Get the Interview Caregiver Checklist

What this playbook covers

Hiring a home caregiver is a decision families make on almost no data — a phone call, a rushed home visit, a check. The playbook is written for the family that wants the interview to feel structured rather than improvised. Here is what the 18 pages actually contain.

• The 27 questions, grouped into 7 categories. Training and certification, condition-specific experience for the parent you are hiring for, backup coverage when your primary caregiver is sick, incident reporting and escalation, family communication, billing and hour flexibility, and references you can actually reach.
• Red-flag answers to walk away from. Nine specific answers to specific questions that mean the interview is over, no matter how likable the person across the table is.
• Green flags most families miss. Seven answers that indicate a caregiver who is quietly excellent, drawn from senior-care operator experience with families who hired well.
• The reference-check call script. The four questions to ask the caregiver's prior family, and how to read the answers when the prior family is being polite about someone who was not great.
• The trial-week structure. How to structure the first 5 to 7 shifts so both the caregiver and your family have a real evaluation window before the arrangement becomes ongoing.
• Rate expectations by region and care level. Market-rate context so the compensation conversation does not surprise you, plus the honest agency-versus-independent-hire comparison Chapter 7 lays out.

What you will do with it in the first 7 days

Day one is reading. You sit down with the checklist, read the 27 questions and the red-flag chapter, and mark the questions that matter most for your parent's specific care level. Day two is scheduling. You send an email to the two or three agencies or independent candidates you are considering, request an interview slot for later in the week, and note the response time — Chapter 5 explains why response time is itself an evaluation signal.

Day three through five is interviewing. You print the 27-question sheet for each interview, score answers in the margin, and note red-flag hits per Chapter 3. If one candidate clears the checklist, day six is the reference-check call — you use the four-question script and take notes. Day seven is the trial-week offer. You use the structure from Chapter 5 to propose 5 to 7 shifts over the next two weeks as a mutual evaluation window. Seven days from "we need to hire someone" to a trial start date, with the paperwork you will need already in a folder.

How the delivery works

The flow is deliberately small. Enter your email in the form below and click the button. Within thirty seconds we send a confirmation message from hello at morriselder dot com — open it and click the confirm link. Within five minutes of that click, the download link arrives in your inbox from the same address. Corporate mail servers occasionally add two or three minutes of delay; if the email does not appear, check your promotions or spam folder and mark the message as not spam so the rest of the course lands where you can see it. The thank-you page in your browser also carries the download link inline as a backup for the next 24 hours.

Once you confirm, you join the free 12-part Family Caregiver Foundation course. One email every three or four days for about five weeks, each 400 to 600 words. Estimated reading time for the checklist itself is 30 to 40 minutes for a full pass, though most families read the 27-question sheet and the red-flag chapter first and come back to the market-rate and trial-week chapters after the first interview. Unsubscribe with one click at any point and your address leaves every list within one business day.

Our editorial ethics, in three sentences

We do not accept payment from home-care agencies, matching platforms, or caregiver-recruiting services to include their names in any playbook, and we do not sell subscriber data or swap lists with any partner. We send at most one email per week after the 12-part course completes, and every email carries a one-click unsubscribe link. If you write back with a question about a specific interview or a specific candidate, a real person on the editorial team reads and replies personally — the reply address is monitored, not automated.

What to read next on morriselder.com

If you want to keep reading while you wait for the download email to arrive, three flagship articles pair naturally with this playbook.

• How to interview a home caregiver: 12 questions that actually matter — the behavioral interview companion piece.
• How much does home care cost? 2026 state-by-state guide — rate ranges by region.
• Signs it is time for home care — the threshold moments that move a family from managing on their own to hiring outside help.

Common questions about the playbook