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Nanny Screening
Nanny Experience Versus Nanny Education
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Should I chose a nanny with more skills or more experience?
Nanny Experience Versus Nanny Education
If you were faced with the prospect of hiring a nanny with a ton of experience but little related education, or a nanny with a degree in early childcare and no experience, who would you choose? Of course, the best situation would be to come across someone with a wealth of nanny experience along with impressive nanny skills. When conducting nanny interviews, gear your questions to help illuminate just how much experience versus education she has. For example:
- Ask open-ended questions such as, “Tell me about your education.” This opens the lines of communication to include details about her educational experience, not just the name of the course she took.
- Ask the nanny what her long-term educational plans are to get a sense of whether she plans on continuing to upgrade through courses and workshops.
- One of the nanny interview questions should be, “Give me an example of when you've put your organizational skills to best use in a previous job.” Again, this is an open-ended question that leaves room for explanation. It also gives you some insight into how the nanny has handled situational dilemmas in the past.
- To get an idea of the depth of her nanny experience, ask her to try and list at least five of her most meaningful experiences as a nanny. A person could have worked for ten years and not learned anything from the experience. What you want to do is try and get a sense of how much she's learned from the experience she has.
Using the nanny resume as a guide for dialogue, continue to ask the kinds of questions that really give you a picture of what her previous employment experiences were like. Those open-ended questions lure the applicant away from the rehearsed answers to answers that are more detailed and meaningful. Those are the answers that are going to help you decide if you want a nanny with more experience or a nanny with more skill, or something in between.
