Where have all the potential au pairs gone???

Hi mum2pea. I just saw your questionaire above. Please ignore my message above. Thanks

Hi Mum2pea,
I'd also be interested in the questionnaire. I have one that I got from the website (kangaroo ap, happy to share if anyone is interested) I use but I'd also be interested in see other people's questonaires. Yes I'm also finding less au pairs replying to my profile. I've put it down to an improvement in the economy across Europe?
Thanks in advance

Thank you mum2pea

This is a great list, very helpful! I'll definitely include some of these questions.
Thanks so much!!!!

Hello
sorry, only just saw this. Below are our questions - i know it's a lot but believe me, did clear the wheat from the chaf

YOU

Who’s idea was it that you become an aupair?

What is your biggest concern or fear about becoming an au pair?

What three words would your friends use to describe you?

What Employment Experience do you have? How long did you work there and why did you leave.

Tell us about your education

UK

Why do you want to come to London?

London is a busy city and everyone travels by public transport. Are you confident enough to travel and find your way around? (in your personal time)

How do you plan to spend your time when you’re not working?

How do you plan to make new friends?

What do you think is most exciting thing about coming to the UK as an au pair?

When you go clubbing do you prefer to go with a large group or only with your best friend?

What are your plans when you finish being our Au Pair?

HOST FAMILY

What do you need from a host family?

What are your expectations for the home that you will live in as an au pair?

What kind of role do you want to have with the children?

How would you go about these roles?

Do you want to be like a roommate or do you want to be like a member of the host family?

How do you plan to take care of our daughters?

What activities can you do with DD2 when she is home?

FAMILY

Tell us about your family

What is your best and worst memory of your family life?

What values did you parents teach you as being most important in life?

How do you handle conflict with your parents or siblings/ family?

How does your family feel about you becoming an aupair?

How do you feel about leaving your family for a year?

Describe a typical day for you at home.

Do you have a boyfriend? How does he feel about your decision to become an Au Pair? How do you think you’ll handle being away from him for a year?

PERSONALITY & CHARACTER

Are you a morning person? Are you able to start your day early?

How much sleep do you need to feel rested?

How often do you smoke?

Do you prefer wine or beer?

What is your biggest strength and biggest weakness?

Have you had any lengthy illnesses in the past?

Do you like to schedule your day or be spontaneous?

What is your favourite way to spend Friday or Saturday night?

Have you ever travelled without your family? Where did you go?

Are you religious? Is religion important to you?

HOUSEKEEPING & FOOD

Do you have a housekeeper? Do you have duties at home?
Please explain what your duties are

How do you like to keep your room at home?

Have you tried different types of food that are not from your country, perhaps in a restaurant?

What are your favourite foreign foods to eat?

Do you like to cook?

What are your favourite foods to make?

Have you cooked a meal in the last seven days? What were they?

Do you have dietary restrictions / requirements?

Is there any food you do not eat / will not prepare?

Do you eat spicy food? Do you cook spicy food?

THE ROLE AS OUR AUPAIR

Can you commit to a full year with us?

We are strict on timekeeping and will require you to be too – is this a problem?

What types of lunch would you prepare for yourself and DD2?

If I need to work late one day and you need to cook dinner for the girls – what would you cook? Please give 3 simple dishes.

How do you plan to spend your time when you are not working?

If you are unhappy with any aspect of the role when you are here, how would you resolve it?

HTH

Goodness, I thought it was just me. We are struggling to find an au pair this year too. Our usual agency route hasn't come up with anyone so I've turned to Aupair World but 2 days on no match yet. We have specific requirements so I am finding them rather than vice versa

Am shocked that cleaning duties puts them off! Thought basic part of remit. I would expect cleaning, washing, ironing, cooking within their 20-25 hours. Am I wrong?! My kids are school she and my job part-time so they would not be expected to do any more than the 25 hrs....

I used gumtree this year. Lots of applications mostly from Italy and Spain. None from Northern Europe, so maybe that's partly the problem.

Could be a number of things really. Perhaps their own economies back home are picking up. Perhaps they've met former au pairs who were expected to work 50+ hour weeks and had costs of £50 a week out of their meagre salaries, despite room and board. Did you mention pay in the advertisement? if not, they might assume you are going to pay on the lower end. If you didn't mention expected hours but waffled on about being treated like one of the family, they might assume that it's going to be long hours.

@mum2pea - great idea! If you don't mind sharing, I'd be interested, too!!!

Sorry my above message was for mum2pea!

Hello,

I am considering the idea of an au pair to start early next year, and am rather clueless at the moment.. Would you possibly mind telling me the sorts of questions you asked on the questionnaire you sent potential au pairs?

Thank you!

Carly

fluffy - she has a separate flat with a kitchen area.

She does eat with us a couple of times a week, usually Sunday roast which is our only weekly family meal and a midweek evening meal, usually on a night DH is out. DH gets home really late and the last thing he wants to do at 9pm is chat to an au pair. I'm at home too most of the time, so we chat lots then.

We always choose an au pair that would prefer to do that, and it means they can eat what they want, when they want and not have to wait until 9pm to eat and put up with my grumpy DH. They also have the option of eating with the children at 5.30 (which our first au pair did).

We have used Aupair world before and received approx 500 applicants within a couple of weeks.
This April, we again used the site (for a start date of Sept 1st) and again had well over 300 applicants.
We have now offered and are very happy with the girl that wiill join us in Sept.

My suggestions would be

1. Yes, you get to the top of the families list whenever you log in resulting in more applicants. I work so could not look at profiles during the day but just logged in every hour to stay at the top.
2. Make sure your profile is detailed on both you as a family and what you expect from your AP. I think this at least filters out those who have different expectations.
3. After the 1st application, we gave them more info and said if you are still interested, email me on xxx. Again, this filtered further.
4. By email, we then sent them a large questionaire to complete. Again some didnt bother respoding but those that did, you can check whether they match up with your criteria / family.
5. We did several skype interviews per AP and then a final interview with the children - for us this was the real test and the interaction told us all we needed to know.

We actually ended up with 3 girls after the final stage, all of which would have been suitable, so it can be done.
You just need LOTS of time and be persistent.

Good luck!

I'm surprised karoleann that you force au pair to eat separate and from a budget. Is eating with the family not part of the au pair deal? Is the au pair sent to her room to eat on her own?

NB We had dire applicants via an agency and i gave up and used au pair world

Head- I just top up her sainsbury card which is a pre-paid card. This one eats nothing! But i have a max for £25. Plus I get her food on babysitting nights.

Are they all doing exams right now?

France - any decent agencies for nanny/ au pair will not charge the nanny/ au pair for anything. Only the parents as the clients. Therefore it's a win win to the candidates, as the agencies can find them multiple families to choose from

I wouldn't use an agency, in case of problems they are no help, they don't check anything you couldn't check yourself, their only function is to skim money off the top! I would try logging in more frequently, that's a really good suggestion. And eventually just accept a Spanish person

I didn't know about the log in! Wow - this technology is too elaborate for me it seems :-)
I don't know about the most qualified au pairs using agencies, they do cost the au pairs quite a bit of money, and they're young, and especially if they come from Europe where it's relatively easy to travel and work abroad, there is no real need for them to use agencies - at least not from what I have read.
Maybe mumsareglam is right and it's something about the timing? Who knows, maybe they are all on vacation right now... I guess we just have to be patient and keep looking!

I think the best candidates now use agencies. They cost the au pair nothing, yet they have back up from agency if family aren't what they advertise. They also perceive families who pay the agency for the service as those with proper knowledge of what an au pair should do

Cleaning puts au pairs off

If in London you really need to pay travel pass as £30 a week for zone 1-2 travel card is a lot out of £90-100 pay. Cost more if in further zones. Au pairs need to get around with children/ to language classes/ to explore so this is big draw

My 2 cents on this are that it is down to the number of families searching in a given period, search criteria and the sort order.
I also think if you are logged in on multiple devices i.e. phone and web then you your login does not get refreshed all the time.

I tested this out and I had just logged in on my phone then searched as an au pair and I was not even on the first 10 pages. I had to log out on all everything then I was at the top of the sort order.

I work in the web industry so get to hear the developers crooning about the importance of sort order daily!

I also found when my profile was newly created I had a rush of applicants which makes me think the initial sort also factors in your creation date.

Either way AP world is not working for me this year, I have recruited twice (very successfully) but this year I am having a different experience.

I have sent an email to AP world but not sure if it will make a difference.

Karoleann - how much food allowance? As my children are getting older and DS if off to boarding school in Sept I was considering moving to an allowance but wasn't sure how much. How do you keep their food separate ?