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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Neighborhood listservs is where we had success and got our best nannies. We only responded to postings from previous families, raving about their amazing nanny who needed a new job because the kid was going to PK3 or they were moving.

I would do a very short interview with the nanny (mostly looking for communication skills since English is the second language for so many nannies) and then dove in hard on the references. Call at least 2-3. Let them give you their pitch ("oh, she's great"), give them some softball questions, then dig in on the stuff you care about. "She was lacking in a lot of other ways that ended up making things very difficult" tells me you know what you want. So, ask. I also got a lot of milage out of the question, "if you HAD to say something, what would you say was her worst quality as a nanny." And wait to ask that until you've given the reference a bunch of opportunities to talk about how great the nanny was. That sets them up to feel okay about being at least a little honest. For our best nanny, the answer was, "gosh, gee, there was really nothing... okay, well, this is weird, but she went through SO MUCH dish soap. I actually almost said something because we were going through one of those big things every week!" If that is literally the worst thing someone can come up with after having someone as a full time nanny for two years, you've got yourself a phenomenal nanny. And she was! (And she did use a lot of dish soap, lol).

I know for other jobs (like my day job) the reference call is after you've basically made your choice, but for a nanny, I've doing reference calls for several, because that's what I'm making my decision off of.

Also - make sure you ask a bunch of questions about the reference's situation. How many kids, how they found the nanny, how long they were employed with them, what hours, etc. I definitely had a couple of references that were trying to pass themselves off as having hired her as a full time nanny, but upon digging, they were clearly just friends with children that the nanny had babysat for. [/quote]

I'm very surprised that great nannies handed you a reference list prior to an offer.  Most families burn out on calls very quickly (ie. no more than 5 reference calls every few years), so most of us can't afford to hand it out until the position is down to top three candidates.  Most of my references don't get called until I have a verbal offer and we're looking at negotiating terms, pending references checking out.[/quote]

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