1. Training
These days, most quality NCS are trained through an education company, but not all are, and that does not mean they are not qualified. But overall, keeping up with information and current evidence-based best practices can be challenging, so an NCS with quality training is a wise consideration. Our job as an agency is to not only know which education companies are offering quality training, but also how to evaluate each individual candidate to ensure they have a good knowledge base and the skills to serve your family well. We ask a lot of questions in our vetting process to ensure they are ready to do just that.
2. References
Even though we as an agency check the references of all of our candidates, we also strongly encourage you to also speak to a few of them. This will help you get a good sense of who this candidate is and if their personality and skills are a good mesh for your family. As an agency, we work hard in this area also, selecting those candidates that we feel are the best fit for your family.
3. Know your needs
Often new families come to us without a true understanding of their needs because they often don’t know what an NCS can really do for them. But we do! So, use the intake time with our agency as an opportunity to help us get to know you and what you want. Filling out our questions in-depth really helps us narrow down the selection of candidates so you often only have to spend time interviewing 1-2 people before you have a great fit!
4. And finally, trust your instincts
A candidate may look fantastic on paper, and likely is, in fact, fantastic. But that doesn’t always make them fantastic for you. And oftentimes your instincts will pick up on that, even when you consciously do not. (This also works the other way around; you often recognize the perfect candidate immediately.) So we strongly encourage you to pay close attention to those feelings, and see if you can determine—are these just nerves, or do I have some real underlying concerns. You’ve made the decision to hire an NCS for your family, and knowing you are going to have professional support when your new baby arrives is great and such a relief, but then the next question arises? What should I look for? How do I select the right candidate? And that is where we come into the equation for you as an agency. Let’s take a look at a few of the things you should look for and how we can help you sort this all out.
Overall, you will find that when you work with an agency, much of the work is done for you and your job really is just to ask yourself “who fits me best?” and then trusting that. There is an exciting time coming for your family and we are proud to be a part of It.
