Sharing from behind the scenes here at AuPair Mom —
I often get emails like the one below from either AuPairs or Host Parents hoping to help someone make a rematch quickly.
As we all know, au pairs have only two weeks or so to find a new host family before they get ‘sent home’ by their agencies. Sometimes even the most terrific au pairs get sent home because the supply and demand of rematch families is so unpredictable. 
Dear AuPairMom,
Yesterday, I was contacted by an Au Pair who is in re-match and desperately looking for host family.
She is with APIA and living in the Northeast for a month. She comes from a country where there is much civil unrest, and she has lots of promising qualities.
I would like to help her to find host family , because otherwise she will be send back to her home country where things are dangerous.
Is there any way we can advertise her with aupairmoms or is it against site policy?
What should au pairs do to maximize their chances of finding a new family fast?
I don’t think I want to add re-matching to ways we use the blog…. Beyond listing oneself on websites like Best AuPair, or hassling ones Local Counselor, what else can au pairs do?
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Greataupair is another option to meet families from your agency or who might be interested in entering your agency to match with you
Many APs in rematch seem to post in this Facebook group called Au pair Host Family Lounge. There are also APs posting on behalf of their host family to help search for a replacement before they depart. Some are also looking for extension families.
I often see AP’s on Craigslist – one would have to be looking anyway for childcare and open to hosting an AP, but it seems a lot of people do that. I also think plain old networking….if the AP made friends with any families (like families of her friends who aren’t in re-match), then asking those families to reach out to maybe a parents’ list at the children’s school could help. A good friend’s first AP came to her because the AP had attended a particular type of school in her home country and she sought out that community in the US. An e-mail circulated among the community and this friend of mine was ready to host, just hadn’t yet taken steps to actually apply with any agencies (because she had 3 children under 4!).
In any event, the AP should definitely be proactive in terms of finding ways to network.
Aupairworld – plenty of host parents advertise there and then tell potential APs which agency they should sign up with to match with them. Since she is already with and agency she just puts that on her profile and looks for families who are with them also.
You could also try Gumtree – plenty of offers from Europe on there, so possibly HPs from the US also advertise.
Good luck for the AP!
There are sometimes posts on DCUrbanmom.com on the au pair discussion site for APs who are looking for new HFs. There is also a Cultural Care Rematch FB page that both APs and families use.
Frankly, when we were in rematch, I didn’t look anywhere except at what our Regional Director gave us. Yes, I could post on greataupair.com or DCurbanmom and get 100 responses, but I would not get the LCC notes and the previous HF notes, which were really essential to me in selecting a new AP. Lots of APs look great on paper and online in their applications, but when you start parsing through the notes, there are the dirty details of both the HF and AP, and these are what the next HF needs to sort out whether the AP would be a better fit with them than he or she was in the previous HF.
My best recommendation for an AP with APIA is to sit down and have a candid talk with your community coordinator, since these folks are very powerful during rematch in APIA. With CCAP, it seems to be the Regional Director who has all the power to actively work for/promote an AP or just leave his or her application on the webpage and see if a family picks it. With the AP we ended up getting, the regional director felt he had been somewhat poorly treated by his previous HF, so she worked very hard and proactively for him to get him a new family (sent his write-up to many families, included her own personal note about him, etc, so even though his application was being seen by one family in the exclusive matching system, others were able to know about him and know he was on the horizon and therefore could “reserve” him once the first family returned his application to the pool).
When one of our more beloved APs was looking for a family to extend with in another (specific) area, I called the agency and got the contact info for the LCC in that area. Then I called her and let her know about AP and asked if she had any families that would be needing a new AP in the time frame we were looking at that she thought might be a gooc fit. She had one in mind and they ended up matching. Win-win-win.
I am an au pair in rematch and trying to do the exact same thing but the agency says that they cannot. How did you manage, if I may ask?
My suggestion is to network thoroughly. Get Au Pairs taking about you to their families and to each other. Our two best APs came to us this way. Word of mouth from Au Pair to Au Pair. Do NOT sit back and wait for the agency to connect you. We are with CCAP and because of the way they reserve a candidate for one family at a time, who can put the AP on hold for many days even if they aren’t serious about matching with them, matches that should be made are not made. With our match made in Heaven I was literally talking on the phone daily to the same coordinator who was handling our eventual AP’s rematch which was down to the wire. The coordinator never even thought to match us because the AP was “reserved” even though it wasn’t a good fit for the AP. Our old AP was friends with an AP who had been at training with her in NY and the girls connected us themselves. Her Visa was so close that she needed us to accept the match within 3 hours of our first Skype interview, poor girl stayed up all night. And we had the perfect AP within a week, almost like a “friend of a friend”.
I did look at Craigslist and great Au pair but never hit the right spot, partly because we needed to stay with the same agency.
I wish the agencies had some kind of forum, I think holding rematch AP apps isn’t right. They need as much exposure as possible and I think it should be open date night. At that point they’re here, learned some, know better what works and should be able to speak to multiple families if interested. Just my opinion. We’ve housed a couple rematch APs, both were matched by the LCs/agency internally. In fact that’s all I’ve ever seen happen which is why I wish the agencies would post that stuff. I also think the AP program might get more new families that way – we’ve had several friends that had a nanny not work out that would’ve interviewed APs but couldn’t wait 6-8 weeks to get one from out of country. I think more transparency here would really help all parties involved.
I completely agree. I’m in rematch right now, and find the process incredibly unfair for the au pairs. For my part, I have been defaulting to quick rejections of anyone I’m not absolutely certain of right away because I feel so much pressure to not hold up an application of an au pair who only has a week or so left to find a family. It’s a shame because au pairs may end up going home if other families do the same thing. My own agency took from Sunday to Thursday to load my au pair’s profile, virtually guaranteeing that he, a male au pair with a short term left, would not be able to find a family, especially with the restrictions on numbers of families he can talk to at one time.
I had no idea the agencies were so bad about this.
What I always do (unless I have a strong feeling I will match with a specific candidate) in both matching and rematching is connect with an AP, get his/her contact info and then release them back to the pool officially while continuing to interview. I have always found it’s in everyone’s best interest when an AP has lots of choices.
When we were in rematch I used greataupair.com. I didn’t find any great au pairs in my agency in rematch, but I did find an au pair seeking extension who I never would have found otherwise. Actually she found me- she was a paid member, saw my profile and wrote to me. I would have never found her because she was held in some family’s account that she had no interest going to. And they weren’t releasing her for some reason, and she didn’t realize that she just had to send an email to the PD to be released. In the end I had to tell my PD to have her released so I could match with her :).
Long story short: troll greataupair.com (or any similar sites) looking for a family with your agency whose needs align with your availability, and pay the fee so that you can initiate the conversation. I never would pay to email someone who sent me those generic “I’m interested in you” emails, but someone who paid the $40 to be able to send emails got my attention fast!
Hi! I would like to know where i can find aupair profiles that are currently in re-match process from aupaircare agency.
This profiles are only available for host families or the AP can look at it too?
My best friend is currently going trough this process and her AD is not being very helpful to her, i really want to help her find a new HF and since you are a very big and beautiful comunity i hope you can help me with this 2 doubts. She is a really nice girl and deserve a second chance. Thank you very much!
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