Ugh!! This is taking tooooooooo long!!

[5 Little Monkeys]

TOkids, I think you will find that 30 mins in person is plenty! With doing the bulk off the interview over email or phone, it's really just a meet and greet and a chance for them to view your home/daycare space and finalize some last minute questions or things they wanted to ask/clarify in person. Some families are gone within 20 minutes and others stay a bit longer around 45 mins but since telling them ahead of time that the meeting will be short, it has really cut down the interview length and I LOVE it!! I think for some, they (and sometimes I) also didn't know how to end it so it would go on a bit longer than needed because their child was having fun and playing. Now it's in the back of their mind that I have a schedule and they might be interrupting that and their time is over now.

I can be quite chatty too and sometimes didn't mind the 2 hour ones(let's be honest, adult interaction is few and far most days!! lol) but there are days that you just want to be done with your day!

[JennJubie]

I have seen a few of you say you send your contract/policies by email after the phone interview. I think this is a great idea... I think I'm going to start doing this. It just makes sense rather than printing it out for the face to face interview and going over it cold then.

I also do a phone interview during nap time. I try to give 20 -30 minutes to the phone interview so that we can get a feel for each other. Then if the phone interview goes well, we book a meeting time. I book my time at 10 am. That way I explain to them what my schedule is, and we don't run any more than 30 - 40 minutes because I need to follow our daily routine. It's not rude to simply speak up and say something along the lines of "It was a pleasure meeting you, please contact me if you have any further questions. I have to _______ (go do craft, start lunch, clean up, etc...).