⇒ 1) The first couple I met for an interview in the city were possibly the oddest couple I've ever met. First off, we met in a hotel lobby and they had left their baby asleep in the car. That was really disturbing to me. The initial interview went well, so they asked me to come up to their house for the second interview. The mother grilled me the whole time I was there about my qualifications (I have no formal training, just a hell of a lot of experience), my previous employers and everything I used to do for them. I found myself racking my brains for something new to tell them. They also made it clear that they wanted me to mind the elderly grandmother as well as the baby. The mother took the grandmother out shopping for three hours while I stayed in the house with the baby, during which time baby slept and I sat awkwardly looking around. The baby's sleeping quarters were full of old newspapers, broken furniture and rubbish bags. When they got back from shopping, the mother showed me how she made all the baby food from scratch and sterilized all the baby bottles twice, just to be safe. Finally, they asked me about payment and baulked at the price I gave them (considerably less than I'm being paid now). I went home, and the mother called all my references (all ten of them). I know because some called me afterwards to tell me. One said she felt like she was being grilled by a police officer!
I didn't get the job. They put the baby in a creche. I got the second job I interviewed for and I'm still there, two years later.
⇒ 2) I went on an interview in person with a mother in Westchester County, NY I had spent a good hour on the phone with. She suggested that when I arrived, she would go upstairs or take a walk to give me some time with her three year old twins. And she did end up taking a walk, to where I don't know. So I am sitting on the floor playing blocks with these three year old boys and all of a sudden I hear a noise from upstairs. Then creaking. If it were anytime but 10 in the morning, I would have probably freak out. 30 seconds more of creaking and then this 80 year old guy stands before me. He has his face all lathered up with shaving lotion and he is standing there asking me if I took his razor away, "again". One of the boys ran to him and hugged his knee. The mother returned ten minutes later and told me that was her father, he lives there, suffers from Alzheimer's but keeps to himself and I shouldn't worry about him. I did not accept her (generous) offer.
⇒ 3) I am a professional, working black woman and used Craigs list as a supplement to the agencies that I was using. One of the first non agency interviews I scheduled at my home involved a Jamaican woman who hadn't been in the United States for three years. When I opened the door, she said abruptly, "Oh I didn't know you were the black". I asked her if that was a problem and she assured me that it wasn't, but clearly it was.
⇒ 4) I have a few interview stories that I wanted to share with you. Here goes:
1. A family looking for a nanny for 2 children, a 2 year old and a soon to be born child, both parents were doctors, interviewed me in their home. They were in Whitefish Bay, WI, a upper class suburb of Milwaukee. I have minimal prior nanny experience, yet have years of daycare experience. The father looked at me and made a comment out of the blue about "working in daycare I guess if you hit a child, someone would be there to report you" or something like that. I was disturbed by this comment and ended the interview rather quickly.
2. A family in desperate need to get rid of their immature nanny interviewed me, and the mother went on and on about how immature and ignorant their current nanny was. This was our entire interview, how the nanny did this and that, and how the nanny would call the mother at work with the dumbest issues, such as the little girl throwing the nanny's cell phone in the toilet. I explained to the mother how I would handle each situation and even gave the mother a lesson plan of activities for her children, 2 and 4 years old. She seemed impressed with me and literally offered me the job, only not to contact me again.
In my experience, families in the Milwaukee area are unaware exactly what the differences between a nanny and sitter are. These families want someone to take care of their children, pay a daycare rate, and brag to their friends that they have a nanny. Many of these families also hire 18-20 year olds, and end up regretting it later.
⇒ 5) I went on the longest nanny interview last year, of my life! The Mom sounded sweet and easy to talk to over the phone. When compensation was brought up, she said she would be very accommodating. As I arrived at the house everyone was nice but a musty smell greeted me in the driveway, along with many nick knacks and unused toys that were strewn about the grassy yard.
When I entered the house, a cute little 2 year old boy ran around as his 3 year old mentally handicapped sister lay on the couch. Her Mother asked me to sit right next to her and get acquainted. I had no problem with this, but expected her parents to be sitting there right along with me. After a few minutes the parents came back from wrangling their 2 year old and started asking me questions. This was the awkward part, every time I would start to ask a question, or answer one of theirs, they would cut me off and instruct me to prop up their daughter, wipe the drool off of their daughters chin, engage and play with their daughter, or help her grab a toy, put something together etc. The daughter was seemingly nice enough but like others with her disability she was very loud and made shrieks and screams every few minutes. This made it extremely difficult to converse with the parents. I couldn't hear half of what they said and I think in almost 2 hours I asked about 3 questions.
They then gave me a 45 minute tour of their 3 bedroom rambler. They showed me things that had absolutely nothing to do with the job at hand. At the end of their exhausting and irrelevant tour, they said they would pay just over 8 dollars an hour, and over a whopping 9 dollars an hour if I was deeply involved with their schools and volunteering, and taking the disabled child to her respite care and participating in her therapy.
Just goes to show you have to get major details before you waste your time with a family trying to take advantage of someone!
⇒ 6) I never had any really crazy experiences. I was interviewing with a family one year and I was speaking with the mother in the family room of their house. Their children were asleep. Her husband comes home from a run and greets me. He is as friendly as she is. Unfortunately, I am sitting and at eye level with his waist area. He is quite sweaty and his sweat has outlined perfectly the shape of his unit. I was repulsed but couldn't look away and I think I ended up looking weird.
The other experience I had was with a new mother. She was a stepmother as her husband had older children that she spoke of. He was much older than her. She was so sad trying to comfort her baby and the husband kept telling her in so many words that she was doing it wrong and what "Kate", presumably his ex wife would have done or did do. She ended the interview. She had tears in her eyes. I often wonder what happened to her, she seemed like a really good person.
⇒ 7) I interviewed a candidate over the phone for a live out nanny position in my Connecticut home. We scheduled an interview and she showed up five minutes early, bringing with her a very neat resume and glowing letters of reference. Things started off quite nicely. The nanny was overly interested in the house. And on at least three occasions she suggested that I show her around. Each time I replied by letting her know the children were sleeping and my husband was upstairs on a conference call.
The interview ended somewhat abruptly and I could not understand what I had said to dull her enthusiasm. When I phoned her the next day, the number she had provided went to a bakery in Brooklyn and not a home. Curious I called one of the references she listed, supposed to be the home of a prominent CT Physician and it was not a working number at all. In fact, none of the numbers checked out. I don't think that the name she gave was even her correct name. I was not surprised that I never heard from her again.
⇒ 8) 1. While working in New York, a family in Iowa flew me out to interview about their job. In emails and phone conversations before tickets were bought I had told her I was looking to start after Christmas, to give me time to give notice at work, give notice at my apartment, pack, say my goodbyes, move, etc. (It was November 1st) She was fine with that, as she said she had several college students that had been working for them, and they had most of December off. (they worked for a college)
Interview goes fine, dad leaves the room, and mother immediately changes. She proceeds to tell me they want me to start November 15th. I am shocked, as we'd already been over this. I tell her there is no way I can move from New York, give notice at my current job, and move to Iowa in two weeks. She gets very upset. Tells me "well we have other candidates that are ready to start TOMORROW!" Seeing her true colors, I tell her that's fine, and turn down the job.
I fly home, she calls me a few days later saying although it is such an inconvenience, they can wait until December. By that time I knew there was no way I wanted to work for that woman. I turned down her job.
2. I had my profile on all the nanny sites. They clearly stated my salary expectations. A family with four children notifies me, and we talk about the job over the phone. I asked about salary, and they said my requirements were fine. They lived over thirty miles away, so it was quite a drive to go meet with them.
I get there and we're talking and they tell me what they are wanting to pay. It is $300 less a week than what was on my profile and what we had talked about. I was so upset they had dragged me out there and wasted my time. Their reasoning was they thought I would fall in love with the kids and see they were good people and would take the job even though it wasn't the money I wanted. They said I could babysit weekends for their friends to make up the money difference. I told them I didn't want to have to work seven days a week to make a decent salary.
At the time, I lived in a rental house in nice area of town with four other girls. The dad has the nerve to tell me if I didn't have to "live in such a fancy expensive area" I wouldn't need to make so much money. At that point, I should have walked out but I am way too polite. He asks what my previous families did. When he finds out they were all doctors/dentists, he starts asking ridiculous questions. Did they have cooks? Drivers? Housekeepers? The best: Were their televisions bigger than his?
In a last attempt to sway me, he tells me since he is a cop he can take care of all my speeding tickets. I tell him I don't have any tickets--of any kind. "I doubt that," he says. I tell him he can check it out himself and I walked out.
3. A single mother in Omaha interviews me to live-in and take care of her two year old twins. She tells me she practices Attachment Parenting, and the children co-sleep. BUT since she is a doctor, works over sixty hours a week and is not home by bedtime, the children sleep on a mattress on the floor in the nannies room.
⇒ 9) My worst interview experience involved being brought into a family's palatial home by the housekeeper who sat me at the kitchen table and said she would send her boss in. I waited for five minutes. The husband came in, greeted me somewhat coldly and started to ask me questions. He then suddenly stood up, walked to a counter by the phone and asked me if I took his checkbook. I stated that I did not. He immediately became a mega dick and told me that he "wasn't playing any games" and he was giving me "thirty seconds" until he called the police. As his voice is escalating and he is screaming at me asking me how stupid I think he is, his housekeeper comes in with the checkbook. She had obviously taken it somewhere else in the house to take care of some palatial house business. He apologized but I did not accept and said, "I think I should be going now". As I walked past me, he still watched me like I might at any time spring forth and start stealing pictures off the wall.
⇒ 10) I had two memorable nanny interview experiences that sprang to mind.
The first involved a nanny who seemed very shy. It was hard to get any answers out of her. She was sitting on a vinyl seat. When she got up, there was a sweat mark the size of a basketball. I hope it was sweat.
The second involved a nanny who came and was driven to the house by her boyfriend. I knew this was a bad sign but because it was winter, I suggested he need not wait in the car and he should join us in the house. We sat down and the whole time he glared at me. I've never been so ill at ease. I offered them each a drink and he asked for a Heineken. I told him we had no Heineken and he laughed and said that 'anything with alcohol would do'. It was the fastest interview I ever conducted and the last time I interviewed without my husband.
⇒ 11) I had an interview on the upper east side a few years ago and the Mom showed me the room that would be my room. She said it's her son's room now but he is moving out because he is getting too big for the room. He was only 1 yr. old. (If it's too small of a room for a 1 yr. old what about an adult?) She also wanted me to keep the kid in the kitchen when I do the dishes. She kept him in the high chair. But what about when he's 2 or 3 yrs old? That will never work. I did not take the job offer.
If you would like to share your experience with us or contribute to an upcoming feature, please email
isynblog@gmail.com.
