What a Nanny Background Check Actually Covers

A proper nanny screening covers far more than a criminal record search — and the gap between a $30 online check and a real screening is where most bad hires happen.

We have screened nannies, newborn care specialists and household staff for families across the Southeast, Florida and Texas for 23 years. Here is what a real screening involves, and what the cheap checks leave out.

The criminal background check is the last step, not the first

This surprises people. A comprehensive background check is expensive, and running one on every person who submits an application is not practical for any agency being honest with you.

What happens instead is the same sequence most employers use. Candidates clear a series of screening steps first — interview, references, experience verification — and once a family decides to move forward with someone, the comprehensive background check is completed before that person starts working. By then it is confirming a picture that has already been built, rather than substituting for one.

If an agency tells you every applicant in their database is fully background checked, ask them what that check includes. Often it is a single-database search that costs a few dollars.

What a thorough screening actually includes

1. An in-depth interview with the agency’s team

Before a family ever meets them. Scenario questions rather than résumé questions — how they would handle a child who will not settle, what they would do in an emergency, when they would call the parents and when they would handle it themselves.

You cannot get this from a document, and it catches the people who look excellent on paper.

2. Structured reference checking

This is where most screening is weakest, because the standard version — a quick friendly phone call — produces almost no useful information. Former employers are polite. Nobody wants to hurt someone’s chances.

We use SkillSurvey, a professional reference-checking service. It goes to former employers with a detailed, behaviour-based questionnaire, and the responses are confidential. That confidentiality is the point: a former employer who will not say “she was often late” out loud on a phone call will answer it honestly in a structured form.

It also asks the same questions of every reference, which means answers can be compared rather than just collected. We reach out personally as well when a situation calls for a conversation.

3. Verification of professional experience

Confirming the roles on the résumé actually happened, for the dates claimed.

This is the step most often skipped, and where discrepancies turn up. Rarely outright fabrication — more often a six-month role described as two years, or “nanny” describing occasional babysitting.

4. Social media and online presence screening

Not snooping for opinions. Looking for what someone chooses to publish about children, employers and their own judgment.

A candidate posting photos of the children in their care publicly has not understood discretion, whatever their references say. That is a real finding and it only surfaces if someone looks.

5. An assessment of character, communication and reliability

Did they arrive on time to their own interview? Do they ask when something is unclear? Do the references describe someone who tells you when there is a problem, or someone who hopes you do not notice?

Reliability is the trait families underestimate and then care about most.

6. The comprehensive background check

Multi-jurisdiction, run once the family decides to move forward and completed before that person starts working. Someone who has lived in three states needs checking in three states, plus national databases and the sex offender registry.

What a cheap online check misses

Covered by a $30 online check	Not covered
Single-database criminal search	Multi-jurisdiction and state-level records
Sometimes a sex offender registry hit	Structured reference checking
Identity match	Employment verification
	Online presence review
	Any assessment of judgment or reliability

A budget check tells you whether someone has a record in one database. It tells you nothing about whether they will be good with your children, honest about a mistake, or still there in a year.

How long a real screening takes

Several days to a couple of weeks, mostly waiting on records and on references responding. Anything promising a complete picture in an hour is not giving you one.

Nanny Background Checks — Frequently Asked Questions

A basic online check runs $30 to $100. A comprehensive multi-jurisdiction screening typically runs $150 to $300. Hiring through an agency, screening is part of the placement rather than a separate line item.

Most criminal searches cover seven years, though some jurisdictions report further back. Employment verification usually focuses on the last five to seven years.

A professional reference-checking service that surveys former employers with a detailed behaviour-based questionnaire, confidentially. It produces markedly more candid answers than a phone call, and asks every reference the same questions so answers can be compared.

Any offence involving children, violence or dishonesty. Beyond that it is judgment — an old, minor, unrelated offence disclosed upfront is very different from a recent one that was not.

Ask them how. If the answer is that they call them, ask how many and what they ask. A structured, confidential process gets answers a phone call does not.

Every candidate we present to a family has completed a team interview, structured reference checks, experience verification and online screening. Once a family decides to move forward with someone, a comprehensive background check is completed before that person starts working.

Want this handled for you?

We have been screening nannies and household staff for families across Georgia, the Carolinas, Florida and Texas for 23 years. Tell us what you need and we will bring you a short list of people who have already cleared all of it.

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Prefer to talk it through? Call 1-844-626-6922.