Would you hire a nanny with a missing reference?
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Anonymous
| Red flag. I checked our nanny references and they were glowing. However, I would never recommend her to anyone. She keeps lying to us and she is pretty lazy. Zero creativity. |
Anonymous
| I worked for two celebrity families and they were both crazy. I was fired from both. First one I was fired because the dog (Rottweiler) bit me in the face and I said I could no longer care for the dog in addition to child care. Fired after bring a live in for 3 years. Job before that I was fired after 2 years because my mom got cancer and I said I had to go back to my home country for two weeks (I had vacation time but offered to go unpaid). My boss refused and fired me. Celebrities are crazy and my agency actually worked really hard to find me jobs and gloss over the no reference because she knew I was a great nanny. Fast forward I've been at the same nanny job for a almost 9 years for a non celebrity and we have NEVER had an issue. |
Anonymous
| Huge red flag. Even if I take whatever the family says with a big grain of salt, I still would want to hear their side of the story. At the very least I would want to confirm that she actually had been employed with them for the time she said she was. If their version sounded mostly like hers but was slanted heavily to them (Nanny says they wanted her to work extra hours without notice, family says she was inflexible, something like that), I might hire her anyway. But if their version was totally different, I would be concerned. |
nannydebsays
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It also matters how long this nanny worked for them. If she was there for less than a year, then that's a bigger issue than if she was there for 3+ years.
A family who gives a "shorter term nanny" a poor reference still gets questioned, but far less intensely than a family that employed a nanny for multiple years and now has nothing good to say at all. If nanny was so awful, why did you keep her employed for years? |
Anonymous
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I This would be a non-starter for me.
I would insist on speaking with the prior employer but tell the nanny that I will use my own judgment in weighing whatever the prior employer says in light of nanny's other great references. My conversation with the prior employer might make it clear that the employer is unhinged or is simply angry about the nanny quitting, in which case I would totally disregard her perspective. On the other hand, the prior employer may valid, concrete grievances or reveal a true deal-breaker, such as abuse or neglect of a child or gross breach of trust. The reality is that many parents don't really know how good their nanny is because they are not on site to supervise how she spends her work hours. It is possible that the most recent employer simply saw something bad in her that no one else had seen. After all, look how many people were duped by Bernie Madoff, in part because others they knew seemed happy with him and in spite of at least one whistle-blower (who was dismissed as a crazy person) trying to convince the SEC for years that Madoff was a criminal. At the end of the day, I trust my own judgment and ability to sift through conflicting references far more than I would trust a nanny who thinks it is okay to prevent me from hearing both sides of the story so I can draw my own conclusions. Remember, your children's safety and well-being are at stake. |
Anonymous
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Why would a raging disgruntled mother give an excellent former nanny of two years, a truthful reference? All she cares about is revenge and making that nanny come back to her disfunctional household.
Some of these maniacs need to get sued, and only then will they learn their lesson. |
Anonymous
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Absolutely not.
As nannies, we often get screwed over by our employers more so than with other professions. We get under paid, not paid on time and many families like to tack on add'l household duties to our workload even though they never discussed this upfront. Then when we try to talk this out and negotiate with them, things usually take a turn for the worst and turn quite ugly. This usually does not bode well for the nanny and the nanny usually has to leave on not so good terms. The majority of the reasons that nannies leave positions on bad terms have absolutely nothing to do with how she cared for the children in her care....They have everything to do with her relationship with the parents she worked for!! I am a nanny who is currently working for an amazing family. I have worked for about five amazing families recently, however it has not always been so. When I first started out, I was quite naive and many families suspected this and took full advantage of this. I was treated poorly and when I took a stand, I was replaced. I couldn't use these families as references for obvious reasons, however that didn't make me a bad nanny. |
Anonymous
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I now am now VERY friendly with all the neighbors who can see for themselves the quality of my work. They would be happy to vouch for me, as they know first hand, how many nannies these crazy families keep hiring and firing.
Yeah, the crazy families earn themselves a bad reputation in their own neighborhoods. The thing is, the new nanny never finds out these essential details until it's too late... What to do??? |
Anonymous
Anyone? |
Anonymous
| Like others I think only you can know whether it is a deal breaker. We are all bad at some thing and she may have discuvered her achilies heel. I personally am terrible at dealing with any sort of violence or agressin. I learned that by working for a DB who liked to dominate women. I was a great nanny but if you called him today he would disagree because I threw some four letter words at him on my way out the door with no advance notice. I know that if the same situation played out again then I would probably react the same way. Aggressive men bring me to my limit, unfortunately, masking that I am very professional at all other times. |
Anonymous
That was quite an honest post! I'm the nanny that posted upthread about the disgruntled employer who couldn't pay me on time. I was very young when I had that job and wasn't so great with confrontation. Looking back on that time now, I recognize that while they were terrible employers I could have done a better job of sticking up for myself. I don't know that I could have said anything to make them better employers, but at least it wouldn't have come as so much of a surprise when I did quit. I would be happy to explain what I've learned from that job to a prospective employer, and even let them speak to my former employer, if I could trust them to be honest. When I quit they kept brushing off the missed paychecks as a non issue, and acting like I was breaking our contract (which would be a huge deal to prospective employers, I imagine). |
Anonymous
Always blaming the man. |
Anonymous
| Why not hire the best nanny you can afford? |