Finding a nanny - what am I doing wrong??
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Anonymous
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I live in a fairly small city, and the only option we have for finding a nanny is care.com and sittercity. I’m having a lot of trouble finding someone. I’ll post the job, get a handful of messages, talk with them on the phone, set up a time for them to come over to meet the family, and they either no show or text that they are sick and then don’t reply to my follow up texts to reschedule. BUT the weird thing is I keep seeing that they’ve logged into their account, so it seems they are still looking for work.
Just some details: - most charge $10/ hour according to their profile but I have been offering $20/hour - I offer to pay for the meet & greet - for those who have kids, I’ve told them I’d be happy for their children to come along, too - Right now I only need about 20 hours a week, with the plan to increase that to full time over the next 6 months - I WFH - many have offered to help with cleaning and errands, and I told them it’s not necessary and I don’t expect them to What am I doing wrong?? |
Anonymous
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Too little hours...
And you working from home. Thats why. |
Anonymous
| Most nannies are looking for full time hours. Agencies tell parents to raise their pay rate to entice part time nannies. Nannies need film time to pay their bills and won't be able to earn over time rate when working two part time jobs. |
Anonymous
| You work from home and part time jobs are turn offs. Can you increase the hours? |
Anonymous
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Increase to full time now.
Don’t mention that you work-from-home until your initial interview where the nanny-candidates can see that you (hopefully) have an office away from the main living space and they read you assure them that you will not be underfoot. |
Anonymous
OP. Thanks for the advice 
I’m offering $20/hour for 20 hours a week, which is the same total as the $10 most are charging for full time. So should I just pay the $10 for 40 hours? I can’t afford $20 full time right now but can possibly increase to $15 an hour in 6 months or so. |
Anonymous
Where do you live, OP?! |
Anonymous
No, it won’t matter. No matter what you think or have heard, your rate is too low. Look at daycares. |
Anonymous
Southwest. Here the living wage is $13 an hour. Everyone I’ve spoken to from care.com charges $10ish an hour. Just for reference, it’s very different from DC. Everyone who works as a nanny is 18-22 years old and either a college student or has young children of their own. None have a degree, none are professional. I’ve had a couple friends who nannied and they were paid $6-10 an hour. So $20 is WAY over the standard rates here. |
Anonymous
I don’t mind paying more. I guess what confuses me is - if you’re looking for $35 an hour, why quote $10 an hour and then ghost? Why not just state the $35 upfront? |
Anonymous
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You are reading way too much into the $10hr.
Lots have likely had a profile for years and slapped $10hr on there when they signed up. Care.com defaults to $10hr if you don't actually type a different rate in. When I interviewed nannies, 0/10 had accurate profiles. Many said "Hi I'm a 22 year old college student...." but that was from 5+ years ago and they were a 27yo with a decade of expreince. Find a daycare worker and pay them more to leave their job. Offer full time. Use an agency (there are many, many agencies that service nationwide) Run an ad in the local community college child development program. Look for an in home daycare. Team up with another family to make a nanny share for full time and higher pay. |
Anonymous
I disagree w/the above advice. If you live in a small city/town, then your salary of $20/Hr is likely reasonable. While many…..possibly the majority of Nannies may be seeking full-time employment there are also people out there who also attend school & are only looking for a part-time gig. Also there are SAHMs as well as retired people who would only want to work part-time as they just need or want a little extra ca$h on the side. You may have to look longer for them - but they ARE out there OP, I can promise you. Since you work from home > I would definitely let prospective Nannies know this from the get go. Only because there are some Nannies that have had bad experiences working alongside a parent who may have no desire to work for a parent who telecommutes. It is best to be completely honest when discussing a job’s description. Wishing you the best in finding a great Nanny for your family!
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Anonymous
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Changing from 20 hours to 40 hours without a set time frame and schedule is a red flag.
If you can't afford 40 hours at $20/hour, don't offer that. Offer whatever you can afford at 40 hours. Set the baseline as 20 hours with x schedule for one month. Month 2 is one more hour per day. Keep adding until you're at 40 hours. |
Anonymous
| Who can live off $10 or $20hr these days?! |
Anonymous
Millions of us do. We must live in different universes. |