At Nanny Parent Connection, we hear from nannies and parents all the time, and we love sharing the answers to common questions so they can help our whole community.
One question we hear weekly is:
“I am interested in working as a nanny but don’t have any actual “nanny experience”. Is there any way around this?”
Below, we walk through this topic and share practical tips we hope you find useful.
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Here is the question we received from a member of our community:
“I am interested in working as a nanny. I don’t have experience working with children, but I do have three children of my own. I graduated with an AA in early childhood education, and I’m working on my bachelor’s currently. I was wondering if there’s any way around the lack of experience.”
The short answer to this is yes, there is a way around this.
Here are our tips to navigate transitioning into nannying with this type of background.
#1: Make sure you have a resume
Having a resume will not only show that you’re serious about transitioning into nannying, but it is also a great way to showcase your skill sets, your relevant experience, and any certifications that you may have.
If you’re not sure what to include on your nanny resume or how to organize it, keep reading, because we share tips on that below.
#2: Put together a cover letter
A cover letter is a fantastic way to speak more about your relevant experience and your background, as well as what you might bring to the table as a nanny for a family.
Make sure you send along your cover letter anytime you send your resume when applying for a position.
Your cover letter can be a template, but we do recommend taking a few moments to customize it with the specific name of the person, if you know the name, for the position you’re applying for, or perhaps details about the position, such as the number or ages of children.
Customizing your cover letter only takes a few moments, and it’s a great way, again, to convey that you are serious about your job search and that you have good attention to detail.
You will also want to make sure you frame out your relevant experience with childcare.
If your relevant experience comes from being a mother, you could say something like “loving, hands-on mother to three children, ages 4 through 10,” for example.
Or if you are a stay-at-home mom to your children, make sure you mention that as well.
#3: Discuss your care philosophy
This could be a specific philosophy such as gentle parenting or love and logic, or it could be as simple as putting your own beliefs into your own words.
You will want to highlight relevant experiences from other work positions that you have held: attention to detail, coming up with novel solutions for problems, effective communication, working together as part of a team to achieve common goals, or being flexible to handle evolving needs.
#4: Showcase how you will utilize your background in early childhood education within the nanny role
This could mean showcasing specific certifications, such as safe sleep or child development.
Make sure to give examples about how you would use that background to meet a child’s social, emotional, and developmental needs.
You could also give examples of activities you would do to support these developmental needs, such as fine and gross motor skill development, daily reading and music exposure, narrating the day, sensory play, etc.
Those are our tips for how to navigate transitioning into nannying with a perceived lack of experience. As you work through this, you’ll likely realize that what this particular person was describing was really not a lack of experience, but just a question about how to apply relevant experience succinctly into a resume or when conveying that experience to a family.
If you have any questions about nannying, make sure you get in touch with us on our website by clicking here.