What Should a Private Nanny Agency Actually Do?

A private nanny agency should do more than circulate CVs.

The value of an agency lies in the work that happens before a family sees a name: understanding the household, defining the role, protecting privacy, searching deliberately and assessing whether a professional’s judgement and working style are likely to suit the appointment.

A strong process should reduce the volume of decisions a family has to make — not transfer the agency’s screening work back to the client.

A strong brief is more than a task list

Hours, duties, location and experience all matter. They are not, however, a complete brief.

The agency should also understand how the household functions in practice.

How much autonomy should the professional have? How do the parents prefer to communicate? Is the home quiet and highly structured, or fast-moving and frequently changing? Will the person work alongside parents, assistants or other household staff? What has made previous arrangements difficult?

A family may ask for a nanny when the real need is a nanny–family assistant. It may request “flexibility” when the role actually requires clearer boundaries and more honest scheduling.

The agency’s first responsibility is to help define the appointment accurately enough that the right professional can recognise it — and succeed in it.

Privacy should shape the process from the beginning

Discretion is not simply an NDA introduced at the final stage.

A careful agency considers what information needs to be shared, with whom and at what point in the process.

A professional may need to understand the general location, schedule, responsibilities and shape of the household before deciding whether to explore a role. They do not necessarily need the family’s name, exact address or sensitive personal details at the beginning.

Privacy is strongest when it is built into the order of the process rather than treated as paperwork added later.

A search should not depend on volume

A large applicant pool can create the appearance of progress, but volume is not the same as relevance.

Some suitable professionals may be actively looking. Others may be well placed in existing roles and open only to an unusually strong opportunity.

A thoughtful agency should be able to search beyond a single advertisement or database. It should know how to identify, approach and assess people whose experience aligns with the household — even when they have not applied through a public listing.

The purpose is not to produce the longest list. It is to conduct a sufficiently thorough search that the family sees fewer, stronger possibilities.

Assessment should go beyond presentation

A polished interview can be persuasive.

It does not automatically reveal how someone responds when the schedule changes, a child is overwhelmed, a parent gives unclear direction or several priorities compete at once.

Good assessment explores judgement.

That may include asking a professional to describe a difficult situation, what they noticed, how they decided what mattered most and what they would do differently now.

It also means understanding communication style, boundaries, initiative, discretion, adaptability and the environments in which the person does their best work.

Credentials and experience remain important. The agency’s role is to interpret what those credentials mean in the context of this particular household.

A shortlist should be small for a reason

Families should not need to work through a large stack of loosely relevant CVs.

Every introduction should come with a clear reason.

Why is this person being presented? Which parts of their experience matter most? Where does their working style appear to align with the household? What should the family explore more closely in the interview?

A smaller shortlist should reflect more work completed by the agency — not less.

Families need context, not only CVs

A CV tells a family where someone has worked.

It rarely explains why the person may suit this role, how their previous environment compares with the current household or where expectations may need to be clarified.

The agency should help the family interpret the information in front of them.

That does not mean promising an exact fit before the family and professional have met. It means presenting each person with enough honest context that the next conversation is better informed.

The process should protect the professional too

A sustainable placement depends on both sides understanding the role.

The agency should communicate the schedule, location, compensation, travel, responsibilities and material expectations honestly.

It should not allow a childcare position to expand quietly into household management, or present an irregular schedule as predictable simply because that makes the role easier to market.

Clarity protects the family, but it also protects the professional from entering an appointment they were never given the opportunity to assess accurately.

Sometimes the right advice is to continue the search

An agency should be willing to say that the brief needs more work, that a candidate is not ready to be presented or that the family should keep looking.

That advice may be inconvenient in the moment. It is also one of the clearest signs that the agency is prioritising the quality of the decision over the speed of the placement.

The family always makes the final decision. The agency’s responsibility is to make that decision better informed.

Support should continue through the decision

The work does not end the moment a family chooses someone.

The offer, schedule, duties, compensation, benefits, travel expectations, confidentiality and start date should all be clarified before assumptions take hold.

The precise level of post-placement support will depend on the agency and the agreement. At minimum, a family should understand what happens after the offer, what support is available during the transition and whether any replacement terms apply.

Questions to ask before engaging an agency

Before appointing an agency, a family may wish to ask:

Who will personally lead our search?

How will you help us define the role?

Where do candidates come from?

What happens before we see a CV?

How do you assess judgement and working style?

How is our privacy protected during the search?

How many candidates should we expect to meet, and why?

What support is provided during the offer and transition?

What happens if the right person has not yet been found?

Clear answers to those questions reveal far more than general promises about finding the “perfect fit”.

The Ayla & Storm approach

Ayla & Storm begins with the household itself.

The agency was founded by Janneke Storm, whose perspective combines her own experience hiring care for her daughter, ownership and operation of an established childcare agency, an MBA and a commercial career that included Salesforce and SAP.

Every search is personally led.

The purpose is not to send families more candidates. It is to define the appointment properly, conduct a selective search and give the family a smaller number of well-considered introductions supported by clear judgement.

When you are ready, I would be happy to hear from you.