While very few new and recent grads have experience hiring babysitters, I still like to use the “babysitter example” when explaining how the hiring process typically works in a company. This lesson from the Creative Thinking section of Found Your Career will explain what I’m talking about. The gist of it is that parents seek quite a few alternatives before they hire a babysitter outside of their social network–they want to hire someone they can trust. If they do end up going online to find a babysitter, a good way to find someone trustworthy is SitterCity. It’s a subscription based site (here’s a discount/coupon link for 30% off) that offers a “better way to find sitters and nannies.” SitterCity is based in Chicago, IL and claims that “within 24 hours after posting a job, parents usually get an average of 17 replies.” Those are the kind of results that nervous parents are happy to pay for.

Don’t Just Sit There

Finding willing babysitters is great, but there’s more to the equation. Parents want to know every little detail about the sitters and nannies that they hire. That’s why SitterCity provides extremely detailed profiles on all of their sitters with background checks and reviews. Here’s a more detailed overview of how SitterCity works. Most companies that try to build online communities like this offer up their content for free and try to monetize through advertising, but some very companies like Angie’s List, SitterCity, and lots of online dating sites have had a ton of success charging for what is essentially online matchmaking. The only thing that annoys me about SitterCity is that they provide every little detail they can about their babysitters, yet they barely have any information about their company online. You can barely even find their Careers page. Luckily, I did, and it has some interesting opportunities. The ones most suitable for new grads are Care Advisor and Software Engineer, though there are a few others that you may want to take a look at. If those don’t work for you, you can always apply for an unlisted position or join as a sitter (which is free).

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

• SitterCity.com
• Jobs at SitterCity
• About SitterCity
• SitterCity News

What have you heard about SitterCity?

We've identified SitterCity as having career opportunities in the following categories:

• all employers
• customer service
• Illinois
• marketing
• online marketing
• software development
• web development

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