“How can I find a trusted sitter fast if I do not have family and friends available to help or provide any recommendations?”
That’s a question a lot of parents commonly ask us.
Clearly, there must be a way to solve this issue without having to sacrifice trustworthiness and quality of a sitter while significantly cutting down the whole search and screening process.
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This really got us thinking.
Considering that there are a lot of parents who find themselves with this predicament on a daily basis, we tasked ourselves to come-up with a solution to this challenge.
Considering that there are a lot of parents who find themselves with this predicament on a daily basis, we tasked ourselves to come-up with a solution to this challenge.
The toughest part is really finding a shortlist of trusted and qualified sitters that you can choose from to help you with your family’s child care needs. The interview and final screening process is a relatively much easier process.
From our experience, word-of-mouth recommendations from family and friends have always been the fastest way for us to find trusted and qualified sitters. That’s because there is an element of trust associated with word-of-mouth recommendations from people you know.
From our experience, word-of-mouth recommendations from family and friends have always been the fastest way for us to find trusted and qualified sitters. That’s because there is an element of trust associated with word-of-mouth recommendations from people you know.
If we can find something close to this during the search process, then that would definitely help shorten the whole screening process.
We did some research and was able to come-up with a solution to this.
To start, I want you to give these questions some thought.
1. What if you can leverage all your social connections, both personal and professional, to find a sitter? Is this something you are willing to do?
2. Would you be comfortable using a sitter whom families in your network are currently regularly hiring as opposed to hiring a complete stranger that no one knows?
If you answered yes to both of the above questions, then feel free to read-on to learn more about our solution.
Table Of Contents
The Solution To Finding A Shortlist Of Trusted, Quality Sitters
Since we would like to help you find trusted and qualified sitters fast, here is the gist of the whole process just to give you an idea:
1. We found an online sitter service, which when leveraged with your Facebook and/or Linked-In account, can connect you to a list of trusted and qualified sitters within your neighborhood who are regularly hired by people you know or may know.
2. With the help of the service, you would be able to contact and message the sitters to interview and get to know them more.
3. Using Facebook or Linked-In, you would be able to contact parents in your network who have used or are still regularly using the sitters for additional feedback or confirmation.
4. Once you have a shortlist of sitters, it’s really just a matter of interviewing them and making your final decision.
5. With our complete list of babysitter interview questions, you will be able to get to interview the sitters and be able to confidently determine if they are the best sitter for you and your family.
6. Eventually, you can connect, message, hire, and pay your regular sitters conveniently via an app on your smartphone.
The Step-By-Step Guide To Finding A Trusted, Quality Sitters Fast
Here’s what you need to do:
1. Click the FREE Basic Access coupon below to get to UrbanSitter.
Based on our experience, we found UrbanSitter to have the vital features that can help cut all the heavy legwork involved for finding trusted and qualified sitters fast.
Based on our experience, we found UrbanSitter to have the vital features that can help cut all the heavy legwork involved for finding trusted and qualified sitters fast.
If you want to learn what makes this the ideal platform for finding trusted sitters fast, you can read about our complete review of UrbanSitter here. Otherwise, just follow the next couple of steps and you will find out why we recommend using their powerful platform.
2. Sign-up with UrbanSitter using your Facebook login credentials.
To get you started in the right direction, sign-up with your Facebook credentials. You can also use your Linked-In account or personal email.
We highly suggest using your Facebook account since the UrbanSitter algorithm will be able to maximize your information for the search.
We highly suggest using your Facebook account since the UrbanSitter algorithm will be able to maximize your information for the search.
3. Complete the sign-up process.
As you sign-up, make sure to answer the questions UrbanSitter has regarding:
(a) where you live;
(b) the school where your child goes to; and
(c) all the community groups that you and your child are affiliated with.
The more community groups or affiliations you can provide, the better as UrbanSitter’s algorithm will do all the hard work for you.
Once you have completed the question and answer sections, the magic begins. UrbanSitter will provide you with their search results within minutes.
Once you have completed the question and answer sections, the magic begins. UrbanSitter will provide you with their search results within minutes.
4. Go ahead and review the results.
You will find that you will be provided a lot of options to learn more about the babysitter candidates and the people in your network who are connected to them.
Feel free to click around the search results. What we realized with in using UrbanSitter is that it really can dig deep into parent connections that you never knew you had in your neighborhood to help you find amazing sitters.
Feel free to click around the search results. What we realized with in using UrbanSitter is that it really can dig deep into parent connections that you never knew you had in your neighborhood to help you find amazing sitters.
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Familiarize yourself with the platform. It really is a very powerful platform for getting important information on sitters and the parent community connections that you have.
5. How to find the best sitters for your family on UrbanSitter fast.
Here are some quick tips on how to find the best sitters for your interview shortlist on UrbanSitter.
(a) Look for repeat hires.
A great feature that we like on UrbanSitter is their repeat hire indicator. The more repeat hires a babysitter has, the better.
This is a great indicator of the quality of the sitter as obviously, the more families do a repeat hire of a sitter, then that indicates that they are really happy with the quality of service that the sitter is providing.
(b) Look for sitters with high ratings.
A sitter who has a five-star rating is obviously a quality sitter as that is the highest rating parents can give a sitter.
Do consider sitters with high ratings IN COMBINATION with the repeat hire indicator.
(c) The more positive reviews, the better.
Make sure to read the reviews on the sitter. Consider sitters with a lot of positive reviews as this definitely is a great indicator of a quality sitter.
(d) Watch the video profiles of sitters.
When available, watch the video profile of a sitter. Even a short video profile can provide you with a glimpse of the sitter’s personality prior to contacting and interviewing her.
(e) Look for sitters with more connections to you
Sitters with more connections to you via your social network and group affiliations will be great candidates. Why? Because you already have parents in common whom you can contact personally and get word-of-mouth recommendations from.
This is close as you can get to word-of-mouth recommendations from family and close friends. It sure is better than recommendations from total strangers.
This is close as you can get to word-of-mouth recommendations from family and close friends. It sure is better than recommendations from total strangers.
6. Download our “The Complete List Of Babysitter Interview Questions”. It’s FREE!
Once you have a shortlist of candidates to contact and interview, download our FREE babysitter interview questions list to save you more time and more importantly, help you avoid the common pitfalls of babysitter interviewing.
With questions designed around themes that are meant to extract a sitter’s personality, knowledge, skills, experiences, and inner thoughts, we are sure you will find this 5-page checklist to be a great additional resource for your final sitter screening process.
7. Upgrade your UrbanSitter subscription.
Now that you have a shortlist of candidates whom you are ready to contact, now it’s time to upgrade your free basic access to UrbanSitter to a paid account.
Don’t worry. They have an affordable a pay-as-you-go option plan.
A paid account gives you access to other great features such as ability to contact sitters, access to background checks, and other premium features.
A paid account gives you access to other great features such as ability to contact sitters, access to background checks, and other premium features.
To get great savings on your paid subscription, we highly recommend you to use the SPECIAL OFFER coupon below.
Unlike other leading online sitter services like Sittercity and Care.com, UrbanSitter is the only one that has a pay-as-you-go option. Of course, if you plan to use the service for a longer period of time, a longer subscription period comes up much cheaper on a per-month-basis as shown in the table below.
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Below is a price comparison table featuring UrbanSitter, Sittercity, and Care.com just to give you an idea of the significant savings and value that you get from using UrbanSitter.
| Subscription Period | UrbanSitter Fees* | Sittercity Fees* | Care.com Fees* |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| One-month access pass (pay as you go, no commitment) | $34.95 | not available | not available | |
| One-month premium membership | $19.95 a month (automatic billing every month). You get your first month free! | $35 a month (automatic billing every month) | $35 a month (automatic billing every month) | |
| Three-month premium membership | not available | $70, which comes out to $23.33/month | $70, which comes out to $23.33/month | |
| One-year premium membership | $99.95, this is the best deal at $8.33/month | $140, this is the best deal at $11.67/month | $140, this is the best deal at $11.67/month | |
| *Please note that the three-month and one-year memberships are billed upfront and not on a monthly basis. | ||||
PLEASE NOTE: All the pricing information provided in this article may be subject to change as of this writing. We do not have any control with any pricing changes that UrbanSitter, Sittercity, and Care.com may decide to implement. However, we will do our best to keep up-to-date with the pricing schedules for both of these excellent services.
Once you have upgraded your account, you can now message the sitters and setup interviews via the UrbanSitter app or via a browser on your desktop, laptop, or tablet.
8. Contact parents who were identified by UrbanSitter to be part of your network.
Using Facebook or Linked-In, you can contact parents who have hired or are still regularly hiring the babysitter you are interested in. You can ask them directly about matters that you would like to learn about the sitter you found on UrbanSitter.
Don’t be afraid to reach-out to the parents within your network. Most parents will be very responsive especially when it comes to helping out other parents in their network when it comes to child care.
Don’t be afraid to reach-out to the parents within your network. Most parents will be very responsive especially when it comes to helping out other parents in their network when it comes to child care.
With all the information that you have gathered, by now it’s really just a matter of interviewing the shortlist of sitter candidates you found on UrbanSitter and deciding on who would be the best person to take care of your family’s child care needs.
Again, we highly recommend that you to use the list of babysitter interview questions that you downloaded to help you interview your shortlist of babysitter candidates.
Again, we highly recommend that you to use the list of babysitter interview questions that you downloaded to help you interview your shortlist of babysitter candidates.
Here Are Some Final Tips
As a final note, download the UrbanSitter app on your smartphone so that you can:
1. Connect and message sitters conveniently any time you want;
2. Hire sitters you are already familiar with at a moments notice; and
3. Pay your sitters directly with your app. There is no longer a need to have cash on hand when your sitter comes to your home. It’s really a great way to save you that extra trip to the ATM.
Watch the video below to learn more about the app:
Hope this helps!
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A nerd at heart (haha), I have been following and analyzing the world of online sitters for a couple of years now and have seen a lot of innovations and changes in this market. In between taking care of my loving (and demanding 😜) family and writing, I also do a lot of “traveling” on the Travel Channel and Discovery Channel. Read More
I’m amazed how easy it is to hire from Urbansitter. With just my FB account, I can see the sitters my friends have hired. I just pretty much stick to the same sitters. That way, I have a good point of reference. I look for repeat hires to be on the safe side. That works very well for me especially if I have to hire a sitter at the last minute.
Thanks for your very informative write-up on Urbansitter. I have been intrigued by their service for some time now but haven’t gotten around to really look into it. Your article is a big help.
Asking references from friends and family members is the usual practice but truth be told, it has never worked for me. There’s always something about the babysitter that I don’t like. Maybe I’m too choosy but that’s the way I am. Urbansitter combines both the usual “referral” practice and research. I get to know the sitters my friends recommend and I also get to study them more through their profile. Only then do I make a smart choice. That practice has been working for me so far.
Ideally, we should get to know the sitter by doing some kind of background check or research. Unfortunately, we’re just too busy to do that. Services like Urbansitter make it easy for us.
The problem with word-of-mouth recommendations is that you have to find time to do it. You have to meet up or pick up the phone. Either way, it takes some time to get word-of-mouth recommendations. If I go up to 5 friends of mine for some recommendations, I’d be lucky enough if one of them would have one for me. There’s just no way I can come up with a shortlist of reliable sitters with word-of-mouth.
For a sitter to be featured on Urbansitter, she has to be approved first. However, I would feel a lot safer knowing a friend of mine has already hired her. The fact that I can easily get with my friend online, makes it so much easier for me to get some feedback about the sitter. For me, that’s a lot better as compared to going through the whole process of choosing one out of the blue.
Since Urbansitter makes use of your social networks to match you up with sitters, there is no need for you to go through a list of nor is there any need for you to randomly check out a sitter to start your search. Even before you start your search on Urbansitter, you are already connected to sitters who could be compatible with you. That saves you a lot of time.