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cja06
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Have you used a nanny referral agency?
cja06
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in Working Moms
We are starting the process of looking for a nanny. We've only used daycare centers before. I have been looking into 4 local nanny referral/placement agencies but I am really surprised at the cost for these services. They are all requiring between 14-20% of the Nancy's first year gross salary as their fee. For us that would be around $4-5,000! A nanny already is more expensive than daycare, and the nannies that these services provide command a pretty high salary. If you used a referral service, rather than Care.com or Sittercity, what was their fee structure and did you find it worth the investment? I like how thorough the background checks are and the one-year placement guarantee, but I have a hard time believing the quality will be that much better than using a web site to justify the added cost.
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Re: Have you used a nanny referral agency?
I've used both. As a new mom, I found our first nanny with a referral agency. We owed $100 to start the search, then 10% of her annual gross salary once we hired. I think it was guaranteed for ~30 days. So if something didn't work out in the first month, they would search again for no additional cost. Then there was a 6 month guarantee that if we wanted to search again within 6 months it was at 50% of the original fee. Our second nanny (who is frankly better than the agency one) we found at care.com or sittercity.com (can't remember which). I felt more confident the second time around searching on my own.
I ussed an online service called Intelius.com where you can run criminal checks. Also, if she will be driving your LO, then ask for her DL number and run a driving report through your state DPS.
We used a nanny agency but ultimately stuck with daycare. We had to pay $450 to get started. This included our interview so they could determine our needs and them placing an ad on their website. They sent us two qualified, really nice women who had been professional nannies for 20+ years each and who had a long relationship with the agency already. If we had hired one, we would have been required to pay the agency 12% of the nanny's gross annual income (minimum $3000) for the first year only. If the nanny didn't work out within 6 months, they'd do a new search for no additional charge.
I appreciated that these women were already known to the agency, were professional nannies (not just babysitters looking for a long term gig), had current backgroud checks, great references, and that I didn't have to spend my time searching.
I think that an agency can be really helpful if you're limited on time. Care.com and sittercity.com are fine but we didn't want to deal with the hassle of background checks and checking references when for $3450, we could hire it out.
I agree, it was a large cost up front, but we weren't getting quality candidates on our own, we live a good 30 min from the closest city, so there wasn't a whole lot of selection. However, we love our nanny and she is started our third year with us this March. She has been with E since he was 12 weeks old (now 26.5 months) and she will stay on for at least the first year with #2. So although a high cost, it was a one time cost and we got a great nanny from it.