Are these job qualifications reasonable?

[TygrBright]

What is it about forty years of cheap-labor manipulation of the economy that gets someone all excited about putting their college education, mountaineering skills, gourmet cooking experience, etc., to work looking after someone else's kids?

Just curious...

Must ski, cook and know Excel: is this the most demanding ad for a nanny ever?

Needs Excel skills (for extravagant vacations)
A mother’s love knows no bounds, and in this case that includes word count: the nearly 2,000-word job description requests applications from someone with a good degree, great executive functioning and very good Excel skills (and that’s just for starters).

These skills will come in handy for vacation research, which needs to be “populated into a simple Excel spreadsheet”, as well as vacation expenses (ditto). The nanny also needs to “compare and make recommendations regarding using credit card points to booking vacations versus paying cash”.

Needs university degree (for difficult math questions)
Of course there is no reason why a nanny should not be highly educated – but this mom seems to have forgotten the difference between a college degree and an elementary education. “University degree or equivalent knowledge,” the ad says – so that people can work out difficult questions like “how long will it take us to drive to the snow if it’s 150 miles and we go 50 miles an hour?”

Needs leadership, strategy and people skills (that means being able to make friends)
These will be especially useful in facilitating conversations with all the CEO’s other underlings, including an au pair, a property manager and a gardener/handyman – prompting the question: is CEO just shorthand for oil tycoon?

Saddest thing I can imagine... she'll actually find people with (some of) those qualifications, hoping to get the job.

depressedly,
Bright

[Sanity Claws]

1. Who might apply

Someone who is really into skiing but can't afford to do it might make inquiries to determine if the family will take her on the vacation and pay her skiing expenses.
However, I doubt anyone would take the job.

[Midnightwalk]

2. If i were qualified

I wouldn’t take less than enough to retire. That boss would be hell to work for. Say a million or two.

I’d guess it pays a lot less.

[Warpy]

3. I didn't see what wages were being suggested for this

combination gourmet cook, athletic coach, mathematician, spreadsheet organizer of "extravagant" vacation schedules and activities, and diplomatic go between for the power couple and any mere mortals they might be forced to confront (the making friends part). Something tells me they need to set their sights a bit lower on the nanny front because they're going to be paying for their children's, therapy for the rest of their lives.

This has been happening for a long time. I remember when Boomers were entering the workforce in large enough numbers that employers started to get incredibly picky and we started to see them get degree happy. I think it was 1975 when I was reading want ads in the Boston Globe and came across a particularly circumlocutory and obfuscated six inch ad for a baccalaureate prepared, preferably masters candidate, for a job as a stock boy. That's what the job description boiled down to. It pretty much paid what the same job in a sane company would have paid a bright high school grad. The ad ran for weeks.

It all depends on how glam the power couple is. If the job involves a lot of jet setting all over the planet, following the various "seasons" in enclaves of the ultra rich, I can see someone with a trust fund and low boredom tolerance taking it over a corporate job, just for a year or two to provice source material for a novel or screenplay, maybe, or just to meet other of the rich and famous in the hope of getting a real job through them.

[Igel]

4. Years ago I had a friend.

She was in a difficult situation and needed a place to go. Preferably not in state.

College educated, had a decent job, but just needed to be gone. She couldn't just quit because she'd racked up a bit of debt. She needed a place where she could slip a note under her boss' door Friday night a minute before quitting to resign, get in friend's car 30 seconds later and vanish.

She also loved kids and didn't have any, with no prospects for meeting her own personal requirements for having kids of her own.

She took a position as a nanny. This gave her a car, her own living quarters, and a secure place to call home. Anybody who she didn't want to give her location to didn't have a clue where she was--not even the state.

After the first year felt so sorry for the kids she stayed for a second.

Lots of people have reasons for their choices. Sometimes a sucky choice is the best they can devise.

[chowder66]

5. Looks like they are asking for several services for the price of one. nt