We looked at 125,994 household staff job applications that our recruiters have screened.
The hardest household jobs to break into are property guard, handyman, personal assistant, caretaker couple and chauffeur. Only 10% to 17% of applications for these jobs made it into our candidate network.
The easiest to break into are butler and nanny jobs, at 35% and 34%. For every role we recruit for, 22% of applications made it through.
Making it into our network doesn’t mean getting the job though. It means that a recruiter has screened your application and you can now potentially be selected to be put forward to families for that role.
Morgan & Mallet, a luxury household staffing agency, places household staff in high-net-worth households across the United States.
What are the hardest household jobs to break into?
Property guard jobs are the hardest to break into from our data, 10% of applications made it into our network. Butler jobs are the easiest, at 35%.
Where there are two jobs that share the same number, the one with the lower exact share goes first.
| Rank | Job | Made it into our network |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Property guard | 10% |
| 2 | Handyman | 13% |
| 3 | Personal assistant | 16% |
| 4 | Caretaker couple | 16% |
| 5 | Chauffeur | 17% |
| 6 | Housekeeper-cook | 17% |
| 7 | Domestic couple | 19% |
| 8 | Estate or house manager | 21% |
| 9 | Valet or lady’s maid | 21% |
| 10 | Executive assistant | 22% |
| 11 | Companion or carer | 24% |
| 12 | Housekeeper | 25% |
| 13 | Property manager | 26% |
| 14 | Governess | 28% |
| 15 | Head housekeeper | 29% |
| 16 | Private chef | 31% |
| 17 | Nanny | 34% |
| 18 | Butler | 35% |
Source: Morgan & Mallet recruitment data, applications screened by our recruiters, January 2022 to October 2026. See how we count.
What happens when you apply?
Every application we receive is screened by an actual person. A recruiter reads the whole application and decides whether you could be a match for the families we work with.
- Your application arrives into our system within minutes of you sending it.
- A recruiter screens it, usually within the first few days.
- If you could be a match, you make it into our network. If not, your application doesn’t go any further.
- In our network, you have an interview and we check your references. Then we can put you forward to families for the role.
Eric Rios, recruiter and operations manager at Morgan & Mallet, explains what the recruiters look for:
“They’re going to be looking at everything to make sure that it’s a match with the client, or could be a match with the client, before they move forward.”
So making it into our network isn’t a job offer. It means you can be put forward to the family for the role. The family then decides who to hire.
Our recruitment process page goes through each step.
Why are chauffeur and personal assistant jobs so hard to break into?
We find these are jobs that many people think they can already do. That brings in a lot of applications from people without the private household experience families really want.
Chauffeur jobs were among the hardest third to break into in every year since 2022. Only 17% of chauffeur applications made it into our network.
Many come from people who drive for a living, but not for a private family. Laurine Mallet, co-founder of Morgan & Mallet, gives an example:
“Let’s say he’s a bus driver and he would like to work in household staff. He applies for a driver position. I’m going to refuse, obviously.”
Our chauffeur page explains what families look for in a private chauffeur.
Personal assistant jobs receive more applications than any other household role. Our recruiters screened 11,013 of them since 2022, and 16% made it into our network.
Morgan Richez, co-founder of Morgan & Mallet, says some people apply for the salary rather than the job:
“Sometimes the people don’t read the job description properly. They just read the salary, and they think, this is a fancy job, and they think they are right for this role. It doesn’t work like that.”
Our personal assistant page explains what the job involves. Our article on working for a wealthy family shows how many applications each type of job gets.
Why do butler and nanny applications do better?
Butler and nanny jobs are the easiest household jobs to break into. 35% of butler applications and 34% of nanny applications made it into our network.
Nanny jobs were in the easiest third every year since 2022, and butler jobs in three of the four years with enough applications to count.
We think it’s because fewer people apply for these jobs on a whim. Each butler job we advertise gets around 48 applications and each nanny or governess job around 34, compared with around 106 for a personal assistant job.
You can read about how to become a butler in our guide to butler training and qualifications, and about the job itself on our butler page and our nanny page.
Which jobs are hardest for families to fill is a different question. Our article on the best household staff jobs in the US covers it.
Source: Morgan & Mallet recruitment data, job adverts and applications, April 2022 to June 2026. See how we count.
How can you give your application a better chance?
Apply for jobs that match your experience, close to where you live, and explain any short stays in past jobs. These are the first things our recruiters check.
- Where you live. Eric says location is the first thing that gets filtered out, because most families want to hire someone local who can start soon.
- At least three years’ experience. “We require at least at a minimum three years of experience, but we’re usually looking for more than that,” says Eric.
- How long you stayed in past jobs. Families want to see that you’ve stayed in a job for five years or more. If you haven’t, say why in your application.
- The whole job description. Morgan’s advice is to make sure the job really fits your experience before you apply.
You can see the household jobs we’re recruiting for now on our jobs page.
Our annual salary report shows what each of these jobs pays. If nothing fits right now, you can register as a candidate.
About these figures
These figures show how many applications made it into our network after our recruiters screened them. They don’t show who the families went on to hire.
- We counted the 125,994 applications our recruiters had finished screening between January 2022 and October 2026, out of 291,615 applications in total.
- The job is the one the person applied for. A person who applied for several jobs counts once for each application.
- The order mostly stays the same from year to year. Chauffeur jobs were in the hardest third and nanny jobs in the easiest third in every year since 2022.
- The share making it through has gone up over the years as our screening process changed, so we don’t compare one year with another.
- Private chef is the most uncertain figure out of them all. Our recruiters had finished screening fewer chef applications (36%) than for most jobs, so its place in the ranking could move.
We’ve also looked at who applies for these jobs in our articles on female butlers and male housekeepers.
Sources for all figures on this page: Morgan & Mallet recruitment data, January 2022 to October 2026. See how we count.
For families: every candidate we put forward has passed this screening, a 90-minute interview and reference checks. Call us on (646) 965-2308 or get in touch through our website.
For journalists: you’re welcome to cite this data with a link to this page. For more detail, email [email protected].
