Pros
There were no positive experiences for me.
Cons
Literally everything was negative during my time with CNT. ~The management was conniving and played favorites, and would deny hours and opportunities to work if you turned them down on a job--especially if it was a "Back Up Childcare" (BUCA) job, since those paid more than regular private jobs. ~They wanted you to be available every moment of every day, without fail. You are expected to keep your available hours updated on the site (reasonable), but then would receive text messages sometimes as early as 5:00 a.m., including on the days when you aren't scheduled. Not responding would often lead to berating. You will frequently get texts even late into the evening, sometimes as late as 12:00 a.m., even when you're not an overnight on-call. Then managers will attack you for not taking the placement. ~Management was completely apathetic to the needs of their employees and treated them like second-class citizens. They were often abusive and had no problem lying. If you don't take absolutely every job they send your way, they would deny future work. ~Pay was absolutely horrible. Private care clients pay CNT $17 per hour to get a nanny, but nannies receive only $10 p/h. I understand that it's a business, and they need to make money, but taking 42% of the fee just to staff a job is completely insane. If it was a BUCA job, the corporate side made MUCH more, but nannies were only paid $12 p/h and oftentimes manipulated or brow-beaten into accepting the placement, including on days they weren’t listed as available. They also charged clients extra for more than one child, but then wouldn’t pay their nannies anything more. There were several times I had to watch 4-5 young children at once for $10-$12 p/h while the company made more money and did absolutely nothing to earn it. ~You are expected to drive unbelievably long miles and put the extra wear and tear on your car with no recompense or paid mileage. If you get a request for a job 45 miles away, they expect you to take it, without fail, every time. They are completely inconsiderate of the distance they expect you to drive, and would only offer a vague zipcode, rather than telling you the exact distance from your location to trick you into taking the job. The only compensation they added was they might pay an extra dollar an hour if you were willing to drive over 20 miles one way, but sometimes the job would only be for 4 hours. That's an additional $4 for driving one hour each way, sometimes in rush hour. ~There are no benefits, vacation, or paid leave. You will be hired on as part time to avoid having to (heaven forbid) give you benefits like health insurance, which is ironic given how sick you will be since you will spend a majority of your time taking care of other people's sick children. I was nearly hospitalized two times due to illnesses I picked up while I worked for this company, and managers would still request for me to work even knowing I was sick. One manager also became abusive when several nannies (myself included) refused to work with a child who had lice, and another who had shingles. ~They will literally hide praise and compliments from you. I worked with numerous families, and they often told me that they'd given stellar reviews and commendations for my work to the agency. I even came in the office one day and saw an email from a family I'd nannied for, because the manager had printed it out so that potential clients could see the glowing reviews that happy customers left about their experiences. I had never been told, and that was how I found out. Other times, parents asked me if I'd been informed of their reports, and I had to embarrassingly admit that I had not. This happened enough times that it was not coincidence—sometimes with the same family. ~They charged extra per hour for special needs children, but wouldn't pay their nannies anything more. They would occasionally manipulate nannies into accepting a job by not telling them that the child was special needs, which was potentially dangerous for the child to have a caretaker inexperienced in their disability. This happened to me twice. ~You are expected to report any possible instances of child abuse or unfit environments to the agency, rather than to the police or child services. They make you sign an agreement as part of your contract, which could make you liable for not reporting it properly if the police become involved. ~They do not find out what the family/environment is like at each house before they send their nannies in. This is dangerous, and they do not care. They are literally sending young girls blindly into an unknown situation without even knowing first if it's safe or not.