| By :
Mark Etinger
In many cases, hiring a part-time nanny off of Craigslist works out fine. However, there's always the chance that this person will a little...off. The easiest way to unwittingly avoid letting a lunatic into your home is by using a nanny placement service. Here's a breakdown of why you should skip Craigslist and go with a bona fide nanny service. Most nanny placement services train their employees before sending them out to work in the field, so you'll be dealing with a trained professional rather than someone who might not have a lot of experience. If you hire a random person, they could lie and say they've cared for children plenty of times, when really the most relevant experience they have is babysitting their family's dog. Another reason you should use a nanny service is that you can do your own background checks, of course, but it's easier for someone to pull the wool over an individual's eyes than an entire agency. Nanny agencies do background checks on potential employees, looking into their work history and any criminal background. Because they'll be working with children, only applicants with spotless records will be hired. There's no real way to check up on a non-agency-hired nanny, who could easily forge his or her history and references. A nanny agency will be able to work with you to find a part-time nanny who fills the unique needs of you and your loved ones. While all employee are trained in certain aspects, if one, for example, does better with smaller children than another, it's more likely that that nanny will be assigned to you, if you have small children. If you find that the employee assigned to you isn't a great match, the agency will continue to work with you to find one that is. If you hire someone independently, however, who doesn't quite fit the bill, you'll have to go through the whole hiring process all over again. Employee salaries are settled by the nanny service, which means you won't have to deal with figuring out the intricacies of employee taxes and benefits. Someone hired independently could potentially lie to you about the average wages of a nanny. A nanny service can send a replacement if your regular part-time nanny needs to take off work at the last minute. If you hire someone off Craigslist, he or she might send someone inexperienced in his or her place, or just not show up at all. If something goes wrong and the part-time nanny is at fault, a nanny agency will assume liability, whereas there's no real way to hold an independent nanny responsible. Similarly, if you find yourself facing issues with an agency-hired nanny, he or she will have a supervisor you can take up with. Dealing with a non-agency-hired nanny could make for a difficult confrontation. Keep all this in mind when you're thinking about whether to hire an agency-nanny or non-agency nanny -- it could save you a lot of grief in the long run.
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