Odds of Getting In

Odds of Getting In

We need to let you in on a little industry secret: Your childhood lied to you. Most nannies don't fly in to their interviews Mary Poppins-style whenever the wind starts coming in from the east. They also don't have talkative parrot umbrellas or burst into song, because that would be too awesome for the world to withstand.

Instead, nannies are like all normal people with black umbrellas that can't talk. Like real people, they attract strange looks from other real people when they express their feelings and thoughts in the form of spontaneous song. And like all normal people, they also need to find jobs through normal avenues.

There's no Nanny Homing Beacon that will alert you to a family in need of a nanny. The best thing you can do is to get your name out there. Try an agency like Elite Nannies or Nannies4Hire.com to speed up the job search (source). And if you want to be an au pair abroad, you definitely need to use an agency to place you.

But thankfully, these agencies aren't the CIA. They know that nannies are normal, generally kind and loving people—not gun-wielding crapshoots or criminal masterminds. If you have some childcare experience under your belt, and you seem like a normal person, you'll probably find a family out there who needs you.