Your lead teacher just gave notice. Ratio rules mean you can’t run her room short, and the stack of applicants from job ads on your desk has nobody who meets the bar. If you’re working out how to hire daycare workers, that stack is rarely where the answer is.
The usual fix is more job ads. Our 2026 Franchise Hiring Report analyzed 2025 hiring across more than 46,000 franchise locations, and it points somewhere else: toward people who already trust you, and a fast reply.
Education and childcare (which covers preschools, daycare centers, tutoring, enrichment, and youth activities) needed only 48 applicants per hire, the fewest of the seven industries we studied (cleaning needed 211). The report puts it plainly: “quantity is less the problem than finding the quality of people who already meet the licensing bar or can quickly get there.” In that same group, sponsored ads brought 30% of applicants but only 18% of hires.
Our founder, Clint Smith, says it this way: “The biggest difference between your top and bottom performing franchisees is the quality of their teams.”
So start by working out who meets your state’s bar. Then build pipelines through your own staff and parents and through local early childhood programs, reply within a day, and see candidates in the classroom before you make an offer.
Where to start today? Put your careers page link in your next newsletter to parents.
Here’s the system for hiring daycare workers:
- Step 1: Know who you need, and hire before you’re short
- Step 2: Write a posting that tells the truth and sells the job
- Step 3: Build pipelines through people who already trust you
- Step 4: Use sponsored ads, but track what they produce
- Step 5: Respond within a day
- Step 6: Screen, then see them with the kids
- Step 7: Make an offer with no surprises
- Step 8: Keep the teachers you hire
Step 1: Know who you need, and hire before you’re short
What qualifications do daycare workers need? That depends on your state, so ask your state’s child care licensing agency. We won’t guess at rules here.
What makes a great daycare worker? Someone who meets your requirements, or can soon meet them, and who is reliable and warm with kids and parents. In Clint’s Notes, he writes, “Your people are how you stand out.” For a daycare, that’s the teacher a parent hands their child to at drop-off, because “the experience they have is determined by whoever’s working that day.”
Clint’s three questions help: “Can they do it? Will they do it? Will others do it with them?” For a candidate close to the credential bar, he adds, “Remember that ‘Can they do it?’ is a different question than ‘Have they done it?'”
Then hire before you’re short. Education and childcare had the highest active posting rate in the segment, 86% in April 2025, and it makes sense: childcare runs “against structurally high turnover,” and ratio rules mean a center “can’t simply work the floor short for a week.” Clint warns what happens otherwise: “When you are reactive and desperate while hiring, you let your guard down and compromise your standards.” If your lead teacher left tomorrow, who would you call first?
Step 2: Write a posting that tells the truth and sells the job
What should a daycare worker job description include? Start where Clint says to: “Start with compensation and benefits. Be as open about these things as possible.” Then be honest about the work, including the hours and what a hard day looks like. Our guides to writing effective job descriptions and hiring process steps can help.
Save the culture and values for your careers page, where there’s room to show them. The Goddard School does this with branded careers pages that show its faculty value proposition: “Nurture your growth. Empower your success.” And remember Clint’s rule for all of it: “You need to recruit them. And you need to recruit like you sell.”
Step 3: Build pipelines through people who already trust you
Where do the best daycare workers come from? From people who already know you. In education and childcare, referrals were 3% of applicants but 12% of hires and converted at 4.8x the job board rate. Careers pages brought 17% of applicants and 27% of hires (2.1x the job board rate).
Clint’s Notes puts referrals in two lines: “Loyal customers refer new customers. Engaged employees refer good candidates.” And “a happy employee telling their friends ‘this is a good place to work’ is worth more than any job board posting.” Start an employee referral program and ask your best teacher who they’d hire next.
Parents belong in the mix, too. From Clint’s book: “Your best customers often come from referrals; the same is true for your best employees.” As our report puts it, “Parents who trust your center with their children are among the most engaged customers any business has.” Put your careers page link “in every family newsletter,” and consider “a standalone director’s note to families” for a specific role. One caution: frequent or out-of-rhythm hiring posts “can read to families as instability rather than growth,” so frame hiring as ongoing effort and skip the urgent tone.
Local credentialing programs deserve the same attention. Hires from them ran at 7% against 2% for job boards (3.9x). The report’s advice: “Guest speak in their classes, host tours, offer practicum placements, maintain relationships with program coordinators.” Its expert tip is to “Offer your center as a practicum site for students completing their credential,” which gives you “a preview of candidates in real working conditions.”
The largest brand in our data uses every channel and fills lead teacher roles in 60 days, nearly two weeks faster than the rest. See our 2026 education and childcare hiring benchmarks for the full breakdown. Which program near you could send you your next teacher?
Step 4: Use sponsored ads, but track what they produce
Are sponsored job ads worth it for a daycare? Sometimes, if you track what they produce. In education and childcare, sponsored ads brought 30% of applicants, the highest share in our data, but only 18% of hires, and those applicants converted at about 0.8x the rate of organic job board candidates.
Keep your ads, then build “the relationship pipeline alongside the paid one, so the network isn’t entirely dependent on sponsored placement when hiring pressure spikes.” Run “a 60-day look-back on every sponsored campaign”: count the applicants and hires from each, then work out cost per hire. Our job posting software helps you manage postings in one place.
Jim Wolfarth at The Goddard School in Baltimore was paying more and more to post jobs on multiple sites and still wasn’t getting the candidates he needed. With CareerPlug, he saw a 70% increase in applicants and spends over 50% less on job advertising. Sarah at The Goddard School of Pickerton says, “CareerPlug has been a game changer in hiring new employees at our school. We have already saved hundreds of dollars in just a few months compared to when we were posting directly to individual job boards.”
Step 5: Respond within a day
How fast do you need to respond to applicants? Within a day, and daycares can improve: first contact took 4.66 days on average in education and childcare. Applicants contacted within 24 hours scheduled interviews at 2.9x the rate of those contacted after four weeks.
Clint’s line: “Great leads are like French fries: they are at their best when they are fresh and hot!” He also notes that “Some clients say that the shelf life of a good applicant in their field is 48 hours.” Text recruiting and interview scheduling make a same-day reply realistic, and our guide to reducing your time to hire goes deeper. When did the last applicant to your center hear back?
Step 6: Screen, then see them with the kids
How do you screen childcare candidates? Start with prescreen questions, which Clint says “may be the biggest time saver in the entire hiring process.” Only 7.5% of applicants got an interview in this group, so a good sort up front matters. Rick at The Goddard School gets pre-screened, scored candidates and says, “We know immediately whether or not they have the qualifications, experience, knowledge, and skills to work with us.” See our applicant screening software and our guide to screening and evaluating candidates.
For part-time and after-school roles, look at Mad Science, an enrichment franchise (not a daycare, but a close neighbor). One group moved from Craigslist and email to syndicated postings and custom prescreen questions, plus assessments benchmarked against its team. Atomic Allen of Mad Science of Southern MA & RI says, “CareerPlug has found me more applicants and applicants of higher quality than I have found through any other medium.”
Background checks and references follow your state’s requirements, so ask your state’s child care licensing agency what applies. See employer background checks and reference check questions.
What interview questions should you ask? Build them on Clint’s three. Can they do it? Ask, “A toddler is crying and a parent is waiting at the door. What do you do?” Will they do it? Ask which shifts they can commit to, and why they want to work with children. Will others do it with them? Ask about a time they helped a coworker through a hard day. See how to conduct job interviews.
How do you see a candidate with the kids? Invite finalists for a supervised classroom visit or a paid working interview (check with your state’s child care licensing agency first). Clint says, “There is no substitute for seeing how candidates actually work.” And how do you choose between two qualified candidates? Go back to the three questions, and to how each one did in the room.
Step 7: Make an offer with no surprises
How long does it take to hire a daycare worker? In education and childcare, 24 days from application to hire on average. Move fast, then close cleanly. Clint says, “You don’t want any surprises when it’s time to close the deal.” And on pay, his view is, “I would rather come in strong on benefits and not pay at the top of the market for compensation.”
P.S. Running a childcare franchise system? The Franchise People Playbook shows franchisors how to make hiring a competitive advantage across every location.
Step 8: Keep the teachers you hire
How do you keep daycare staff and reduce turnover? Clint’s answer: “The #1 recruiting strategy is retention.” Credentialed teachers “often have better-paying alternatives in K-12 systems,” so give them reasons to stay beyond pay. It starts early: “Your new hire’s first week sets the tone and trajectory for their time with you.” Teachers who stay keep parents, and they refer the next teacher, which feeds Step 3. Our guides to designing your onboarding process and preventing turnover without raising pay show how.
Wrapping up: how to hire daycare workers, starting this week
Put your careers page link in your next family newsletter, with a short note about the kind of teacher you’d love to meet. See how schools and childcare centers use CareerPlug to sort applicants and schedule interviews faster.
This guide is the short version. The full playbook for hiring and keeping great people is Clint’s book, How to Hire.