How to Prepare A Childcare Job Application Form

For the health and safety of children, it's important to screen those who want to work with kids carefully.

If you're interviewing potential childcare workers, you should ask specific questions to determine if they're qualified and ready to take on caring for other people's children.

Here are 10 essential questions to ask in your childcare application form as you screen candidates.

Why are you interested in working here?

First and foremost, you want someone who has a genuine interest in your organization.

Prospective candidates should share their reasons for wanting to work for your center.

This question also helps you determine whether or not they have researched your center and know about its mission, how it compares with other centers, what makes it unique, etc.

Do you have any experience with children?

To potential candidates: If you're asked about your experience with children, it's essential to take advantage of it.

For example, if you babysat for several friends as a teenager or worked at a daycare for your cousin, feel free to share those experiences.

You should also mention other roles where you interacted with children, like summer camp counselor or Sunday school teacher.

If you have no formal experience but do have an interest and enthusiasm for child development, that is important too!

Tell us about yourself.

To potential candidates: Answering basic questions about who you are and what you want to do with your life is good to start when applying for childcare.

These answers must be honest and realistic; it's no use having unrealistic expectations of yourself or bullshitting employers just because they ask.

First impressions count! Be as detailed as possible, but try not to be boring; make yourself stand out from other applicants. If you could get any job in the world, what would it be?

What hours are you available?

The kind of hours you work will determine who is available.

If your business is set up so that you need someone during regular business hours, it's best to know if that will be an issue.

The last thing you want to do is create a job posting and interview people when they don't even have time or aren't allowed by their jobs.

Do you have experience working with children with special needs?

You may come across childcare workers who have experience working with children with special needs.

If that's important to you, it's a good idea to ask them about their experience and precisely what types of disabilities they've worked with.

Be sure not to jump ahead and ask what disabilities they will work with on your watch. However, it's better to focus on how much experience they have working with disabled children.

Are you CPR certified?

In some cases, childcare providers are legally required to be CPR certified.

As an applicant, you should know if your potential employer requires that you obtain CPR certification.

A potential employer may also ask why you want CPR certification and your goals for working with children.

Will you submit to a background check?

Background checks can feel like an invasion of privacy, but parents need to know that their children are safe and well-cared for.

Careful questioning and inspection will help you filter out potential troublemakers from your search results.

What childcare classes or certifications do you have?

Even though some childcare providers don't have any formal education or background, there are still several options that can help you find good care.

However, the more education and experience someone has, the better they will be at caring for your child.

It's essential to ask about their level of certification and schooling if they have it. If they don't, you may want to ask what specific courses or classes they took to understand their qualifications better.

Do you have transportation to get here? How often can we expect that it will be reliable?

This is such an essential question for you as you're hiring a new employee because it's going to be your responsibility if anything happens if they can't get there.

For example, if they break down and aren't able to come to work because their car won't start or they have another accident.

Asking them how often they think they will be able to get here will allow you to determine how reliable they are with transportation.

Are there any questions we can answer for you?

It's good to end the questionnaire by allowing candidates to submit their queries. This field could be a basic text field.

Childcare Job Application Form Template

We've already prepared a free childcare job application form template for daycare centers. Feel free to sign up with HeyForm and use it for your recruitment purposes. You could also create interview questionnaires from scratch using our free online form builder.