Recruiting a nanny - which website?

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Sorry if this has been done before, but to recruit in London are the best websites Gumtree and Nannyjob.

I am on Childcare.co.uk, but can't seem to work out how to place an advert - or is this what you put on your 'profile'?

Also, when you look at adverts on Gumtree etc and people are saying £9 - £10 per hour and don't say anything else, are they talking net or gross?

Net.

And yes to Gumtree and nanny job (both of which yielded great candidates for me last time). You'll be besieged though, so be v specific with what you want.

Not what you'll want to hear, but all high-quality nannies I know use agents and don't bother with web sites. Perception is that parents advertising on gumtree etc will be looking to pay less or avoid paying tax etc. It's of course free and much simpler for the nanny to use agents. I agree with aunt Lucy that if you use gumtree you will be inundated with random replies. Good luck filtering, if you think an agent is not the route you wanna take though.

I have to disagree with Victoria- maybe I'm not a 'high-quality' nanny but I've found every nannny job I've had through Gumtree rather than agencies. I was placed once in a temp position by an agency, that's it. I'm registered with over 20 agencies, I register with several each time I job-hunt and even though I inform tham all whan I'm looking for work and what I'm looking for- area, hours, pay etc, I seem to either get calls with completely unsuitable jobs (I know you're looking for full-time in Richmond starting in July, but would you consider an after-school role starting tomorrow in Kensington?) or never get back to you.

Most nannies I know use the sites listed and don't rely on agencies at all.

Thanks for tips.

Am prepared to be inundated, but we are just looking for 2 days and will write quite a specific advert, so will take it from there.

Another quick one - if I said £9-£10 per hour, but I really want to pay no more than £9.50, will that draw in sufficient people?

I wouldn't do that - if the nanny you offered the job to happened to be a nanny with lots of experience and was already earning £10 per hour, I expect she would be a bit peeved at being offered £10 an hour and would wonder why she was being offered a lower rate - she may well even turn the job down over it. I can imagine you would feel a bit gutted to if you thought you had found the right nanny and lost her because of this.

Sorry, watching telly here and not concentrating fully - offered less than £10 an hour.

As someone who's worked as a nanny I've never been offered a range in terms of pay. I usually just tell the family what I charge and the only adverts I've seen which mention pay are those for live in au pairs.

I'd avoid mentioning the pay issue completely until you've had some responses and asked them what they expect to earn. That way you can weed out anyone expecting more than you can afford. And if someone sounds great/interviews well and is only expecting £8 you can offer her £9 and she'll really appreciate it. If you're finding that you can't find a suitable nanny for the price you're willing to pay, you might have to go to £10 an hour. I'm not sure how much nannies in London are typically paid!

I think regarding pay, if your unsure of what you'd like to offer then perhaps put 'Negotiable depending on experience' This seems quite popular with families advertising. Always agree a gross hourly wage or annual salary.

I have found all my jobs through various websites, I have had one job through an agency and I really didnt get on with it. I wanted to leave after 3 weeks, I called the agent for support and all I got was 'Stay for 6 weeks otherwise I will have to pay the fee back!' I think its unfair to say that you only get top notch nannies through Agencies - you just need to be very careful when sorting through applications, and I would suggest phone interviews before inviting candidates to your home.

Good luck!

If you put pay as negotiable as a nanny I may not even bother applying. If I did apply then first question would be what salary do you have in mind. I have bills to pay, so waste of your time and nine arranging interview if I can't accept the salary on offer.

So I say, put the salary in the advert.

Agree a gross salary - are you thinking 9 gross?

Quite a few opposing views here!

I was thinking £9.50 net max, but agreeing it as a gross salary. I have worked that out using the Mr Anchovy calculator in order to see what the max we could afford would be.

However, the job might appeal to someone who is a student, so what would the tax situation be then?

'Salary negotiable depending on experience, in the range of £8 - £10 per hour'.

Is that ok, or is that going badly wrong in some way?

Also, what is the situation for a 'nanny with own child'?

'Salary negotiable depending on experience, in the range of £8 - £10 per hour'.

I don't think that addresses my point of a nanny that is experienced and already earning £10 an hour, being offered the job at £9.50 per hour. If it was me I would wonder why you didn't feel I was worth £10 per hour.

Well, I think we would be prepared to pay £10 for someone who really stood out, but that would be significantly increasing our childcare bill rather than lowering it (changing from a nursery). £9.50 is the amount we would prefer to pay.

So, what is the consensus on how to phrase this question of salary?

£9.50 Net - so £13.33 per hour Gross (with BR taxcode) or £12.19 (with 810L taxcode).

I would put £11 gross per hour and see who applies. Then you can increase it if you need to do so - one of the good thing about most online adverts is that you can edit them as often as you like.

job might appeal to someone who is a student, so what would the tax situation be then?

I don't think it will make any difference. See: HMRC - Students working in term time and holidays

Depending on an individuals tax circumstances, the agreed Gross salary, the hours of work, you may find there is little Tax/NI/Employers NI due.

However you do not know what someone's taxcode will be, thus why you agree a Gross salary.

This is coming out a bit different on Mr Anchovy - I have put in £9.50 net, 2 days, 18.5 hours (9.25 per day) and it is coming out at £10.11 gross per hour.

Why is this? Any help appreciated! :)

Don't put a range - as someone said, your ideal candidate might snub you if you offered her less than the maximum. I'm not saying that you always have to pay more to get a 'better' nanny but that is often the case. If I went for a job which offered £8 - £10 ph and they only offered me £8 I'd be wondering what was wrong with me. I agree with nannynick - see who applies at a lower amount and raise the wage if no one you want comes along.

I have put in £9.50 net, 2 days, 18.5 hours (9.25 per day) and it is coming out at £10.11

Because you are using taxcode 810L. Someone who is working only 18.5 hours for you may already have another job which is using all of their personal tax allowance. So if you run the calculation with the worst case situation (taxcode BR) then you get £12.58 per hour Gross. Changing the number of hours per week can make a bit of a difference as well when calculating from a Net wage to a Gross wage. I can't remember what figures I used, but now that you have specified the hours, the calculation can be done with more accuracy.

£10 gross per hour... I get £7.74 Net (BR code), or £9.42 Net (if 810L).
Do you get the same?

Why the .25 of an hour per day? Is that to allow for a short period of time when you arrive home prior to nanny leaving?

I was thinking 8.45 - 6.00pm x 2 days. Ideally I would like to leave home a bit before 9.00am and this allows a bit of handover time.

Basically, I would prefer not to pay much more than £750 pcm for this, £800 absolute tops.

Perhaps advertise it at an annual salary: £9000 a year Gross for 18.5 hours a week. Some nannies may not understand annual salary speak, like how they don't understand Gross rather than Net salary. So be prepared to explain it to people - such as £9000 per year, split into 12 monthly payments = £750 per month, on which the applicant is then taxed by HMRC (so an amount of income tax and NI is deducted) resulting in their take home pay.

Sounds a good plan to have nanny start a bit before you leave, so you have a little handover time plus perhaps a little time to finalise getting ready.

Will 8.45am work when your children get older - how long till your eldest starts school? (Sorry, I don't know how many children you have or their ages, though you do mention that you are replacing nursery care). You may be able to change the start time later on but that is perhaps something to ask applicants about - whilst it is currently a 8.45am start time, do they think they would be able to do an earlier time in say a year's time, 2 years time?

Does your £800 pcm figure include all the associated costs? For example, activities, employers NI, payroll admin, nannies mileage whilst on duty (if nanny is using their own car), public transport costs whilst on duty, provision of lunch and tea?