How to Put Babysitting on Resumes: The Ultimate Guide

The importance of babysitting experience on resumes

Many entry-level professionals wonder if it’s worth listing babysitting experience on their resumes and doubt if it has an impact on employers.

Listing “babysitter” on resumes is important and highlights a wealth of skills, including work ethic, responsibility, and adaptability.

Much like putting sorority experience on resumes, babysitting work showcases problem-solving and organization. It takes a calm, collected person to adequately care for young children, such as managing their schedule, helping them with school work, and monitoring specific dietary needs.

These skills are vital to many job roles but are highly desirable in childcare, healthcare, and education. Recruiters in these industries are constantly on the lookout for candidates with keen care skills, including emotional intelligence and conflict resolution.

How to add babysitting to resumes: 5 best practices

Let’s walk through how to add babysitting to resumes, from writing a detailed work experience section to targeting specific keywords in the job description.

1. Create a strong work experience section

You’ll put the majority of your babysitting skills and expertise in the work experience section, so it’s essential to get it right.

First, choose your preferred job title. We recommend picking something more professional than “babysitter,” like “nanny.” If you don’t believe this accurately describes your experience, choose another word for “nanny” on your resume, such as:

• Childcare provider
• Caregiver
• Governess
• Childcare Specialist
• Early Childhood Caregiver

Now, group your babysitting experience into one work entry instead of listing individual families. Include the dates you provided these services and add a bullet list of achievements. These points should be accomplishments you earned throughout your experience. Here’s an example:

Ensure you organize your work experience section so it’s clean and easy to read. It’s best to use a professional resume template so you can benefit from a concise format without the time and effort.

2. Write a compelling resume objective

Your resume objective is a two to four description of your professional qualities and aspirations. This is one of the first things recruiters see and encourages them to keep reading, so it’s crucial to make it eye-catching and engaging.

Many babysitters have little work experience, so this description should focus on your skills and potential rather than your job history. For instance, an objective that discusses empathy, patience, and a first aid certification. Here’s a realistic example:

3. Tailor your resume to the job description

Show the employer you have exactly what they’re looking for by tailoring your resume to their job post. Hiring managers are looking for something specific, and it’s right in the job description if you look closely.

Review the job post and look for the skills, qualifications, and keywords they use. This boils down to two main tactics:

• Highlighting skills: Look for hints on which of your skills to highlight. If the job description mentions adaptability, describe when you had to shift your schedule to manage a child’s parents coming home late.
• Mirroring language: Use the same terminology as the job post. If the job ad uses the word accountability instead of responsibility, ensure you include that word at least once.

Both tactics showcase your relevance to the position, but the second point helps you build an ATS resume. Using the right keywords tells a company’s applicant tracking system (ATS) that your resume has the right qualifications and pushes it through to the hiring manager.

4. Identify and highlight key babysitting skills

Reflect on your babysitting experience, pinpoint the skills you used and gained, and create a list of your top competencies. Childcare requires many in-demand capabilities, including:

• Communication
• Problem-solving
• Leadership
• Time management
• Organization
• Conflict Resolution

Most of these can also be tied to multitasking. Babysitters must manage multiple responsibilities calmly and efficiently, so they need adaptability, prioritization, and task-switching skills.

It’s also beneficial to describe your responsibilities in detail and highlight transferable skills. Discuss achievements related to potty training, food preparation, diaper changing, bottle feeding, and education and mentoring. These tasks show caregiving skills, work ethic, and trustworthiness.

5. Include references and certifications

While you may not have a lengthy job history, references and certifications reinforce your claims where work experience can’t.

Putting references on resumes shows you’re a reliable, dependable professional by highlighting your previous happy clients. Include a small note at the end of your resume, like this:

If the hiring manager asks for your references, send them the name and contact details of the families you worked with. Ensure you always ask for permission and confirm which contact details they’re comfortable sharing. For example, someone may prefer contact over email and not phone.

Including certifications is another way to prove your qualifications and boost recruiters’ confidence in you. Babysitters often have first aid and CPR certifications, making them more qualified for people-centric caregiving roles. Even for unrelated industries, these certifications also show employers you’re responsible and dedicated.

Check out our realistic resume samples to see these examples in action, including adding certifications and describing achievements.

Common resume mistakes to avoid

Now, let’s review a few common resume mistakes. Avoiding these pitfalls sets you up for an impressive resume and helps you stand out from other candidates.

Here are the main mistakes and how to avoid them:

• Sounding unprofessional: When discussing babysitting work, it’s easy to slip into casual speech and sound unprofessional. Use professional terminology and list in-demand skills to showcase your competency.
• Including irrelevant information: Stay focused on what your ideal role requires and include strictly relevant skills. Don’t get distracted and list unrelated achievements and skills or the recruiter may get overwhelmed.
• Including a photograph: Most US resumes don’t have a photograph and it may seem strange to employers if you include one. It also opens you up to potential unconscious bias, as recruiters may judge you by your appearance, such as thinking you look too young.
• Neglecting to proofread your resume: It’s easy to miss small mistakes or awkward language, but it makes a detrimental impact. Use grammar-checking software and ask a friend to double-check your work to ensure it’s correct and high-quality.
• Omitting crucial details: You’ve put real effort into your babysitting work, so take the time to properly detail your achievements. Describe the entire situation using the STAR method to ensure you capture the tangible outcomes.
• Listing every babysitting job: Don’t include every family you’ve worked for. Create one work entry for your childcare services and list achievements that apply to every job.
• Using lackluster language: Simply listing responsibilities doesn’t properly convey your skills. Use action verbs like cared, created, ensured, helped, coordinated, and managed.

“Listing “babysitter” on resumes is important and highlights a wealth of skills, including work ethic, responsibility, and adaptability.”

Tips and tricks for entry-level job seekers

Many people listing babysitting experience on resumes are young, so it’s likely you’re an entry-level professional. This means you don’t have much education or work experience, so it’s vital to use the right type of resume.

A functional resume is an excellent choice for new professionals. It places your skills at the beginning of your resume and gives each one a bullet-point list of achievements. This helps you highlight transferable skills so the hiring manager can directly link them to the requirements of their open role.

After this, include your work experience and education sections. They may be brief, but this doesn’t matter with a functional resume, as the depth and weight of your experience are in the skills section.

If you believe you have enough education and job experience to fill out a traditional chronological resume, review our student resume for tips on how to do it right.

Highlight dependability with your babysitting experience

While many people doubt their experience, babysitting is a valuable service and worth mentioning. Parents and guardians trust their children to you and this shows reliability and competency. Show hiring managers your skills with our top tips:

• List all of your babysitting experience in one work entry.
• Write impactful achievements with real examples of hard and soft skills.
• Read the job description and tailor your resume to its specifications.
• Include references, connect hiring managers to your past clients, and prove your abilities.
• Maintain professionalism and take yourself seriously.

Let’s take these tips and put them to use. Head over to CVwizard’s resume maker and build a beautiful, professional resume in minutes.