XP: sittercity or care.com

spartybride3

Hi--coming from the 0-3 month board & thought those with older babies might have more experience. Just curious about people's experiences with both. We are looking to hire a nanny and want a high quality person. I'm curious about the people you found on the site, the quality of the background checks, search features, etc. I have an unpaid trial thing on care.com & I have quite a few applicants, but I can't contact anybody unless I pay for membership. I also read from a few people that the background checks offered on both sites vary. Thanks!

ChrMoo

I have hired 3 different nannies over the course of 2 1/2 years all from Care.com. I did the lowest membership only for the month. I had many applicants some are insane and you will laugh more than anything and some really amazingly gifted care takers. I can say that when it all comes down to hiring someone it's your kid that will make the determination. Yes you can screen and run as many checks as you'd like but if you baby doesn't connect it won't work. We found that out through trial and error. My husband and I have also invested in a pretty extensive camera system in our home. We have a total of 7 cameras that give us a complete layout of the house. It makes me feel like I'm involved in my girls day to day.

Only thing I can warn about care.com is the automatic renewal. You have to manually set your account to downgrade the subscription before the expiration date or they will fully charge you. They got me twice on that.

Good luck!

ReggieLou13

I used care.com and out of 35 to 40 applicants only 3 were worth interviewing. I paid extra for the extensive background check but honestly I found out about an arrest ( idk if she was taken in or just cops called on her) by a quick Google search of her n name. It wasn't on background check.
Like pp said they did charge me after account was suppose to be done, but a call in and they refunded me no problem.

I will use them again.

Good luck

mrs_hoyahoo

I've used both and preferred care.com. I recommend contacting caregivers about the position, rather than posting a job and receiving responses. When I posted the job, it was clear many of the applicants hadn't even read the posting and were just applying to everything.