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Parents and primary caregivers should not hesitate to place potential nannies under close scrutiny before making their final hiring decision. Your screening requirements and expectations should be clearly defined, and totally satisfied before you introduce a nanny into your child’s life.
Trusted Employees uses all its available screening products and services to help families make carefully considered decisions about who they entrust with their child/children’s care. Our combined screening approach is of particular relevance to nanny screening, for which straight internet database searching falls far too short. We employ a combination of web-based and direct-to-source research to ensure the construction of a total profile.
Our web-based searches verify the legitimacy of an applicant’s birth certificate, social security number, and contact information. We also access state-wide criminal data repositories and multi-state criminal databases via internet-fast searching, for the purpose of criminal and sex offender searches.
Our direct-to-source investigations continue the criminal search on a county level, and provide for more in-depth and hands-on verification of an applicant’s qualifications and previous experience. Any information you request from a potential nanny can be verified by a combination of web-based reports, special inquiries, and extensive interviews with previous employers.
In spite of all available screening resources, it is more often that not a parent’s intuition that makes the final hiring decision. For your own purposes, make sure that you are asking the right questions and picking up on divulgences and/or behaviors that might indicate problems.
When getting to know potential nannies:
- Ask specific questions about their previous experience and general questions about their child rearing philosophy
- Ask questions that encourage reflection on their own childhood experiences
- Ask questions about what motivates them to work with children and families
- Get a sense of their experience by asking them to describe a challenging situation they faced; ask how they handled it, how they would have handled it differently in hindsight, and what they have learned from it
- Pose a hypothetical scenario and ask how they would respond to it
- Inquire about formative experiences that have changed their approach to care giving
When you start screening an applicant:
- Make sure that all gaps in an applicant’s work history are accounted for
- Pay special attention when an applicant has moved around a lot
- Be wary of a work history comprised of many short-term jobs
- Take note when an applicant seems unconcerned with rate of pay or readily acquiesces to all your terms
- Be especially discerning when an applicant seems overqualified or ‘too good to be true’
Trusted Employees offers families the professional expertise they need to make a decision that is incredibly personal. Regardless of whether or not you enlist the help of a screening company for your nanny search, know that there is a best approach to finding the right nanny. Ask the right questions, look for the essential indicators, make your child/children part of the decision, and follow through with every request and stipulation that you make.