A tiny bit suspicious of nanny references

[SlicedMelon]

So we have offered a lovely nanny the role and she has provided two references, first name with phone number. I’ve spoken to one who sounded honestly a bit nervous and referenced their child’s ages as exactly the “starting age” of the children in the role as described in her CV (eg said, my two daughters, 5 months and 2 years old rather than 5 and 7 which would be how old they are now - I just feel like a genuine parent would have described children as 5 and 7 and then said something like she started when youngest was a few months old or something like that rather than the exact starting ages?).

I’ve followed up and asked for his full name and wife’s full name and his work email, which he provided, but he doesn’t come up on LinkedIn / neither does company, although there is a website. Is there any other step I could reasonably do to verify this role existed?

I really like her but also don’t want to be relaxed about this considering my spidey senses are going off a bit… could I ask for payslips or something?

Rules are very different now than in the 90s, because of things like the Soham murders.

I'm a childminder and must have a safer recruitment policy - I couldn't employ an assistant who had an unverifiable phone number as a reference.
People wanting to work with children have to have a verifiable work history, you can't just take it on trust.

Despite you finding her through childcare.co.uk, you don’t seem to have even the slightest intention of reporting her OP.

So unnecessary

“you lied about the references. I shall be reporting you to the agency. Do not contact me again”

The “right thing” would be to report this liar

I have never come across it on an external work email, ever. And baffling that the op thought this was impressively swish

All your requests have been perfectly reasonable. Schools and nurseries are meant to use Safer Recruitment guidelines which would include a full job history with all gaps explained, at least 2 referees (usually covering at least 2 years) with their work emails, a DBS, Children’s Barred List check, right to work check etc. I imagine it's even more important for a nanny as most the time there's no other adults around, no DSL etc

I mean, chances are she panicked and faked her job history to be more employable, maybe she's been really ill and had no work and was worried she'd be discriminated against. However, it could be anything - fired from her last job, safeguarding concerns at last job, her own children subject to a Child Protection Plan and previous employers became aware, and so on.

Are you the same person who previously asked this question in all caps? I didn’t reply because frankly they seem a bit unhinged. And given your disdainful and accusatory tone I feel zero inclination to explain myself to you either. This has no bearing on my plans to report her, I just choose not to engage with rude posters.

I was clearly being lighthearted as I assumed you/the person really hung up on photos being in email signatures was posting in good faith.

Thank you for sharing these, I’ll follow these expectations for next round of recruitment. Agree that an unsupervised home environment is even more high risk so should come with same standards of reference checks.

Well, definitely, no DBS, no job!

But she had a “tidy folder”!!!

Huh? You mentioned the photo in work signature and that it was swish. No one else mentioned it before you said you thought it was swish!

So you are going to?

and no I’m not

Oh, also, next time if they come with a DBS I think you can check who did the DBS (haven't looked at my physical copy for a while). It will probs be different for some nannies (they'll have to get one through an agency or something?) but hopefully next time just take a quick check and ask for a reference from that employer as one of the two references (as it will be an employment where they worked with children or vulnerable adults, which is where you could be given vital safeguarding info).

Actually, I wonder if even agencies can probably give basic references - i.e. how long the person was on the books, whether they were ever investigated or fired etc.

Wow this is really terrifying. Well done for sussing it out. I employed two nannies directly and did my own referencing and like you I googled the people as I wanted to check they were legit and they were easy to find on linked in and Facebook. But if not I’d have felt nervous/not sure what I’d have done. I think you were incredibly unlucky, I think 99% of people are legitimate so I wouldn’t let this put you off hiring a nanny. I’d be upfront next time you speak to a referee about wanting to verify them asking about social media/company website etc.

Yes thanks I think that’s a good idea, perhaps I can explain what happened with previous candidate and say that’s why I want to be extra careful and need to verify their identity. That it’s nothing personal to them.

You are a parent
and these are your children
you don’t need another reason why you are being vigilant

Nobody’s claiming to be a spy. But the thousands of people who work for certain departments within the Home Office, National Crime Agency, GCHQ, Security Services, some areas of Policing etc etc, are not going to risk their jobs by breaching the policy which prevents them giving out their email addresses to some random on the phone who’s requesting it!

Indeed.

I work for the NHS.

For personal reasons, including the fact that I and colleagues have been threatened by parents of my patients, I use a different name outside of work.

There is no way I would be giving a work email to anyone for a non-work purpose like this.

Agreed

Same with my work

Similar here. I'm in finance, all external emails (incoming and outgoing) are blocked. Same on our MS Teams, I can only contact internal employees due to the nature of the information I have on my computer/our systems. I could give my work email out but it's pointless, the email won't reach me.

Good but just silly?

You say honesty is not a red line to be crossed, but it’s the absolute basic minimum required from an employee - much more important than personality, aura etc. What else would she lie about while looking after your children? Would she leave them alone unattended? Hide injuries? Invite other people into the house and ignore the kids?

About references and work emails or people with gaps in employment. There is an obvious problem with personal emails in that literally anyone can make a gmail or hotmail address using someone else's name. The people who legitimately can't use work emails, presumably they can say up front. Normally that reference is collected and then another one can be asked for. The same with gaps in employment, you just give the reference details you can and reasons for gaps in employment. Most people have some reference which can be used from somewhere as most people have been to college, uni, or had employment in larger organisations which can give basic HR references (e.g. dates employed and any disciplinary actions).

I guess for the people who really don't have ANY referees from last 5 years who are willing to use a work email, or a larger organisation with a HR department, or a uni or college tutor, or a character reference from a church/voluntary organisation/recognised club or something then maybe you have to get a bit creative or decide how comfortable you are with recruiting?

People who just do not have verifiable references just wouldn't get a job working in childcare - at least not for any setting that must use safer recruitment practices like childminders, nurseries or schools. I'd assume nanny agencies too.

Yeah, it can be a bit of pain in the arse (especially for people who have had periods as SAHP) but it really is safer for obvious reasons.