Nanny Background Check

Is a nanny background check necessary? To may people today, working part time as a nanny has become a great way to earn some extra cash. Perhaps this has become a major trend since the high rate of joblessness in the US economy. Understandably, a large part of these potential babysitters have little experience to handle and take care of your beloved child.

There are also some prospective nannies that have merely shady backgrounds. If you look closer to their personal history, you might be alarmed to see how “spotless” it is. That is the reason it becomes essential to get a nanny background check on your baby’s would be caretaker. Consider the following tips if you want to be savvy on a nanny’s background check.

1. Try to use a nanny agency in your neighborhood. Or try locating the nearest nanny agency that has solid reputation. This will ensure that potential applicants have satisfactory level of professional experience. This way, you can have the peace of mind considering you are hiring capable persons.

Apart from this, you might also consider hiring a nanny from your peers, friends or family members, since you can expect better services from them. These people are usually more trustworthy too. Avoid going for any online or newspaper advertisements. Same goes for online nanny sites as they have minimal or zero screening process to bring capable candidates for your hiring.

2. While you are doing interviews, you must clearly define the things that you expect of a nanny. Be sure to clarify the duties in particular. Emphasize things that you’re not ready to compromise on. Your interview session should be sufficient for the candidate realize what sort of minimal qualification you need.

3. When you see that a particular candidate is meeting your standards and has given you a nice first impression, it’s time you did a nanny background check on the potential employee. Consider using an official employment application for her. This lets you to obtain her resume, including other relevant info concerning her. To be specific, you should check on the following details-

• Name
• Social Security Number
• Previous employers
• Referees
• Previous addresses
• Testimonials
• Educational background
• Relevant training

A large number of agencies put only minimal screening requirements for the nanny candidates they decide to represent. But there are also some reputed agencies that have decent screening process while selecting babysitter candidates. The criteria on which they screen the prospective nannies are –

• Minimum experience
• Verification of eligibility for working in the United States
• A current CPR
• First Aid certification
• A legitimate driver’s license
• Reliable vehicle
• A spotless criminal record

But there is one problem here. A research found that no more than 50 % of typical nanny agencies proceed to verify the background of the babysitters they represent. This is why you need to work with only dependable and well reputed nanny agencies.

4. And finally, you can consider hiring an agency to get the job done for you. But as you might assume – this gets pricy. You can get the job done yourself by using one of those nanny background check web sites. Here, for accessing the potential nanny’s criminal records, you will have use her first name and last name. These websites come with millions of public or police records in their database. So you can expect to get instant reports.