It is my personal rule to never give out my personal reference's contact info until I have met a family in person and we have mutually connected and are close to making that final step in the hiring process. I do this because I do not want to exhaust my references.

On childcare websites such as Care.com and Sittercity.com, they highly recommend posting reference information because they claim nannies will have a better chance of getting jobs this way, but I disagree. How can a potential family respect me as a nanny if I post my employer's contact info up for complete strangers to see?

Not professional at all.

I always chuckle when I get a request to share my references from someone I have never spoken with for a job I would never apply for on Care.com. Oh sure! Let me just hand my hard-earned references right over to you for a $7.25/hour job an hour away from my home. I hope you find me qualified enough for the job.

Anonymous wrote:I refuse to give references until an in person interview and it seems fairly certain that I would take the job. I let families know that it is out of respect for the time and privacy of my former employers. If a prospective families can't respect that, we would not be a good fit anyway.

I have always done the same. I hand them my references at the close of the interview if I have gotten a good feeling about the potential employers - it is just not fair to subject my references to some of the crazies out there. If I have ever lost a job because of this I have honestly never noticed. They can have my extensive background check first - but "references available upon meeting".

I only give refs after I know it's a good fit and they want to hire me. Once they ask for refs at that point I get excited because I know I got the job. I have great references .

MB here. I've never called any references before an in person interview. It's time consuming on everyone's part, including mine, and I don't want to waste time before I know if the nanny is a good fit and interested in the position. When I do call references though while I wouldn't call it "grilling them to death" I am going to take my time and ask every question I need to. While I try to be cognizant of the former employers time I'm also not going to cut it short when I'm considering someone to take care of my children.

Anonymous wrote:I refuse to give references until an in person interview and it seems fairly certain that I would take the job. I let families know that it is out of respect for the time and privacy of my former employers. If a prospective families can't respect that, we would not be a good fit anyway.

This is exactly on target,
the way ANY professional would do it.
Thank you.

I refuse to give references until an in person interview and it seems fairly certain that I would take the job. I let families know that it is out of respect for the time and privacy of my former employers. If a prospective families can't respect that, we would not be a good fit anyway.

Yep, exactly. It sometimes feels like a circus. Can't parents figure out what they want, BEFORE wasting so much of people's time?

It is fairly time intensive. I ave to call the previous employer to update the on where I have been and what experience and skills I've gained. I send them an updated resume then go over each section to be sure they know what potential employers will bring up. That is about an hour right there. I also tell them which jobs I am most interested in, at their request not mine, and they look over those announcements to make sure they emphasize what that family is looking for. Then they interrupt their lunch breaks and family time for the calls. Then they call me for a debrief after each one. It is a lot of work!


I provide references after a phone interview but try to put it off until after the in person interview. I don't want to get to their house, see a herd of animals I am expected to care for or some other unexpected thing, then have to do the whole circus all over again.

Don't you think former employers will tire of this, and you don't even want the job? When do they have all this spare time?

Most families want references upfront so they can weed out the bad candidates. I used to try and give references only after interviewing to make sure I was interested in the position, but decided I needed to give them upfront to not miss out on any opportunities, and so the families don't think I am hiding anything. I do feel bad about the amount of calls my previous employers may be getting.

OP here. I think I should give out refs, only after I'm pretty sure I may be interested in the position.

And when do you do it? While you're at your office? Or in the evening at home? Or in-between, on the road?

I can't imagine the hours some people spend on the phone doing this. Most of the time, I don't even want the job that's grilling my former employers to death. Such a waste of everyone's time.