Complete guide to hiring a babysitter

Hiring a babysitter can prove a difficult process that takes quite a lot of time and nerves for parents, especially if they first encounter this challenge. Moreover, every parent wants the best for their child, so it is important to hire not just a person to spend a few hours during the day with him while parents are absent, but to choose a really good and valuable babysitter to cope with all the obligations of raising the little one to be calm and happy in her presence.

Therefore, we have prepared a detailed guide to guide you to make it quick and easy to hire your first nanny.And in order to be useful to you, we have covered the whole long process of finding a suitable candidate, through selection, recruitment and subsequent management.

1.Finding the right

Shape the requirements you have

Before you start with anything, first clarify to yourself what exactly you are looking for, what are your requirements, preferences and conditions offered. Best write everything on one sheet so that you do not miss something important when you start the actual search.Prepare yourself in advance, take the time you need to have a comprehensive search profile.

Long-term or temporary

What is the commitment you need — long-term childcare (for a few months, a year, a few years) or temporary viewing (for a short period of time, a few weeks to a few months)?

Are you going to use the services of a nanny every day or only on certain days of the week?

Do you need a full day's watch or just for a few hours?Will you need a nanny just for picking up from a garden or school and spending a few hours with the kids until you get home?

If you only need a single babysitter, for a specific occasion (you are late from work and there is no one to pick up your children from a garden or school; you want to go out in the evening at a place but without the children; you want to spend a weekend with your mate away from home, without the children), specify what exactly period you need care.

Answer all these questions so you can move on to the following criteria of your search.

Work schedule

If you have decided to hire a nanny for recurring engagements, then make a detailed work schedule that you will require from her — on which dates, what days of the week, at which exact times or time intervals will you need it to be available?For better visualization, you can use a table where you can enter your appointments by day and time.

With or without experience

What kind of nanny you are looking for — with or without experience. Both have their advantages and disadvantages.Nannies with no experience are usually younger and have no previous children they have cared for, although that doesn't make them any less reliable.Their advantage is that they may be more enthusiastic and ambitised to do well, and their main advantage is the lower remuneration they tend to work for.

Experienced nannies, in turn, are usually those who have watched quite a lot more children, have a certain number of years of experience in the profession, are often older and can cope with ease and without unnecessary panic and concerns with any more complex situations that would eventually arise when babysitting. But accordingly, their tariff per hour is higher, in comparison with the “novices” in the industry.

Young or adult

Think carefully about what kind of nanny you prefer relative to her age — younger or older. As a rule, adult babysitters make long-term commitments, for all day.Young nannies prefer temporary views, responding to single, rarely repeated or incidental calls.Each rule also has its own exceptions, of course, so you should not be strictly followed by these descriptions.For more detailed information you can read Young or elderly nanny to choose.

Certificates and trainings

Depending on what exactly you will need to hire a babysitter, you can also determine whether you will require her to have special abilities — pass BRC course, driver's license, whether she specializes in working with children with SOPs or those with physical or emotional characteristics. If you rely on the nanny to take your children to extracurricular activities and activities, to take them and pick them up from a garden or school, sports, language courses or other, then you may consider an option to rent one that is willing to use her personal car, and you pay her fuel and transport costs, of course.

recommendations

Any nanny who has worked before for families left satisfied with her care should be able to provide recommendations from them.The question is, how much would you rely on these recommendations and how important it is for you to have them. So decide, will you require recommendations from would-be nannies and exactly how much.

Duties

By hiring professional care for your child, you need to determine what will be exactly the duties you require to the carer.What exactly will you expect from the babysitter — to feed, dress, sleep, walk, train, teach your child useful habits, to guide him to different places, help him with lessons, to conduct special activities with him, to observe a certain schedule, etc.Here is the place to note whether you will require her to help you with some additional household chores, such as cooking, washing dishes, washing, ironing, cleaning.Please note that for any additional obligation, an additional fee to the basic rate per hour will be expected.

Prepare a proper pay for the babysitter

As much as you don't want to, you need to be aware of exactly what amount you're willing to offer to a nanny. It depends largely on your views and financial capabilities, but be fair in calculating it — this is a serious and responsible job, especially since the babysitter will be responsible for your child, his health and well-being. Pay also depends on a number of factors — duration of engagement, location, number of children and their age, additional responsibilities, previous experience of the nanny, transportation costs, special requirements and peculiarities.To navigate prices, you can use our Calculator.

Where to find a nanny

We also come to the question: Where exactly to look for and find our babysitter?Variants are several: through an acquaintance or a friend, via the Internet or through an agency. If someone you know can recommend a nanny and give you her coordinates, you can try to hire her as long as it meets your personal requirements, likes you and is free to make your commitment. If you choose to search for a babysitter through the Internet, check the job listings pages, Facebook groups and platforms on the Internet. In all of the cases listed, however, you will follow the search, selection, interviews, meetings, verification of documents and certificates, recommendations from other parents.It is only through the use of a babysitter selection agency that you can tell your requirements and rely on secure results.The Agency undertakes to search for you, check and organise meetings only with candidates that meet your criteria.Therefore, you will have to be prepared to pay a certain fee, commission or percentage of remuneration, which, however, will save yourself a lot of unnecessary nerves and lost time, and eventually you will find the right candidate for you. If you want to get acquainted in detail with the ways of finding a babysitter, read our article How to find a nanny.And if you wish to trust our Agency, please contact us at the coordinates indicated on the website.

Read the related articles:

• 6 criteria to hire a real nanny
• When to leave a child to a babysitter
• How to hire a babysitter for the first time
• What you shouldn't tell your nanny

2.The selection process

The actual part of the process of selecting and finding the right candidates comes.So far you have done a lot of work defining your criteria, which will help you with the search and “detection” with the proposed ads from nannies. Once you post your ad, interested babysitters can apply to it so you can see who is interested in your proposal.

View Profile

Once you have a specific application, the first thing you can do is to review the candidate's profile. In the profile of each sitter registered in our platform you can see her experience, the certificates and trainings she has received and possesses, as well as the recommendations from past parents she worked for. This information can immediately tell you how qualified she is, what are the directions of her work, what children she has worked with so far, what are the usual commitments she makes and how she deals with them.Access to these accounts can be extremely useful to you as you are aware of most of the characteristics of the candidates even before you contact them and before making your first contact. Already at this level, your “sifting” can begin, if it does not seem reliable to you experience and reviews.Besides, you will not waste your time with unnecessary contacts, as well as asking the same questions to all candidates and giving you the same answers, which can sometimes be quite annoying and a complete waste of time.

First interview

Once you liked the profile of a nanny and it seems to you that it meets your search, it comes the turn of the first contact with her. It can be a phone call that is preferable as it is less engaging, takes less time and can “sift through” inappropriate candidates quite easily. If you like each other with a nanny, you can organize a video call (for the same reasons as the phone), but you can visualize your ideas about the babysitter and get a much more complete idea of her. In these conversations, you must specify how many children it is, how old they are, what neighborhood you are in and whether you have pets.Some nannies may opt out of the job in answering any of these questions if it does not respond to their demand. At the final stage of selection, it is right to organize a personal meeting, live.You will probably have no more than 1-2 applications left, which will make it easier for you both temporally and emotionally.

If you are conducting the interview live, at home or elsewhere, and your child is near you, be sure to call him to get acquainted with the nanny and see how they behave with each other. This can be of great help to you, but do not rely entirely on the first contact, often both sides are worried and do not give their best.

Specify your requirements with the applicant

Share your requirements with the nanny and discuss in detail the most important topics such as work schedule, previous experience, whether he is a smoker, whether he has a driver's license, whether she can take care of a newborn if you have a small baby, whether he can help with homework or language lessons for older children who are students.

Specification of obligations

Tell the nanny what will be her basic duties for babysitting and additional duties if you want to entrust her — household chores, taking food from a children's kitchen, staying overnight or traveling with the family.More information about the requirements and obligations can be read our Handbook for conducting an interview.

Specification of remuneration and working conditions

There comes also the financial and documentary part.Discuss with the applicant whether you will sign an employment contract and under what conditions will be, what will be the exact salary or hourly rate, what will be the payment for the extra days or hours when you need to call it, and whether you will bear her transport costs (public transport card, fuel for personal car or taxi notes).To save yourself future headaches, clarify these questions already at this stage, if you like the candidate and plan to offer him the job.

Necessary documents from the nanny

The standard documents that you can require from the would-be nanny are: a criminal record certificate, a medical certificate and a pass psychotest. With these documents you guarantee the physical and mental health and adequacy of the babysitter.Request her recommendations from the parents whose children she worked for before.Be sure to contact them by phone and conduct a short conversation about the purpose of the call and the qualities of the nanny.

What to ask during an interview

It is not necessarily for every parent to have experience in conducting interviews and possessing the necessary knowledge to know exactly what questions they should ask and how to formulate them correctly. There are standard questions that are asked in every job interview like: What exactly is your previous experience? Why do you think you can handle babysitting my child?Would you make additional obligations and contingencies?What is your expected remuneration? For your convenience, we have prepared a Handbook for conducting an interview, which you can print and conduct on it when conducting conversations with the would-be nannies.

3.Rentals

Here comes the most effective, but also no less responsible part of finding a nanny, namely - hiring her. You have already liked each other, agreed working conditions, obligations, remuneration. It's a turn for you to specify and document your relationships.

Contract

Like any job, especially when it comes to permanent and long-term relations, it is right to have a contract between the two parties.It is important for the simple reason that everything agreed between the nanny and the parent such as hours of work, pay, obligations, working conditions, is documented.The treaty protects both sides and is an excellent means of security in the relationship.Although it is recommended, it is not mandatory, so if you decide not to sign something official, keep in mind that you are taking this eventual risk. You can use standard forms for employment relationships, and you can also use the services of a lawyer.However, by hiring an agency, it undertakes to assist you in this part, so you will be completely relieved and protected.

If you sign an employment contract, compulsory insurances, taxes, gross and net remuneration of the babysitter, as well as the fees at your expense.

Trial period

If you want to secure yourself and give a chance to your relationship with the hired nanny, you can provide a trial period or probation period — one, two or more months, it's up to you. During this period, you may terminate your working relationship without prior notice or need to pay any compensation.Agreed with the nanny about the terms and conditions and follow your plan.

Vacations and holidays

Discuss with the nanny how the issue of planned annual leave and hospital leave is about. If taking a hospital is something unforeseen, then the leave can be planned in advance.Determine how many days the nanny's annual leave will be, when she eventually plans to take it, how you will combine yours with her plans. And when your permanent nanny is absent, you can always count on us to hire a temporary one to “save the day.”

The weekends should also be the main topic of your conversations. On what days of the week your nanny will be absent, whether they will be the same every week, it's best to reconcile your schedules. If you need to ask the babysitter to take on extra hours of work, i.e. overspent hours or the so famous overtime, discuss how many of them she can take, how much time you should warn her in advance, on what days she can take unforeseen hours and what will be her pay for them.

Read the related articles:

• 7 reasons to do a trial period for babysitters
• Why a contract with the nanny is needed

4.

Management

Frequent, you already have a nanny!You've done all the work and now you can safely indulge in your off-domestic chores while your chosen babysitter takes care of your little man at home.So far, good, but like any job, this one needs some control and control.

Instructions and tasks

To ensure maximum peace of mind, safety for the child and comfort for all parties, give accurate and clear instructions to the nanny what she should do in unforeseen situations.Leave prominently your phone number and that of your partner or other close person who can recall if necessary. If your child has any allergy or intolerance to food or medication, please mention this to the babysitter.Inform her clearly about her tasks for the day. Best make a list of everything you need and hang it in a prominent place so that it is at its disposal at any time of the day, recalling and encouraging it.

Covering expenses incurred by the nanny related to the child

You should be very familiar with how a child is looked after and how many unforeseen expenses can occur with each walk or home.Therefore, provide some pocket money that will be available to the babysitter in case your child wants juice or critters during their daily walk, if you tolerate the consumption of such, of course. If the nanny has to take your child somewhere during the day, leave her some money for transportation costs.

Provide food

If your nanny has to spend many hours at home caring for your child without having the opportunity to order or buy something to eat, or if you do not prefer her to eat anything other than your child and bring food from outside, you can offer her a meal at home. Whether you prepare yourself or order in advance and secure in the refrigerator is a matter of agreement and personal choice.

Exits

In many cases, it happens that the babysitter should take your child to the doctor (whether regular consultation, prophylactic examination or child malaise). Or she should take him to a lesson, course, sport, children's birthday, theater or other entertainment event. In all of the cases listed, it is right to make sure that the nanny can move comfortably and easily with your child, to provide a way of movement, give precise instructions for address, conduct, duration and everything you can think of will benefit them.

Value and respect the babysitter

You're the nanny's employer, and you pay her a salary.But she is also the person who cares for your child and provides him with daily comfort.So you value her work, her care and her dedication.Yeah, she won't do things the way you do, but she's going to do them her way, which could also be successful.As long as the child is satisfied, accept her way of viewing and appreciate it.

And since she is also a person and needs rest, anticipate an option where the nanny wants to take a lunch break. Whether it will be in your living room while the child is sleeping or otherwise, find together a reasonable option.

Additional bonuses

Along with her set salary or agreed price per hour of viewing, you can provide your nanny with a number of other bonuses and perks. If anything, then surely she will appreciate your desire to show commitment, sympathy and desire for it to work for you.As mentioned above, you can provide for the payment of transport costs in the form of a public transport card, fuel costs or taxi services.

Other additional bonuses you might offer are: paying for additional trainings and certificates such as the renewal of a first aid course or specialized childcare courses. You can negotiate a 13th salary, Christmas bonus, additional health insurance, sports card.It all depends on your desire and financial capabilities.

And here comes the end of this manual.We hope to have been the most useful to you in the process of searching, selecting, hiring and managing a babysitter.And in the end, the result is important — a caring nanny, calm parents and happy children.

Because our motto is:

“ Together, for a cause, the best care for your children “!

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