You can never be too sure. When you hire a babysitter, there’s still no guarantee.
That’s why you have to do everything well from the start to be able to get to know more about them.
Sounds like a lot of work? Yes, it is. However, it’s worth it. You are, after all, entrusting your kids to this very person whom you are about to hire. You have to make sure she’s the right one.
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Sittercity can help you gauge the babysitters. After receiving a list of interested applicants from your job post on Sittercity, you can take the necessary steps to get to know the applicants even more.
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5. Check Out Their Profile
Sittercity makes all the babysitters’ profiles available to parents who are searching to hire the right match. It helps to look through all the profiles first before responding to the interesting emails.
This way, you have an idea if the babysitter had already run a background check on herself. By checking their badges on their profile, you will know if they have already run a background on themselves.
Sittercity makes all the babysitters’ profiles available to parents who are searching to hire the right match.
You should also take some time to check out the profile pictures of the babysitters. Don’t just depend on the written information. Study the profile pictures if you can. You will learn a lot about the babysitter by simply looking at their profile pictures.
Nonetheless, this is just the start. You still have a lot to do. Fortunately, that won’t be too hard to do with Sittercity.
4. Check Out The Applicants Online
After you have gathered some information on the applicants, you should do more research. That’s pretty easy to do nowadays. Thanks to the internet, you can check online whatever information you have gathered from their profile.
Since you are looking to hire a reliable babysitter, there’s nothing wrong if you check out the applicants online. It also wouldn’t hurt to check out their social media accounts. Related read: Save on Sittercity with this promo code
You will surely learn a lot about the applicants if you have a glimpse of their personal activities on their social media account.
For example, you’d be able to tell right away if the applicant is a selfie addict by simply looking at her social media account. Take a good look at her photos to see if she’s addicted to a camera. If she is, you probably would want to filter her out.
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You wouldn’t want someone posting photos of herself while babysitting your kids.
You wouldn’t want someone posting photos of herself while babysitting your kids. Although, you can make this clear to her, you might just want to move on to the next applicant instead.
The point is, you can use all the information you have picked up from the profiles posted on Sittercity. That way, you’re off to a great start.
3. Take Time Out To Interview Them
After taking some time to filter out the applicants who have responded to your job post, you can start the interview stage.
To spare yourself from meeting each and every single babysitter, Sittercity recommends that you do a phone interview first. Once you have interviewed all of them on the phone, you can filter out the ones you’re not interested in.
From there, you can start conducting your face-to-face interviews with the chosen babysitters. At this stage, you have lessened the number of applicants.
This is a good time to get to know each and everyone because at this point, you already have a good list of babysitters to choose from. However, it shouldn’t stop there.
2. Read The Reviews About Them
🤔 Should You Use Sittercity? Check Out What Parents Have To Say About Sittercity
After the interviews, you should read the reviews posted on Sittercity. These reviews can tell you a lot about the professionalism of the babysitters. The reviews are written and posted by parents who had already hired the babysitter in the past.
These reviews can tell you a lot about the professionalism of the babysitters. The reviews are written and posted by parents who had already hired the babysitter in the past.
The fact that parents can immediately go over the reviews written and posted by other parents; makes Sittercity a reliable source for childcare providers.
You won’t have to ask for additional referrals and references since you can just read their reviews posted by their previous employer. You’d definitely be able to gauge the applicants based on their reviews posted on Sittercity.
1. Run Background Checks
To finally get the information that’s going outweigh all the other information gathered, you should run background checks on the babysitters. You cannot simply settle for all the information you have gathered from their profiles, interviews, and reviews. That’s not enough to gauge the babysitters.
You have to run background checks. This way, you’ll find out if they have had any kind of serious violations with the law. You wouldn’t want to hire someone who had had some serious violations in the past to watch over your kids while you’re out if the house, would you?
You will definitely be able gauge the babysitters objectively by running background checks on them. No decision will ever be made haphazardly since you have gathered facts from credible sources. Sittercity will definitely help you gauge all the applicants interested in your job post.
Are there other best practices that you can think of when it comes to hiring a sitter?
A nerd at heart (haha), I have been following and analyzing the world of online sitters for a couple of years now and have seen a lot of innovations and changes in this market. In between taking care of my loving (and demanding 😜) family and writing, I also do a lot of “traveling” on the Travel Channel and Discovery Channel. Read More
I thought these tips were more than enough for me until I went on to read your free report 7 Essential Steps To Avoid Hiring A Sitter From Hell. The report really gave me more ideas to use for the screening process. Thank you very much!
I’ve always been impressed with what Sittercity has to offer but I’ve always thought it would take some time to really make use of all their services. It turned out that I was wrong. For example, it really doesn’t take too long to run a background check since that service is incorporated on the profile of the babysitter. So if I want to run a background check, I just go to the profile of the babysitter and order it there. Then it’s all done for me.
I make sure to check their social media account to see if they post any photos of the kids they babysit. If they do, that’s a mark against them. I don’t post photos of my kids online so they shouldn’t as well.
I find that Sittercity makes it’s easy for me to gauge the applicants. Their suggested selection process enables me to easily gather pertinent information about applicants I’m interested in.
Thanks. I really enjoyed reading your article. You’re right about filtering out an applicant who loves to take selfies. I value my family’s privacy so if a sitter is a selfie-addict, chances are that she might be taking some selfies while watching over my kid. That definitely would not sit well with me. That’s really something for us, parents, to think about.