* 40% on the monthly membership and 25% on the yearly
membership
Jennifer
Millhouse Lee
When I was Looking For a
Nanny...
After taking care of my first child for several month, I had
to decide if I would
extend my maternity leave or go back working. As I'm not the
sole provider of
the house the decision was hard. On one
had I thought it
would be great to stay
home with my first and amazing child but on the other hand
I
had a business of
my own as an infant development consultant. After thinking
of this for a while
I decided to move on and find my self a loving care newborn
live in nanny.
Searching the web I came across sittercity that surprisingly helped
me find a
great child care
provider in a very short time. I found a user friendly site that
included all the relevant information
I
was needed for searching local nannies, screening them, how to
interview candidates, how to
check their background and also how to prepare my own nanny
employment contract.
I feel in love with the
idea that I found a all-in-one service any parents can wish for
while looking
for updated information,
tools and services about finding and hiring a nanny. So, at that
point I decided to share my knowledge and experience using this
nanny finder site and become sittercity
business partner
(affiliate).
For me, on top of my
priority list was finding a trusted person since I was looking for a full time
live in nanny.
Sittercity.com gave me the solution I was
looking for and as the time passed I found even more useful
information and learned to appreciate
it as a parents.
What Makes Sittercity So Special?
As a parents, the most important thing for me was not finding a
nanny, but finding a professional
and a trusted person who I can leave alone with my child, at my
home. Yes, that was not an easy decision to make but this was one of
the decisions you have to take in life, you can't avoid it even
if you want. So my main concern was finding a trusted resource of
nannies listings from which
I
could find the person I was looking for - live in nanny with my
specific list of demands. Using
the sittercity nanny search engine, I entered my zip code to the
site's nanny search engine and
got a list of nannies candidates near me. This is when I learned on
the value of the services of
a
good babysitter and nannies placement agency.
The Sittercity.com Home Page
Easy to use
- navigating the site was pretty easy, I didn't have to read a
manual or to get some
guidance on how to use their nanny locator service. All I had to do
is use my zip code and get the
list of relevant nannies, review their profiles and start screening
them.
Trusted resource
- as the leading babysitting and nanny agency in USA, I saw that
sittercity has
a
list of professional nannies when on each nanny you can run a
background search and also review
other families references. It was extremely important for me to
speak with other parents before
I
would hire anyone.
Sittercity users reviews
- before I decided to join sitter city as a member, I visited sites
reviews
and childcare forums to learn what other parents think about this
website. Most of the sittercity
reviews I found were positive about this service while other were
not that happy it was not free :-)
Well, I believe that for a good service you need to pay and if it's
free than it might be not as good
as you think it is especially when we are talking about child
caring!
Detailed Nanny profile
- as a starting point, you get a list of nannies and at first you
find it hard
to focus on one or two... there are so many caregivers that I was
confused where to start. Then
I
understand that in order for me to find the nanny I'm looking for, I
need to carefully review the
nanny profile that seems to include a lot of important information
such as some background about
her, age, her experience as a childcare provider, her reviews &
references, availability, life style,
expected nanny rate and much more. All that I needed to start
screening candidates. On top of
that I found some sittercity candidates movies which I found lovely:
Alicia
Using Sittercity to Find a Nanny
How Does It Work?
Basically the process is very simple - you start by adding your zip
code to the site's caregiver
search engine which can be found at almost any pages on the site.
Entering your zip code will
trigger a search for the available sitters in your area. They can be
baby sitters, nannies, pet
sitters and other child care providers such as special needs nanny
or summer nanny and so on.
At this point the result will be a list of nannies which live less
then 50 miles from your current
location (this is the default which can be changed). The site will
inform you how many available
caregivers are listed on the site in your area. For example, using
the following zip code - 94155
when searching for babysitters in Fan Francisco showed that there
are 5,815 sitters looking for
positions. Wooo that's a big number! to start screening and
narrowing down you search you can
find an tool that will help you refine your search choosing some
more specific options such as -
transportations, ok with pets (not everybody do), background check
(standard or enhanced BGC),
how many sittercity users reviews you can read on this particular
person, years on experience
with newborn, infants, toddlers ect. hourly rate, education level
languages and much more.
After paring down your choices you
can start previewing the profiles of selected caregivers.
The profile is actually a resume which summarize the caregiver
background, experience and
additional services she can offer such as cooking, cleaning, taking
care of sick children, home
work help and so on. Also other skills and certification which are
extremely important such as
CPR, first aid, ADD/ADHD,
developmentally challenged and more:
The
Caregiver Profile on Sittercity
Up to this point the process is free, you can run a free nanny and
babysitter search without
being a member. I found this very useful as before you pay for a
service you can get a taste
of the value this service can offer you. Further on, to receive the
caregiver contact details,
to communicate with her using the internal messaging system and to
read her references,
you will have to register as a member. This can be done by punching
the 'join' button where
you will be required to fill a simple form and choose the membership
type. You will have three
options - Annual (140$, about 12$ a month), 3 month
(70$, about 24$ a month) or 1 month
program
- (35$). Before you decide to join, check the latest sittercity
promo code that will
save you up to 20%-25% from these programs.
Other Useful Tools and Services
As a parents who is looking for a good babysitter or a loving care
nanny, you will find that it's
not only about finding a caregiver sitting at home in front of your
computer, but it's a process
that also involved your attention in other aspects of employing a
caretaker. For that purpose,
sittercity offers a variety of tools and services that can help you
in different issues. Here are
some of them:
How to hire the right sitter
- a short 4 step guide that explains what is the most effective way
to screen candidates using sittercity website. These 4 steps are
check the sitter's reviews,
review their background check, in person interviews and
references checking. The guide
includes some nice tips and advices that truly help understand how
it works.
Interview checklist
-
after you found the top candidates you will need to interview them.
I
prepared my first nanny interview using this guide which gave me a
nice overview of which
questions I should ask to be able getting the information I need
about the person and how much
he or she fits for the job.
Taxes issues
- I admit that before employing a mother helper I had no idea about
this subject.
The guide includes information about which nanny taxes needs to be
paid and by whom. I was
happy to find out that Sittercity have a partnership with
SurePayroll, which manage the nanny
tax
and pay online! Bravo again :-) what a great solutions.
Sitter's rate calculator
-
a simple tool that can help you determine your sitters hourly rate
by
taking into consideration the following parameters - your location,
the babysitter's age, her
years of experience and the number of children involved. The result
is average babysitters pay
rate in your area. Nice...
Sitters cheat test
- another nice idea by sittercity. This is some kind of a test the
sitter or nanny
needs to fill which includes a set of questions she must know the
answer for. For example - is the
child sensitive or some type of food? Can he watch TV and until
when. I used it once and found
out that despite the fact I instruct my nanny not to feed my child
with a Banana (can cause throat
irritation when the baby caught a cold), she forgot about it.
Background check
- the site has partner with LexisNexis,
who can run an enhanced background
check, standard background check and
motor vehicle records check. I wouldn't hire anyone with
out checking their history first so this service could be useful
when hiring a person you are not
familiar with.
Things You Need to Be Aware of
Here are some issued I thought worth mentioning that you might need
and can come in handy or
clear things up before you meet or deal with them:
C
hoosing
the right caregiver
-
first and for all, you need to remember that Sittercity.com matches
between the needs of families and caregivers but can't fully 100%
guaranty that every person who is listed on their service shouldn't
be checked again by you, and checked I mean - speaking with other
parents who used to employ her, double checking her background,
conduct a nanny interview and
cross check facts on her resume. The bottom line is that at the end
of the day you are responsible
to make sure that person you are hiring can be trusted and fits for
the job.
Promotional codes
- sittercity.com provide a monthly coupon which can reduce your cost
on the
membership fee. This discount code change each month and some times
can offer you only 15%
off and some times can offer you 25% off. Make sure you check the
current code before you register.
How Much
Does it Cost & Promo Code
How to
Apply the Code
Scams
- there are few types of scams which are related to sittercity and I
don't mean sittercity
scams as a business or if the site is legit (this shouldn't be your
concern). You can find over the
web many reviews on sittercity service written by users. The scams
are related to a person who
pretend to be a babysitters but only want to access your home and
steal something in the right
time. Another sittercity scam speculation was about sitters who join
this service but didn't had
the chance to find a job since no families approached them. Well,
parents tend to contact the
sitters with the higher number of recommendations, with a detailed
resume and so on. I checked
this matter reading forums and found that some of these sitters were
looking for a job with no
experience at all and that's why families choose not to contact
them. After all, there are more
than 2 millions caregiver on this site!
Finding other types of sitters
- at first the site was all about finding babysitting services but
over time they added nannies, au pairs elderly caregivers for
Seniors, pet sitters - Dog walkers
and Cat sitters, tutors for test preparations, science and history,
computer and engineering
languages and more. Also, housekeepers and house sitters.
Final Thoughts
Sittercity is a useful service as you can start using it from your
computer at home or work when
ever you want. It can easily finding you the caregiver you are
looking for and you can find your
self in less then a day with a list of your top nannies candidates.
The site's resources offer a huge
amount of data, tips and interesting information which is easily
accessible.
However, you must remember that what counts is the final result and
that it finding a professional
person that you can trust and that will be able to take care of your
children. Choosing the right
nanny or babysitter is completely up to you and not sittercity. You
are the one who takes the
decision who to hire and what would be her duties and
responsibilities. It's not about right or wrong,
it's about finding the person who can answer your needs. This is why
you should not take lightly
checking the candidates background, talking to their references,
conducting a second interview
or defining a trail period or ever installing a nanny camera if you
have doubts about your nanny credibility. You need to make sure you
do your best to secure your children when leaving them
with a privet childcare helper.
When I first thought about hiring as nanny, I visualized in my mind
a young, energetic and
responsible person taking care of my children the same way I would.
A person my children
will be happy to be with and I could have my peace of mind knowing
they are in good hands.
