When it comes to interviewing nannies, one of the first questions parents ask is what format the interview should take. There are no right or wrong answers, but here is what typically works well and what we generally recommend.
We recommend starting out with a phone interview. If that initial phone interview goes well, invite the candidate over to your home to do an in-person interview. If possible, have the children present so you can see how the nanny interacts with them as well. So, without further ado, here are our first four tips for interviewing nannies.
Tip #1: Ask open-ended insightful questions that will give you an idea of who your nanny is as a care provider
Here are some example questions:
“What did you love about your previous nanny or sitter positions?”
“Tell me how you believe you can impact a child’s life?”
“What sets you apart from other childcare providers?”
“Describe how you envision the nanny’s role within the family”
“Why are you leaving your current position?”
“Describe your parenting philosophy or your approach to care”
“Describe a difficult situation that you’ve had with a parent and how you handled that”
“Describe an ideal day as a nanny”
“What types of activities do you like to do with your nanny kids?”
Tip #2: Ask your nanny questions that are completely unrelated to child care
This might sound a little bit off, but trust us on this one. These types of questions will give you some really valuable insights, as to who your nanny is as a person, what their personality traits might be, and what their value systems are.
Examples of these types of questions could include:
“If you were given a million dollars, what would you do?”
“Where do you see yourself in five years?”
“If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go and who would you take with you?”
“Do you have a favorite quote, what is that?”
“What are your hobbies and how do you like to spend your downtime?”
“If you could attend the concert of any musical artist past or present, who would you want to see?”
“What would you tell your 5 or 10-year-old self today, if you could go back in time and deliver a message?”
These questions might seem a tad bit silly, but trust us on this one. These are going to give you some really valuable insights into your nanny’s personality traits, values, all things that are not able to be written and spelled out on a resume.
You’re going to get a sense if your nanny can think on their feet, be flexible, those kinds of things. So give it a try and see what you think. We guarantee you will find that you get some really insightful information from these types of questions.
And remember, a good personality match is really hard to find and really key to having a successful nanny family relationship.
Tip #3: Don’t forget to ask these important nuts and bolts questions about day-to-day workings with your nanny
Examples of these questions could include:
“Are you willing to sign a contract?”
“Are you able to be paid legally and have taxes withheld?”
“How long are you able to commit to staying with our family, assuming everything is going well?”
“Are you up to date on your immunizations and vaccinations?”
“Tell me what you’re doing to keep yourself safe with COVID?”
“How do you communicate best?”
Tip #4: Make sure to evaluate those non-verbal communications
So, this could be their level of promptness in responding to messages.
This could be punctuality, this could be how well did they interact with and engage with your child.
This could be mindfulness, maybe they came right in and popped their shoes off right away or they asked what your preference was!
You’ll also want to make sure to think about, did they seem generally happy to be there?
Do they seem to genuinely love working with children?
That’s it for the first part of our top tips, where we covered Tips #1 through #4 for interviewing your nanny.
These tips included asking insightful open-ended questions, asking questions that are completely unrelated to child care, covering those nuts and bolts questions about the day-to-day workings, and also making sure to evaluate those non-verbal communications with your nanny.
