sorry to be a PW today: sittercity vs care.com

nikinikinine

have you used one, the other or both? What were you hiring for (sitter, nanny, etc.)? Which did you prefer and why?

I've heard that sittercity has better qualified (or maybe more "normal") people. I need to find a daytime nanny and a housekeeper. Work is really ramping up for me right now and two of my sitters are going back to college this week. And we just fired our cleaning lady because it would appear that she stole things from our home

Any reviews, insights, etc. are greatly appreciated. 

Mrs.NGM

Wow, that really stinks that you can't trust your housekeeper!  That would be so frustrating.

I haven't used either yet, but my sister has used both I believe (she gets free access through the military).  Regardless of which site she uses, she always pays to run background checks on sitters.  Is this something you could do maybe?  I know it gave her peace of mind, regardless of how nice and normal a person seemed after she met them. 

LALASEPT05

I have used Sitter City and had a good experience so far. I have never used Care.com but know people who have used that and had good results. I think maybe it depends on the area you live?

babydontforget

I've used both. In my area they're interchangeable; I often found candidates with profiles on both.

aprilsarahjune

I have had success with care.com.  I think the qualification issue might be determined by the region.  You will get some "applicants" who either don't thoroughly read your ad or who want you to know about their (potentially sketchy) in-home daycare (even though you were looking for in-home care).  But I talked to several people on the phone and then did something like 8 interviews.  All of those applicants were "normal" enough, though of course only one was perfect for us ...

 Best wishes!

April320

I used sittercity to find our nanny and had a good experience.  I got a lot of applications, many of whom were not really qualified, but they were pretty easy to sort through and I ended up with a number of "normal" people to interview.  I didn't use care.com, but I think they're pretty interchangable, at least in my area.

That's horrible agout your cleaning lady.  I used Yelp when looking for our cleaning service and we've been really happy with them.

jamie217

I had a free trial for sittercity (which is pointless because you can't contact anyone who applies) and signed up for what I thought was a 1 month subscription to Care.com last year when I returned to work.  I liked Care.com, but just found out that they've been charging me every month since and had to call customer service and they refunded 6 of the 9 months, so be careful with that, it must have been very fine print because I did not see anything about that (I was also overwhelmed and sleep deprived at the time)

I also posted an ad at a local college in the elementary ed. dept and that's where we ended up hiring our sitter from.  She had excellent references, works for us 2 days per wk and does the girls laundry while she's here. 

 

nikinikinine

jamie217:

I also posted an ad at a local college in the elementary ed. dept and that's where we ended up hiring our sitter from.  She had excellent references, works for us 2 days per wk and does the girls laundry while she's here. 

 

that's a great idea!  

omalley

jamie217:

signed up for what I thought was a 1 month subscription to Care.com last year when I returned to work.  I liked Care.com, but just found out that they've been charging me every month since and had to call customer service and they refunded 6 of the 9 months, so be careful with that, it must have been very fine print because I did not see anything about that (I was also overwhelmed and sleep deprived at the time)

I

This happened to us too (except I didn't get a refund )  Make sure you cancel your subscription when you are done.

We used care.com and met some good people on there.  We ended up going to a daycare center after using a nanny for the 1st year.

nikinikinine

thanks ladies, I went through sittercity during our afternoon nap and found a few good options that I contacted. Hopefully one of them responds and I can move forward from there. Thank you!