Your Family’s Au Pair Selection Process: Previous Au Pairs as References

by cv harquail May 20, 2011

  What has it been like for you to know that your former au pairs are discussing your family with prospective new aupairs? How has this worked out for you? Do you recommend this step in the Selection Process  to other host families? Welcome to Au Pair Mom! Please be sure to check out the […]

16 comments Read the full article →

Your Family’s Au Pair Selection Process: Checking references

by cv harquail May 20, 2011

In a perfect world, we’d check the references supplied by each au pair candidate. It’s just too easy for someone who was untrustworthy to create references that make him or her look better than reality, especially when the reference givers do not speak English fluently. But, I must admit, in all of the times that […]

30 comments Read the full article →

Your Au Pair Selection Process: What’s your “Information Style”? (poll)

by cv harquail May 16, 2011

How do you “position” your family when you make your initial contacts with prospective Au Pairs? Do you like to lay all the cards out on the table, tough expectations and all, in the hopes that only the strongest will pursue a match with you? (Dare ‘Ya) Do you like to start sunny and light, […]

24 comments Read the full article →

Your Family’s Au Pair Selection Process: Emails and Information before an Interview

by cv harquail May 16, 2011

It’s critical to send potential au pair candidates some information about your family before you call them. You want offer enough information about your family so that you and the prospective au pair can tell easily whether it’s worth pursuing a potential match. In addition to sorting out potential mismatches on objective criteria like number […]

47 comments Read the full article →

What is your family’s Au Pair Selection Process?: Interviews (polls)

by cv harquail May 15, 2011

Busy Mom has been very busy, thinking about how to make the Au Pair Selection Process better. She wrote a long guest post, complete with several suggested polls. Because her effort was so comprehensive, it was a bit much for one post and one conversation theme. So, I’ve broken it down (and added some things […]

35 comments Read the full article →

When Au Pairs Overlap, who gets the room? (Poll)

by cv harquail May 11, 2011
201105101942.jpg

Sometimes, the right thing to do as your family transitions from one au pair to another is to have your au pairs overlap in your home. As we know, overlapping au pairs can create some emotional difficulty for the incoming au pair, the outgoing au pair, your kids and you. And, it can also create […]

50 comments Read the full article →

Travel Outside the USA … Paperwork-related cautionary tale

by cv harquail May 10, 2011
201105101921.jpg

Sometimes no matter how many different sources we check, we don’t get enough information to make international travel with our au pairs go without a hitch. JamaicaMom sent this story, and wonders if there was some stone she left unturned, some box she failed to check, some egg that failed to hatch, some colloqualisim that […]

11 comments Read the full article →

Can you help your Au Pair use her free time more wisely?

by cv harquail May 4, 2011
201105041453.jpg

Have you ever been slightly envious of your au pair’s year of adventure? There have been many times that I’ve wondered what I mgiht have been like had I been an au pair (or an exchange student) and had the chance to live somewhere so different, make different friends, try new things, and experiment with […]

65 comments Read the full article →

Au Pair Agency Breaks Promise, and Revokes Completion Payment. Why?

by cv harquail May 2, 2011
201105021207.jpg

Dear Au Pair Mom, Today we received our monthly newsletter from our local area counselor. On the last page, it normally indicates year-end bonuses for the au pairs; however, now we see this: “Bonuses: There has been a change to bonuses. Au pairs who arrived before December 31, 2010 will still be eligible to receive […]

11 comments Read the full article →

Getting Past Stereotypes– of Brasilian Au Pairs, for example

by cv harquail April 29, 2011

When in doubt, use a decision rule. It can be clumsy, or crude, or sometimes nearly irrelevant, but a decision rule usually helps when we have so many choices. With choosing au pairs, we often employ decision rules that are good proxies for the information we really want but can’t quite get. For example, we use years […]

71 comments Read the full article →

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →