Some people I have worked with in the past have used a few hours as a mother's helper as the next step in the interview process. They're at home getting things done while I watch the kids.

What about having them do half-day paid working interviews?

When I was hiring our first nanny for our 4 month old, I had the two best people work four hours each so I could get an idea of how they interacted with the baby, how clean they kept the kitchen, how stressed out they got at crying, etc.

I would ask them more age and nanny job-specific questions such as the previous posters mentioned. This will give you an excellent idea of their knowledge and experience regarding caring for children.

Also, get a feel of their personalities. Watch how they interact w/your children. How genuine they seem. Do they seem like they are trying too hard to impress you? Or is everything coming naturally to them? Are they asking age appropriate questions to them?

Ask them what activities they would do w/them on a typical day. This is a very telling question because a knowledgeable & very experienced nanny will know exactly what children at a certain age level like to do. Bonus points if she is actually familiar w/specific things kids this age like. I.e., book titles, popular characters in film, cartoon, etc.

Also, ask her what qualities she feels she possesses that she feels set her apart from other nannies. What she feels make her unique.

Hope this helps.

Ask them to sketch out a sample day of what they would do with your kids. Don't tell them exactly what the kids like, see what the applicants say and go off of who seems to have similar interests with the kids. I mean if they all have great references and seem nice, and you feel good about them then the only thing left to match on is personality

Have you come up w/ some very specific questions that are driven by things that are non-negotiable for you, and that would shed light on a candidate's experience? Ask leading questions that encourage a candidate to talk (and that don't give away your views early enough for her to just say the "right" things).

Things like:
- what do you think a good schedule is for kids at 4 years old (or whatever age your kids are)
- tell me about your experience in managing sibling rivalry for attention, toys, etc...
- what have been your most challenging days when nannying? Why? What were your best days?
- what are your favorite things about 3 year olds? 5 year olds? infants? (or whatever is relevant)

Share something and ask for her advice. We're really finding that Johnny has a tendency to do a lot more acting out at this age (or he's starting to hit, or he's struggling w/ controlling his emotions, etc...) - do you have any ideas for how we might manage that together?

The kids have had the same nanny for almost three years so this might be a challenging transition for them. What, in your experience, is the best way to handle this? What kinds of behavior do you think we should expect?

What do you most want in a boss/employer family?

Also, try to think about what will be the best match developmentally/temperamentally etc... for your kids and you at this point. Focus a bit less on what your prior nanny offered and try to think about what opportunities a new hire might offer for you and your family.

We've had the same nanny since my kids were babies, but now that they're preschoolers if I were having to rehire I would look for some different skills/interests/talents. I hope not to have to replace our nanny, but if I did the perfect skill set would be a little different now.

Good luck!

I'm an MB and am completely stressing out about our nanny hiring process. Long story short, we've had 2 nannies--the first was a great interview, had never worked as a nanny before (had done lots of babysitting and had great references from that), and was a flake who quit after 6 weeks. The second nanny, we hired 3 years ago, and she turned in her notice a few weeks ago. She has been (in my eyes) a wonderful nanny--she is caring, reliable, and has been incredibly flexible with us in terms of schedule changes. In return, I think we've done well by her, too. We are parting on good terms all around so this time I feel like we chose really well.

I've learned certain lessons from the last go-round and we are getting really strong candidates. No one seems "perfect," nor have I had any gut feelings one way or the other (either "this is the one" or "this is absolutely NOT the one"). I also feel like I'm too easily swayed by someone who can say all kinds of right-sounding things in a 20 minute interview, so I don't know how much stock to put into that--our current nanny is pretty soft-spoken and isn't the type to sparkle in an interview, but she had great references and she's been wonderful.

Meanwhile, our kids are 3 years older than they were last time, and it takes them a while to warm up to someone new, so it's not like they're going to crawl on someone's lap soon after meeting them. Everyone we've interviewed so far has references that glow--do I just go by that? Any advice to help me sort this out?