A good job description helps you attract the right candidates and weed out those that don’t quite fit, but it can be so hard to get started. As a nanny placement and referral agency, we have to write a lot of nanny job descriptions and this is the formula we’ve found works best: 

• A descriptive title

• A section describing your family

• Clear details about work schedule, amount and method of pay, time off and other benefits

• Certification, education and experience requirements

• Clearly defined responsibilities 

Job title:

Describe your ideal nanny (calm/energetic/mature/loving) and your family (3 kids in Plano, TX) in a few words to grab candidates’ attention. 

E.g. Loving nanny with infant experience needed for 4-month old girl in Plano, TX

About our family:

• Basics, including location, number and ages of children, pets

• Family personality and values

• Parenting approach

• Activities that the family enjoys

• What a typical day looks like at home

Work details (hours, benefits, pay):

• Work schedule

• Hourly rate or annual salary

• Paid or unpaid time off, including vacation, sick days, and holidays

Requirements:

• Certifications, like First Aid/CPR, Early Childhood Education coursework

• Vaccination status (COVID, TDAPP, flu, etc.)

• Years experience

• Education level

• Drivers license

Responsibilities:

• Will the nanny be asked to perform additional duties outside of childcare, like run errands, housekeeping, meal prep, laundry, etc.?

• Do you have pets that the nanny will be asked to care for?

• Will your nanny be asked to prepare lesson plans or support distance-learning, tutoring, etc.?

• Will your nanny need to do pick-up/drop-off?

While working with a family, we encountered a situation in which we had one expectation of what the job would entail based on what the family originally described and, when interviewing, our nanny candidates discovered that the job would entail a lot more than what was originally outlined. This caused a lot of friction for the candidates, as they felt that it was a bait-and-switch situation, and it ended up being a waste of everyone’s time. The lesson we’d like to impart from this situation is that transparency and accuracy work best. 

Side note: we ultimately chose not to work with this family; while our primary clients are families, we also serve as advocates for our nanny candidates and we felt that we were not able to fulfill the needs of the client while providing a stable work environment for a prospective nanny.

Still need some more inspiration? Here’s a sample nanny job description:

Hopefully these tips and sample job description help you write out the perfect post, but if you still need some help, feel free to get in touch with us!

Want to hire a nanny but don’t want to do it yourself?