National Leader in Childcare and Tutoring Partners with SJM

Client Overview

• Customer since 2019
• Location: Pittsburgh, PA
• Owner since 2016
• Website: collegenanniesandtutors.com/locations/northpittsburghpa

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About

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College Nannies+Sitters+Tutors is a national leader in the childcare and tutoring space. They provide in-home nanny and sitter services as well as tutoring in learning centers throughout the U.S.

Matt & Nikki Rimer own the franchise in Pittsburgh, PA. Along with Recruiting and Operations Manager Kara Sainato, the dynamic team of on-call caregivers at College Nannies+Sitters+Tutors of North Pittsburgh serves families in the city and the surrounding community.

At the North Pittsburgh location, College Nannies+Sitters+Tutors is constantly growing. Matt and Kara oversee about 60 active caregivers at a time and onboard between 120 and 140 new staff members per year.

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The Challenge

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College Nannies+Sitters+Tutors seeks candidates from three core demographics: college-aged students, retired empty-nester caregivers, and others seeking rewarding work to fill a career gap.

However, soon after taking ownership of the North Pittsburgh location, Matt recalls that it was challenging to find 10 to 12 new staff members each month: “We really started to get a lot of friction in hiring those numbers.” High turnover was a major issue — as was finding the right candidate for each role. “On the hiring end,” Kara adds, the difficulty was “not just getting the applicants in here, but keeping track of where they were and what stage of the hiring process they were in.”

Prior to partnering with SJM for recruiting, Kara relied on Excel spreadsheets to follow applicants’ progression through two interviews, background screenings and various training programs. “We had no applicant tracking system,” Kara recalls, “[but] we were always seeking out something to help the hiring process be more efficient.”

Matt also notes that these challenges made it difficult to manage the junior recruiter position. “We knew we had a lot of process issues,” he says, “so it was hard for us to actually manage that seat.” The goal was to be able to train someone and hold them accountable — “But we could just never get there.”

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The Solution

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As Matt explains, the decision to choose to partner with SJM came out of “survival mode at some level. We also had a consultant who mentioned she’d worked with them — that it was a no-brainer and that we should try it.” He adds, “We’ve had a couple of [negative] experiences with other recruiting services — none of which alleviated the full suite of problems quite like SJM has.” Matt and Kara immediately started working with SJM to post multiple jobs.

Previously, North Pittsburgh’s College Nannies+Sitters+Tutors had dedicated all of their attention and roughly $1,000 per month toward just one job board. SJM enabled them to diversify their sourcing strategy. As Kara explains, with previous applications, “the quality wasn’t there. With SJM, those jobs were distributed to a bunch of websites, with less of the budget.”

SJM has also helped College Nannies+Sitters+Tutors find success in immediately responding to qualified candidates with a personal text message, screening the applicant and ultimately scheduling a phone interview. “We found the text message is a little bit more personal and [suitable for] the demographic we’re trying to hire,” Kara explains.

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The Results

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Matt believes that SJM has significantly improved the candidate experience and boosted the employer brand for College Nannies+Sitters+Tutors. “As much as [employer branding] is look and feel, it’s also the experience people are getting,” he notes. As soon as a candidate applies, “within four hours they’re getting a text from our team. That’s creating a positive impression that is certainly following us through into the hiring process.”

“We’ve had probably the best quarter of hiring that we’ve ever had as a team. Since we’ve partnered with SJM, we’ve hired 65 new people,” Matt explains, adding that “it’s only $60 a hire when you look at the total expense over time. We’re very, very happy with that.” These days, Matt believes that his business “probably has the strongest workforce that we have ever had.”

“The time that we [need] to spend administratively on recruiting has been dramatically reduced,” Kara notes. Before partnering with SJM, she and Matt would hold two-hour meetings “agonizing” over recruiting challenges. Now, a brief check-in is all that’s needed. As a result, Kara and Matt can reinvest that time back into other areas of the business like marketing and programming.

Overall, SJM has become an indispensable for North Pittsburgh’s College Nannies+Sitters+Tutors. “We’ve moved from having our labor situation be a limiting factor to our growth to being an enabling asset for us,” Matt says. “Honestly, I don’t know if we could go without SJM right now.”