Hire a nanny is not an easy task as many people think, it requires good research and some ideas on how to filter the nanny candidate. In English country like Australia, since old days (during our moms and dads period) people used child care centers for babysitting and child care. The government offers some rebates for using child care centers in Australia as well. Anyhow, using child care centers is not a choice for all the time, for an example, when child is sick or you (i.e parent) in need of help in cleaning, washing & etc. On the other hand, it is not always possible to get rebates from government easily. There are many ways you can welcome applications for a nanny to take care of your children from your home, such as publishing advertisements on your local newspapers, using brick-and-stone nanny agencies, online nanny agencies and etc. Let's check out these in detail.
You can find some nanny agencies on your high street, you can go directly to them and get register with them, they may help you to find a nanny near by your area. It is not free, you may require to pay up some amount for registration. Usually professional nanny agencies do have register themselves, do not hesitate to check out their registration certificate as nanny agency (You pay for them, so you have rights to ask about their registration and make sure that they are offering professional services). They may give you some list of nannies who fit with your requirements, you may contact them and interview those applicants and go ahead further. It may require some long time to do all these process (in case if the nanny agency do everything manually rather than online) & that may lead some poor satisfaction from your end.
Anyhow, there are online nanny agencies which has lots and lots of nannies details to serve you (compare to your high street nanny agency). You can have all details of every single nanny that they have. Of course, you may required to pay small amount to get access, but there are few online nanny agencies that offer like 7 days trial period for FREE, you can post ads within 7 days time on their site and see responses, but to read the messages/responses, you may need to upgrade your membership with such nanny agency to paid membership. You can read testimonials from previous clients of such online agencies as well, apart from that make sure these online nanny agencies have registered themselves (You can check out their ACN number). Apart from these kind of nanny agencies, there are online nanny directories that connect nannies and parents, such directories too charge some kind of payments or give some trial period to post ads, and help you to find a nanny in your area.
Apart from these nanny agencies, or online nanny directories, you can post advertisement on your local newspapers which may cost you about AUD30. That may give you responses from nannies who are interested to offer their service to you. Let's look into some tips on filtering your applications and find the best.
Before selecting your nanny, you have to be very clear about your requirements, terms and conditions of work. You have to prepare a list before you start filter your nanny applicants and call/email them for more details. Here are some example situations that you may be in.
Where does nanny live? Is she around your area? - Nanny who is living around your area should be given first priority as she can be available quickly as possible in any urgent situation or it may be very easy for nanny.
You may need nanny for three days of a week, only for 6 hours of the day. Those three days may be fixed or any three days of the week. So, you should note this on a paper as when you need your nanny to work for you.
You may need your nanny to take or pick up your child from school, basketball practices or etc, in some cases, the nanny may need to drive. To do so, your nanny should have a valid driving license, preferably with vehicle & insurance, most importantly your nanny should be without any offenses or penalties given for driving.
You may have some special cases, like your aged grandma or grandpa is at home, will that be an issue for the nanny OR you may be a home-based working dad or mom and you will be staying at home, will that be an issue for your nanny?
Also, you should expect a nanny should give/show you below details:
Resume with recent photograph (may be with application you get this, with all contact details of nanny, qualifications, experiences as nanny in details)
Police clearance certificate
First aid certificate
References for background check
Other than listing down your requirements, you also have to list down the terms and conditions like how you expect the nanny to be, what does nanny should do, what should she should take care of? How she will teach discipline to child and etc. Listing down the requirements, terms and conditions are important to hire a nanny who is more suitable for your family. With your list, you can prioritize those and filter out the applications or may contact the applicants for more details (in case the details that you expecting is not presented with the applications).
Once your list is ready, you can filter the applicants and start with phone interview and then person-person interview to find the best nanny for you. Do not forget to find the best hourly pay for nanny in your local area, do small research on internet may help you on that.
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