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Time to hire a nanny. Where do I start?
June 21, 2010by, Dr. Lindsay Heller, The Nanny Doctor
So you’ve decided that you need a nanny. The first thing you need to do is identify your family’s nanny needs. For more information on identifying your family’s nanny needs please see this Nanny Doctor video. Think about all of the practical needs like days, times, number of children, ages of children, etc. Additionally, think about the temperaments of your children, their activities. Do you need a nanny who drives? What will the nanny job duties be? Do you need someone who is an “all-things child” nanny? Or someone who also helps with housekeeping what we call a nanny-housekeeper?
Here are some quick and easy steps to get you started:
1) Identify your family’s specific needs
2) Write up a nanny job description.
3) Go to enannysource.com and begin to look at the nanny profiles. Consult your job description and begin to look at what nanny seems as though they would fit your family’s needs.
4) It’s best to start this nanny search around 3 weeks before you actually need a nanny. Sometimes this process may seem overwhelming, allow enannysource to guide you through this process. For more support check out our Nanny Success Kit for details and tips about finding and maintaining the right nanny.
5) Narrow down your search! Put your favorites on the My Top Picks list
6) After you narrow down your search, e-mail the nanny using the enannysource mail system. Inquire about any questions or concerns you may have prior to setting up a phone interview.
7) After you have found a couple of candidates, set up a phone interview.
8) The next step is to check references and conduct a nanny background check. This is an essential step. Do not skip this step. Conducting a background check through enannysource.com is simple and easy.
9) Interview your nanny in person and make a decision.
10) Have a try-out period for your potential new nanny!
This is just a quick list of how to get started. Go to the enannysource library for more information and details!
← We have found the right nanny for our family, what information should I keep on file about her? | It seems like my nanny isn’t listening to me. I tell her one thing and she looks like she is agreeing and then will go and do something else. →
I couldn’t agree more with identifying your needs as a family – and then actually sticking to them when it comes to hiring a nanny! We settled for a nanny we thought would meet some of our needs because we were in a hurry and in the end it didn’t work out because we weren’t entirely on the same page. This ended up being more work for us in the long run – we should’ve just waited until we found the right nanny the first time around!
Having a solid job description already in place has significantly streamlined our hiring process – it may take extra time to hammer out everything you need from your nanny, but it is well worth the effort!
With our last few nannies we’ve done trial periods where they’ve come to our house for a week and watched the kids so we can get a feel for if they’ll actually fit in with our family or not (paid, of course!) – it’s made all the difference.
so, you think you should run a background check prior to doing the in-person interview? i’ve always called references after the phone interview and then run a background check after the in-person one.
Great question! Really, it’s about what works for you and you’re comfortable with. If that means running the background check after the in-person interview, that’s what you should do! One of the benefits to running it after the phone interview is the peace of mind you get before inviting a relative stranger into your home, though!
Having a trial period is great for nannies too – it gives us a chance to test out the family just like the family gets to test us out!