To start off the hiring process, you choose where you want to find your nanny. Whether it’s a nanny network/agency, friends or family, or a social media posting, be mindful of the pros and cons in determining which outlet you choose.
After choosing where to find your nanny, know the prerequisites that you want from your nanny and the criteria on what you want for your little one(s).
Then you choose, vet, and sign a contract with your new nanny, easy, right?
In all things in life, it’s easier said than done. To hire the best nanny for your kids requires time to sift through all the potential candidates interested in the position. What if you like 2 or 4 or all that you interviewed, how do you choose? What if you don’t find any of the ones you interviewed? What’s next?
In your life, your child(s) is the most important person(s), so when you’re finding child care services, you only want the best (in the confines of your budget and requirements). The hiring process should take time. You need to rush in some cases, but with the right resources, it’s still manageable to pick the right kind of person for your child(s).
Nanny vs. Babysitter
Some people use nanny and babysitter term interchangeably. According to ZipRecruiter
“There is a difference between a nanny and a babysitter. While both play a role in supervising and caring for children when parents are away, a nanny is a daily fixture. Nannies will provide housework and are very involved in the children’s lives. Babysitters are short-term caretakers who are typically hired to watch the children for a set period. Babysitters often stay with children while their parents go on a date, or meet the children after-school if the parent has an appointment.”
Nanny has more responsibilities as they are the parent’s proxy. They have all the duties a parent would have, from taking care of the household to a child(s) emotional and physical development.
From the research in babysitter vs. nanny, wages differ as well. A nanny typically gets paid more than a babysitter, where they earn on a per week/day basis. A babysitter will get paid whenever they’re called upon with an agreed rate for the time block, or a per hour basis.
Pros and Cons of Hiring a Babysitter
Pros
- Flexible schedule, on a whenever you need basis, night or day, whenever they're available
- Babysitters are usually cheaper
Cons
- Since it's a flexible schedule, they may not be available when you need them
- They may lack in experience and skills
Pros and Cons of Hiring a Nanny
Pros
- There's a set and consistent schedule
- More consistent care
- Nannies are usually more experienced and may have valuable skills, such as having certified CPR.
- Involved in house management and children's daily routine
Cons
- Nanny's are usually more expensive
What Are Your Needs + Requirements?
Depending on your family circumstances, you’ll know if you need either a nanny or babysitter.
To keep to the topic for the post, we will move forward with the nanny route.
Now that there’s a route, you’ll want to make a list of needs that you want from your nanny.
Here are some questions you’ll need to answer to form your list:
- How many days/hours you need from a nanny?
- Part-time or full-time nanny or live-in nanny?
- What prerequisite skills do you require that the potential candidate must have?
- What prerequisite experience does the potential candidate must have?
- What would the nanny’s responsibilities be?
- Anything else you feel that needs to be answered before searching
Here’s a sample list when we needed to hire a nanny for our little one:
- 4 hours each day, for 5 days a week, mornings until the little one’s nap-time
- Part-time nanny
- Must be CPR certified
- Have experience with being a nanny for other families (references)
- Bonus experience if worked at a pre-school or daycare
- Responsibilities: pack snacks, make lunch, clean up after lunch, etc
Depending on your situation and budget, your list will differ from the sample I provided.
You also may have expectations from your nanny on what you want out of them regarding your child(s).
- Do arts and crafts
- Outdoor activities
- Teach numbers and letters
- Read books
- Help with homework
- Pick up the child after practice
- Etc.
In our case, we were looking for an experienced nanny that is good with children in our little one’s age range.
We also had specific needs for what we wanted for our little one. We wanted our daughter to develop some skills that she would in a daycare. Where they would do arts and crafts, have story time, and playtime outside.
Specific prerequisites tailored to your needs, will cost. In our situation, for what we’re looking for, it may cost us more than the average rate (depending on location + experience).
You can check out rates on ZipRecruiter, it gives averages of nanny’s salaries depending on location. If you’re using a nanny network such as care.com or sittercity.com, most of the time, potential candidates will list a range of salary expectations.
It’s good to know the average baseline if you’re going the route of finding a nanny through other outlets, not network/agency.
Where Do You Start?
After you know what you want and what you’re looking for, it’s time to search, but where do you search?
There are a couple of outlets you can choose from:
Family + Friends
Family and friends are a good outlet to choose from, especially since you can kind of skip the whole nanny hiring process of getting resumes, interviewing, and vetting and go straight to establishing a schedule, how to get paid, responsibilities, etc.
Social Media (E.g. Facebook Postings)
Social media is also great to cast a wide net of people looking for a nanny position.
Network/Agency
Networks like care.com or sittercity.com are excellent sources to find nannies. If you want to use an agency, care.com will list out agencies near your area. I recommend the network route, but again, it depends on your circumstances.
Yelp – Private Local Agency or Individual Agency
This is also another avenue to look for nannies. Most of the search results from yelp will be local agencies or individual businesses.
Nanny Network
When it comes to family and friends, you essentially become your friend’s/family member’s employer. Sometimes you may be in a dilemma where you’re displeased with what they did, but maybe afraid to say something about it. Or if it’s not working out and you have buyer’s remorse, letting the person go, especially if they’re friends/family, is awkward and may ruin the relationship.
Social media, most the time, has real people behind their profiles. It’s a free platform, so it makes it easy to find anybody for the job. There are 2 problems that I see with the social media route, one of them is spam (lots of spam). We’re already busy as is, and the effort to sift through emails/messages and deem what spam is and what isn’t seems like a lot of work. The 2nd problem is that social media is vast, and there’s no filter to filter out candidates. You can have people just trying to find a job, any job that pays. They can claim to fill the nanny position without any interest in being a nanny or have any remote reference or experience with child care.
Social media is free, and you may be fortunate with a recommendation from friends or acquaintances. This route is great, but if you have no time and just want something catered to what you’re looking for, the next two paths are the choice for you.
My recommendation would be to go with the nanny network route. You can expect that potential candidates on the network aren’t just trying to find any kind of job that pays, but a job as a nanny. These networks also have additional services like background checks and setting up tax (for payments). It’s a one-stop-shop kind of place.
A nanny agency is a service that will take you through the whole thing, from search to hire. These agencies have their own vetting process. It’s a lot more hand-holding, but it’ll save a lot of manual work. The limitation I see in this is the number of nannies to choose from.
The downside of using the network/agency (applies to local as well) is that it costs money (Network has a monthly subscription fee. Agency will cost more and could be a per-use fee).
You can find a potential nanny in 2 ways:
- You can do your own search for nannies within your local area by inputting a zip code. In this format, you find the person you think fits your needs best and directly message them. With this method, you may not get an immediate response. Who knows when they last updated their profile or if they have other potential suitors.
- You can put up a nanny job posting, listing your prerequisites of what kind of nanny you’re looking for. This route takes time as you have to sift through all the replies and select the few that you like. You would most likely get an immediate response as nannies replying to your post are actively looking.
Our recommended nanny network site is care.com.
In our case, we used care.com and found 2 great nannies that met all our expectations. The UX/UI of the site is top-notch. The site interface made browsing easy and smooth. Upon research, I also found that care.com has a broader network, giving you a better chance of finding the best nanny for your kids.
There’s a good alternative nanny network site that we tried as well; it’s sittercity.com.
My wife works at the hospital, where they offered care.com and sittercity.com subscriptions to find child care services. We were fortunate to try both these services out, and a lot of the things provided in care.com are also offered in sittercity.com.
I don’t think you can go wrong with whatever you choose, but as stated above, care.com has a more extensive network, and we were able to find 2 great nannies from the site.
Starting the Nanny Hiring Process
If you’re going to the friend/family route, you don’t really need to read this section. You can skip and start reading the Procedures After Hire section.
If you’re going with the social media or nanny network route, there are 2 ways to find potential candidates.
Whichever way you search for your potential candidates, try to accumulate 3-5 candidates that seem like they fit with your family.
If you’re doing the search, bookmark 5-7 nannies you want to get in touch with. Message them, get a feel to see if you’re going to move forward with a phone interview. Ask for a resume and references.
If it’s a job posting, you’ll be sifting through emails/messages. Pick the candidates that meet the criteria. Just like what’s stated above, message them and ask for a resume and references.
Tip: If candidates are messaging/emailing, make sure to see if the candidate messaging you about the job didn’t just make a generic message that can work with all postings, but a message that conveys that they read your job posting and requirements. Attention to detail is key.
Bonus Tip: In our case, references are essential. It helped us eliminate candidates to lead us to pick the nanny who we have today. Having references also help with the vetting process as well.
Phone Interview
So you have your candidates, got their resume, an idea of their experience/background, and references. Now it’s time to set an interview, but before conducting any interviews, have questions and requirements prepared.
You want to have your questions answered while you have their time. You also want to convey your requirements and what you expect out of them if they were to be hired.
I recommend having a phone interview (Zoom, Facetime, or Skype) before an in-person interview. This accomplishes several things, as you can meet the person face-to-face at a distance. You can determine if you want to see them in person or move on; this saves both parties time.
During the interview, make sure:
- All your questions are answered
- Let them know your expectations
- Confirm the key information you have on your potential candidate
- Confirm their skillsets and experience by talking to them about it
- Establish salary expectations
- If you and the candidate seem to be on the same page, salary expectations are reasonable, invite them over for an in-person interview as well as a meet and greet with the little one(s)
Meet-and-Greet
In our case, for however many candidates that we like from the phone interview, we invite them for an in-person meet-and-greet. We expect them to be there for 45 minutes to 1 hour. We also pay for them to be there for that time block.
Since we already asked all the “technical” questions on the phone interview, the meet-and-greet is about the candidate getting to know our little one. We want to see if our little one likes the person (she usually doesn’t, but that’s normal, right?).
The things we do for the meet-and-greet:
- Show them around – since they will be involved in house duties and taking care of the kid, we want to show where things are at or how to get to the little one’s bedroom/restroom/etc.
- Designated areas – giving the potential nanny an idea of where things are at and designated areas
- Discuss Responsibilities – let them know what they are going to do and what we expect
- Routine – show them what the routine is throughout the day
- Details – to talk about the ins and outs of the little one, like what ticks them off, what they like to do the most, what their favorite fruit, or color, and medical needs or attention, etc
Everyone will have a different way they will conduct the in-person interview.
By doing all this, we get a vibe and can see if the candidate can fit best with the family.
Hire the Best Nanny
So you’re at this point, now you got decisions to make.
If you only like one out of all that you’ve invited, this saves you time.
If you don’t like any of the nannies that came over, there are two things you can do. Pick the one that you don’t like the least, or restart the hiring nanny process.
You may not need restart from the beginning; if you chose a nanny network, you can go back and do a search or put up the job posting again OR look at the other people that message/emailed you but didn’t do a phone interview with.
What if it’s the opposite, and it’s an embarrassment of riches, where you liked all the nannies that were invited. How do you choose?
There some things you can go off of:
- How easy-going are they? – As in if they’re able to be ok listening to you on what to do with tending to your child
- What’s their situation? – While you’re talking, you get an idea of what the person is like and their life situation; are they in school, married with children, etc. You may want to find a nanny that also has children because they know how it is to raise a child. Or you may want someone who doesn’t have children and a steady schedule because you want someone with fewer variables of calling out for the day. It’s up to you and your preference with this
- Comparing experience/background – you may prefer someone with more experience or specific background that they have
- Location – where are they coming from? You may want someone that lives close to you (within 5 miles or so). It’s convenient on both sides.
- Little one’s preference – Your little one may actually have someone they like in mind. Ask them if possible; they’re the ones spending the most time with the nanny
- Parental instincts – Go with your parental instincts if all else fails
Vetting Process
I’ve written a post here on how to properly do a nanny background check. These days you want to cover all bases, especially if you’re leaving the most important people to someone you don’t really know.
In the post, I use some free tools and methods to ensure that I did all I can to calm my paranoid brain.
Here, I summarize the vetting process; if you want more details, check out the post:
- Background check – care.com or sittercity.com offers background checks for a fee (depending on the review level). I recommend it, as you never know these days. Background checks will usually be done after the nanny accepts the position. But you can go forward with other vetting methods. Remember that you must get consent from the candidate and a sighed release form to do a background check
- Google search – type in their name, see if they pop-up anywhere in the search engines. Make sure if they pop-up it’s not something negative, like anything viral and negative
- Social Media – check if they have a Facebook or LinkedIn (most likely private). The goal is to make sure that they exist and that the nanny’s provided background and name isn’t made up
- People search tool – there are free people search tools that you can use to see that everything matches up with what they provide
- References – checking on references
Nanny Contract
After you offer the nanny the position and they accept, it’s contract time.
Contracts are a great way to protect you and the nanny. Also provides rules and context, so things are established from the get-go.
I’ve written a post and outline some things to include in nanny contracts. You can also use the template to make your nanny contract and slightly adjust it to make it work for you.
All the details you established, such as salary expectation and schedules definitely needs to be in the contract. Other things, such as rules and responsibilities, are included. Also, how to get paid, information swap, termination clauses, week notices, PTO, etc.
After you’re done with the contract, sign it, have your spouse sign it, and send it to the nanny.
Procedures After Hiring
The vetting process is done, contracts are signed, so what’s next?
I suggest you have the nanny come over before the start date. It’s important to make a smooth transition. The most important aspect of why you’re hiring a nanny is to take care of your little one(s).
- Bond with the little one(s) to get a sense of familiarity
- Go through routines and schedules
- Show them where everything is at such as food, snacks, restrooms, clothes, cleaning supplies, etc
- Provide the ground rules, explain any medical attention or problems, and anything else to look out for
- Emergency contacts
- Whatever else you can think of
Hiring Process Summary
In case you don’t want to go through this whole post, and just want the spark notes to all that is written, here’s a summary.
- List out needs and requirements for the nanny
- List out expectations to what you want to get out from the nanny
- Have an idea of the budget you want to spend
- Picking where you want to find the nanny: family + friends, social media, agency, or nanny network (recommended)
- Get in contact with nanny’s that has the qualifications you’re looking for
- Facetime interview
- Meet and Greet
- Choosing the best nanny
- Vetting process
- Offer the position
- Contract signing
- Transition to nanny care
To get from finding a nanny to the hiring of the nanny is a process that takes time.
When it comes to your little one(s), you want the best within the confines of your stated budget. Strive to pick the nanny you like and not settle on what you come across. Use the guide above to cover all bases when making a hire.
Let me know if there are any other suggestions on how you would approach hiring a nanny!
