Choosing an Au Pair

Finding Good Au Pair Candidates: Best Practices for each system

by cv harquail July 21, 2009
Happiness is Pretty Pink Yarn and a Purring Cat.... on Flickr - Photo Sharing!_1231093077702.jpeg

How about we sort out our advice to each other, based on the kind of system that our agencies/sites use? I’ve set up 3 posts, one each for: Finding Good Au Pair Candidates 1: Best Practices for the "1 at a time" system Finding Good Au Pair Candidates 2: Best Practices for the "they give […]

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Finding Good Au Pair Candidates 3: Best Practices for the “Searching their whole data base” system

by cv harquail July 21, 2009
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No! Not the needle in the haystack image! Okay, here’s something different. These girls are all delicious, all delightful, all of them clever smart and kind. But really, with all those cute photos and similar profiles, how do you find the one(s) who are right for you?

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Finding Good Au Pair Candidates 2: Best Practices for the “they give me a group to look at” system

by cv harquail July 21, 2009
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Okay, so you’ve set your basic preferences and sent them to the agency. The agency’s computers churn a bit, and out come 4 recommended candidates, right into your online family folder. Now what? How can you make this process really work well for you?

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Finding Good Au Pair Candidates 1: Best Practices for the “1 at a time” system

by cv harquail July 21, 2009
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How do you manage the process of interviewing candidates one at a time? What can you do to make sure that the candidates you are sent are a pretty good match to begin with, so that you don’t have to weed out girls who surely wouldn’t fit with your family?

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Interviewing Au Pair Candidates: One at a time, or a few at once?

by cv harquail July 20, 2009
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The process for interviewing, selecting, and matching with an au pair candidate differs for each agency. Some send you one candidate at a time, some select a handful of candidates for you to consider simultaneously, and others let you have pretty much free run of their data base. But, if you had a choice, would […]

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If you were an Au Pair: Agency or Website?

by cv harquail May 18, 2009
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On the heels of our conversation about whether or not we as host families prefer agencies or websites to find our au pairs , comes an email from a potential au pair on the same topic: Next year I plan to get experience as an Aupair. I’m from Australia, and it has been very hard […]

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Going “Off the Board” to find an Au Pair

by cv harquail May 12, 2009
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I’ve only ever used an agency to find an au pair. I’m a little harried, and I need someone else to do all the administration. Plus, I’ve always counted on the security of an agency and LCC behind me if something went wrong. I hear, though, that many host families find their au pairs without […]

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Advice Wanted: Young marriage, young mommy, in Hawaii

by cv harquail May 11, 2009
Surfer girl of Waikiki on Flickr - Photo Sharing!_1241642801697.jpeg

I am thinking of hiring an au pair for my baby (I am actually pregnant, but I will need help from Jan 2010). Unfortunately, we cannot afford a local nanny, and I find it hard to trust a high school kid to be with my little one…is having an au pair a good idea? The […]

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11 Tips for Considering an Au Pair in Rematch

by cv harquail May 4, 2009
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Oh dear. You’re in rematch. Maybe you were horrible. Maybe your au pair was horrible. Maybe you should have decided sooner, then again maybe you both could have tried harder. Whatever, it’s been a bad experience. The decision to rematch has been made, and now… you need childcare, and you don’t have much time to […]

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Poll: Have you ever switched Au Pair agencies? If so, why?

by cv harquail April 25, 2009
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As a believer in the “path of least resistance’” and a fan of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, I’ve been with the same agency since we started with au pairs. I chose the agency because it was one of the only two in my town at the time, it had a much larger […]

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