Nannies looking for jobs online

[terry2]

Hi everyone, some advice please. I run the website thenannysharers.co.uk which is a site designed to match one family up with another local family, so that they can team up and share a nanny together and the related costs. We often get asked by both nannies and parents alike to also allow nannies to use our site somehow, as up until now it has really been only for the parents... has anyone got any ideas on what would work best? I guess either we set it up like Gumtree, where the nannies respond directly to parents' adverts, or we could let nannies put a short CV online and allow the parents (the ones who have registered with us) to contact them? Either way, it would be free for the nannies to use, of course. All suggestions welcome, thanks!

Hi

Lots of people need Nannies for less than a full working week - and finding a Nanny who only wants to work a few days can sometimes be difficult. Nanny shares is one solution of course - and it would make sense for your website to include Nannies who either want to work part-time, or would be willing to work for more than one family. Also many Nannies like to take their own child to work - a Nanny share in a different way.

I think you should consider expanding your site to include Nannies who are interested in part-time work, those would consider working for more than one family or wish to bring their own child.

You could let nannies respond directly to parents' adverts, and also advertise themselves and the hours/days they are available.

I have a fab part-time (3 days a week) Nanny at the moment, but it wasn't easy to find her!

Good luck!

Hi, thanks for this and you're right, we should open the site up to nannies across the board, as you suggest. There's definitely a demand for it, so watch this space! Thanks again.

PS I've literally just set up free registration on our site for all mumsnetters until the end of this month; you sound like you're sorted for now, but just quote this conversation back at me in the future and I'll happily sign you up with us for free at any time!

As a nanny, I can already browse your listings (via the postcode search facility) though can't contact families. Spotted an ad from a family looking for a mother help 3 afternoons per week, so at least one family is already using the site to advertise a part-time job (which isn't a nanny share).
Could a facility be made for nannies to contact parents - say via e-mail? Perhaps using hidden e-mail contact (see Gumtree.com as example), to try to avoid parents getting unwanted Spam.

Good to see that your site recommends that employers agree a GROSS salary with their employee.

What if both nannies and parents could register for free, but had to subscribe to contact someone. Greataupair.com works in this way and it seems to work.

You might look at the cv section of nannyjob.co.uk for comparison. But, some things could be improved there, in my opinion, on the search . For example, I would like to see a picture of the nanny. And I would like to see a bigger entry on what the nanny says about him/herself. It's pretty short on nannyjob.

I just had a browse around your site. It looks good. How can mumsnetters register for free? Is there a code or something to put in?

Also, I was just thinking it might be useful if you give nannies a place to enter the ages of the children they look after. Parents will probably want to match up the ages. For example a family might be looking for a share primarily because they want a playmate for their child so the existing charge would need to be similar age.

Thanks guys! All sound advice. As a nanny you can register with us for free; just fill in the reistration form but not the payment form. We pick it up this end, check it and activate it for you. Just started this - yesterday in fact! So do spread the word to other nannies that may be interested. I though it might be simpler to let the nannies have similar registraiton status as parents; so that they can be contacted as well as contact others?? All done by the same postcode search.... What do you think?

For Mumsnetter parents, we also launched a special promo yesterday of free registration betweeen now and the end of November; just quote promo code mumsnet30. It normally costs £25, so a bit of a bargain!(had a bit of a problem with the code yesterday, but it should be working by now! If not, I can process it for you myself once you have registered)

Good point about the children's ages; we may have to design a slightly different registration page for nannies in fact....

ok, I have tried to register. But it wanted a credit card which I don't want to put in. Has my registration gone through? my e-mail begins with "eleusis" and my post code begins with TW16.

Also, some more site feedback:

Put a counter for the 500 caracter limit or actually make it so you can only put in 500 characters. Had lots of faffing around to work out how far over the 500 limit I was.

Also, for kids ages, you should have people input a year of birth rather than their age so that the webpage can calculte the ages, and still have the right age displayed when they turn the next year. For example have feb 2002 instead of age 5 so that when he/she turns the next year older in Feb the age will increase on the page.

Hi again, I think you're registered now oaky aren't you? Thanks for the feedback. Both comments make perfect sense, so I will pass it on to our tech guys to amend!

Sorry! Just read title and had visions of a Nanny sitting at her laptop, with a webcab, looking after children scattered across the country.

Sounds like a good job

hmmm. not sure how well that would go down with the parents, but it's thought!