I immediately got the sense that the owner/manager was completely disorganized and desperate to hire anyone who didn't have obvious red flags. Though I applied online and was scheduled to interview, he had no idea who I was or why I was there, and I had to fill out a paper application while I waited. I didn't mind, but it struck me as disorganized. While I was waiting, I could hear a teacher down the hall constantly yelling at a child to sit down and reprimanding him. I think in the 45 minutes I was there, I heard her yell at him 50 times. The interview was brief and easy, I was basically asked how I'd deal with a child biting another child. I was given a job offer on the spot within 15 minutes once he pressured me into completely changing my availability to suit the business, even though my availability was already very open. I asked him about training and he said it would be half a day. I left without committing to anything, without any kind of test interaction with a class, or tour, or introduction to any other staff. I'm sure his job is very difficult and I know they are in great need of staff, but the entire experience was concerning to me. The fact that they were so quick to hire someone to work with children, with no deep test of skills or interest in the person's credentials, was concerning. The lack of any kind of visible school pride or passion for children was also troubling to me. The website was great and I loved the apparent philosophy behind the school, but in person I saw none of this at all. Lastly, there was a clause on my job offer that stated that I would be subject to a probationary training period. This clause states that "any absence without prior written approval, tardiness, rule violation that warrants a corrective/disciplinary action, or incompletion of training will trigger an automatic pay reduction to the Texas State Minimum wage currently at $7.25 per hour for all pay starting from the beginning of your employment." Call me cynical but the entire experience read to me that they would hire almost anyone, give them little to no training (HALF A DAY), but balance this out for themselves by having a backup plan of basically garnishing wages as a punishment for any mistakes. I don't think I need to say anything else.

Easy, straightforward, they asked a couple of questions around childcare and experience. It was one interview and they offered me the role the next day - took about a week from application to offer.