

Once you have the items and want to return to the Employment Agency, all you have to do is return to that window and click where it says "click here and complete the job," or press the backspace button until you find that page again if you didn't change windows for the Shop Wizard. If you can't seem to find the page at all for some reason, return to the Employment Agency manually and click on status; find the pet who took the job and click on the link under current job.

If for any reason you do not wish to complete your quest, and you also don't want your pet to have anything listed under "jobs failed," do the same as above and click "click here to quit this job without failure." It will cost you 200 Neopoints, but oh well. I don't usually quit jobs, but I remember doing so once when I got one with a time limit of one minute because I didn't think I could finish in time.

Now, here's what you've been waiting for: My secret.

When you go to "Basic Jobs," wait until the jobs are there, and then click on the link above the jobs that says "Next Ten." This will take you to the next page of jobs. Once you're there, click "Next Ten" again, and bookmark the page it takes you to. This is the page you want to go to whenever you do jobs, because most people doing jobs stay at the first page; being on the third page gives you a greatly heightened chance of being able to get a job at all; you'll even be able to pick and choose most of the time, provided you skim the page as quickly as you can (remember, all jobs are gone in about half a minute!). The reason you're bookmarking it is so that you don't have to repeat the process each and every time you do a job.

This is the exact method I use. I usually just go with the first four-digit reward I see, although if I see more than one on the screen, I'll try to go for the higher one. I've done 157 jobs with one pet and 27 jobs with another using this method, and I've made quite a bundle of Neopoints doing so.

I hope this guide helped you, and good luck with those jobs! I'm addicted, and you probably will be too...isn't it just a pity that you can only do five Basic Jobs a day?