Dear Parents NO more Zoom video calls

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I always start with a phone conversation, and if it seems promising I would want to move on to in person. If the parents would prefer to add a zoom call instead of the phone conversation or between the phone conversation and the in person, that would be totally fine. But no, I’m not going to except a position or give out my references until I’ve actually seen the home and met the family.

If you were a parent who objects to this, think about How incredibly vulnerable it is to turn down other offers and accept the position and build your life around the assumption that a family will be your source of income. Now imagine that you are an experienced nanny and you know that the teenage stepson who has his own space and won’t be in the way is actually going to be smoking weed and watching video games in the living room all day, or the friendly silly dog who is so good with the baby according to the zoom call weighs more than you do and is completely out of control, or that the house they described as being “lived in like most people with kids“ is actually a disgusting pigsty. There are crucial things that I will only be able to evaluate by entering the actual space and meeting the actual people involved. If that doesn’t work for you and you are not interested in hiring someone who requires at least one in person interview before references, that’s fine. But most experienced nannies with options Will keep on looking.

Finally, think about how busy you are and how stressful your life is and how much free time you as a parent typically have. Now imagine that an old friend asks you for a favor that will take you about half an hour, possibly more. If they ask you to do this once, or twice or even three times you would absolutely say yes. If they are asking you to devote half an hour a day to them for a few weeks on end, you are going to get tired of it and eventually tell them that it’s not working for you anymore. This is how my references would feel if I gave out their number to every person who interviews me.

I’m going to protect the time and the privacy of my previous employers, just as you would like me to protect your time and privacy if you were to become my current employer. The time to ask for references is when we have discussed everything else and you are ready to hire me provided that there are no red flags in my background check. if we haven’t discussed whether we are on the same page about sleep training, or the importance of family dinner, or the pay range, then you don’t have enough information yet to need my references. It’s entirely possible that you won’t want to hire me because I’m a bad fit even if all of my references are glowing.

If it’s really important to you to have a full background check on every nanny who enters your home for an in person interview, the only way to accomplish that is to either weed out lots and lots of nannies who will want to see the environment in which they will have to work in person, or to go through an agency who will do a background check and reference check on all of their nannies before they place them.

+1000 well said.