Carrie Kaczmarek Bland

I attribute my success to putting myself out there and making connections. I started finding community on social media, on LinkedIn, and in Clubhouse back in 2020, where I made a lot of nanny connections and was able to share information. I attended conferences and volunteered - I submitted an application to join the Nanny Relief Fund Board of Directors and was accepted, and my current employer was one of the founding members there, so we made a connection through that. You never really know where your next opportunity is going to come from. I always make sure to share my name in rooms and what I do, because you never know what people are gonna need or what connections people may have.

The best career advice I've ever received is to introduce yourself in every room that you're in. Even something like this phone call - I saw a LinkedIn message and decided to see what it's all about. You never know, especially in the nanny industry, who has different connections to a different family that might be hiring, or an agency, or who might benefit from hearing about the nonprofit. Just making sure to introduce yourself and your background to whoever you may come across can open so many doors.

I would say find a mentor in your area, or not even in your area - online would be fine as well. There are a lot of online nanny resources, especially since 2020. A lot of the nannies ended up working from home, and like a lot of stay-at-home parents, it's isolating. You're with children all day, and even though it's a dream career, it can be lonely. So finding somebody who understands what you're doing is crucial, because this is not a typical industry. There are standards and things that should be included in our contracts, but a lot of the stuff is just, you don't know it until you know it, and you won't know it until you meet somebody who's gonna share that knowledge and experience with you. Find a nanny mentor locally if you can, in person, whether it's somebody that works through an agency or if there's a nanny community group in your area. Or again, online through different courses and conferences - there are just people out there who want to help the next generation of nannies, the next season of nannies. It's a good industry to be a part of.

The biggest challenge in our industry is the lack of regulation for standards. There are a lot of agencies, payroll companies, and nannies themselves who try to educate other nannies and families on what it takes to be an employer, what it takes to hire a nanny, and for nannies, what it takes to be an employee - being paid legally, having taxes taken out, being able to get vacation pay and sick pay and different benefits that are a given with any corporate job but are less normalized in in-home staffing situations or employment agreements. I think that will probably continue for a while. More people are understanding, especially since 2020, the importance of household support and nannies and what they contribute to families and children and the household and everything. But it's still hard - people don't understand the difference between nanny and babysitter. There's a TV show coming out in June called Million Dollar Nannies, and one of the article headlines was something about them being hot babysitters, and the industry went wild with that. The struggle is the lack of knowledge about what should be standard.

The values most important to me are commitment to the task and making sure you follow through with what you promise, whether that's professionally or personally. That can be said in life with marriage or with kids, or whatever - even going as basic as don't tell fibs, just the way different people handle communication. Flexibility is also a huge part of both sides of my life, again, because my kids are home with me. The agency owner, CEO, and the team support that and help me with that, and it seems to be working out very well, still 2 years in.