Nanny Guide > Good Interviewing ...

The best agencies all practice some type of behavioral interviewing. Why? Because it works! Behavioral interviewing is based on the premise that the most accurate predictor of future performance is past performance in a similar situation.

Unlike traditional interviews, which include such questions as:

1. Tell me about yourself.
2. What are your strengths and weaknesses?
3. Why are you interested in working for us?

Behavioral interviewing emphasizes past performance and behaviors. Agencies that employ behavioral interviewing have predetermined the skill sets they believe are vital to success in the nanny position. These skill sets include decision making and problem solving, motivation, integrity, communication, interpersonal skills, high tolerance for repetitive activities, dependability, and planning and organization.

A behavioral interview will ask the candidate to recount some past experience when the particular skill being evaluated was used. For example, if you want to learn about a candidate's communication skills, you might ask "Describe a situation where you had a conflict with your last family, and how you dealt with it. What was the outcome? How did you feel about it?" Or if you want to learn more about the candidate's time management skills, you might ask "How do you prioritize childcare and household projects and tasks when scheduling your time? Give me some examples." You might find that you want to know more than the candidate volunteered. Some useful follow-up questions include:

• What steps did you take?
• What happened after that?
• What did you say?
• How did he/she react?
• What was your reaction?
• How did you feel about that?
• What do you wish you had done differently?
• What did you learn from that?
• What were you thinking at that point?
• Why?
• How?
• When?
• Where?

4nannies.com offers Sample Interview Questions which can help. The suggested questions include both traditional, yes/no, questions and a good number of behavioral interview questions designed to elicit information about how this candidate has interacted in previous nanny or employment situations.

In conducting the interview, you want to be prepared, yet flexible, and create a communication climate in which the nanny candidate will feel comfortable. Signal your interest, but avoid leading the nanny to respond in particular ways. Listen carefully, be sure to ask secondary/probing questions.

4nannies.com strongly recommends that you conduct the candidate interview (whether in person or at length over the telephone) prior to doing any candidate reference checks. Be sure to use the information you garnered in the interview wisely in your reference checks. If your candidate indicates that she interacted with the former charge's teachers to assist in the development of a certain skill (reading, spelling, etc.) make sure you ask the family about both their perception of the obstacle their child faced and the effectiveness of the nanny's role in the problem resolution. If the nanny candidate indicates she had full charge responsibility for her former charges, ask the family to define what that role was and confirm whether all of you define full charge the same way.

When in doubt, contact the candidate back for clarification. And all things being equal, don't overlook you intuition. Intuition is a powerful tool, just not the only one you should use in this important interview process.

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