Do not apply before you are live
The apply button closes itself until verification is finished. That saves the pitch you would have written for a brand that cannot hire you.
An account with a half-finished creator profile can sign in and look at briefs. It cannot apply. The same is true of campaign submissions and of accepting an offer. Decline is still available. Accepting is the moment you become the person being paid, so it waits.
The reason is practical. A brand reviewing twenty pitches should not spend four of them on people who still owe a photo of themselves. Those pitches feel like leads. They are not leads. They are unfinished setups.
Finish bank, identity, and the agreement. When the review passes, the card goes live, the sitemap can carry the handle, and the apply button starts working. The pitches you send after that are the ones worth writing.