teenage daughter looking for au pair post

[dementedma]

leaves school after exams, will be 18 in September. English mother tongue, speaks reasonable French, very musical, cheerful and outgoing.
Ideally looking for something abroad but would consider UK.

ask her to register with aupairworld or greataupair. That's the free (for her) way for families to find her and get in touch.

she has registered with aupairworld but has had a few responses from families who seem to be looking for a slave, more than an au pair. well, we'll keep on trying....

She needs to keep contacting families on au pair world. When hiring my au pair none of the au pairs I contacted responded positively - the email conversations I had were with ones that responded to my ad.

She could check some nanny agencies as I know the first one I registered with offered the Au Pair scheme in the USA

I get around 150 applicants every time I look for an AP so your DD needs to work out what makes her the one person who gets the job.

Against her is her age and that she will be leaving home for the first time. Because of the credit crunch she is up against many people who are graduates and have already had jobs under their belt and have lived away from home. All of these will put them above your DD.

musical, cheerful, and outgoing are terms that everyone will use, so you need to think what is her USP? If she doesn't have one then that's not a train smash but she needs to accept that she won't get a job in any of the popular places (Paris, South of France, Madrid, Rome, etc etc) because the competition will be too tough. I'd suggest she concentrate on applying to the odder places - Norway, Finland, places not on the obvious lists. She'll be up against less people there.

I'd also advise strongly that she gets her driving licence if she hasn't already.

Has she got any experience looking after children? Can she get references for having babysat (or even better for looking after children during the day for short periods of time). We wouldn't take an au pair who didn't have some experience.
I also recommend aupair world and contacting families that she is interested in.

I would agree with posters who say contact families. When I recruit via AP World I only tend to contact au pairs who sound especially suitable for some reason, but will always read profiles and send initial info to aps who contact me - I like the fact that they have looked at the profile and think they might be suitable. (just make sure you read the profile - it gets annoying when non-drivers respond when our profile stresses that driving is vital). She should also keep checking her messages as this keeps her profile near the top of the lists. Good luck!

I also agree with the contact families. I tend not to contact many candidates but my job is a tad unusual though so I want people who are genuinely interested in it.

Agree maximise childcare experience. Reasonable French, how good exactly? IME what many British girls are classing as reasonable is very limited - they tend to fail the part of the interview where my DH speaks to them.

Does she have a history of being able to stick at a job or extra-curricular commitment like helping at Brownies?

Where does she want to go? I avoid candidates who seem to have ticked every box. I like ones who've narrowed down on the basis of a language or a region.

First Aid is something else which will make her stand out.

Does she have a plan for afterwards?

Au pair world is one way to go but what I did at 17 was apply with Au-Pair America. You need to be 18, healthy and have a drivers licence and 200 hours non family childcare in the past three years and you can achieve that with babysitting. You don't pay anything until you've been matched with a family and everything is sorted out with an agenct. It cost me under £200 to get everything sorted and it has a good pay rate *nd educational benefits.
www.aupairamerica.co.uk

How musical is she? If she could be specific eg grade 7 violin or sings in choir she might stand out to a family looking for an au pair to supervise music practice.
Is she willing to go somewhere she does not speak the language? Some families want to encourage children to speak English so would see this a plus. She should say if she would be happy to learn a new language.
WRT French rather than saying "reasonable" she could try "studied French to age of 16" or A Level French. This would give the family a better idea of what to expect.
Does she like pets? Again saying so will make her more interesting to families with pets.
What does she hope to gain from being an au pair and does she have plans for afterwards? (I know all au pairs love children , but giving that little bit more info makes her sound more interesting. Also I tend to avoid those who seem to have no clear idea about what they are doing or why because often you need a bit of "umph" to make a success of living in a foreign country - she will need to be able to go out and find local language lessons and meet other young people.
HTH

If it's any help to your DD I think her age and profile will be fine for a lot of people.

I personally wouldn't consider someone who was already a graduate, had lived on their own, and been fully functioning as an adult as I think transitioning back into being a family member and a "big sister" helping the nanny with after school pick ups and play dates for £70 p/w would just not be enough to maintain their interest over a ten month period. I never understand why we get applications from people with that profile for our job. I think the au pair role is ideal for gap year students.

I do look for evidence of hobbies and interest and academic achievement (which in my opinion shows the ability to knuckle down and be responsible, meet deadlines etc) and certainly a certain maturity level. I recently turned down a girl whose mother insisted on being part of the interview (rather than just wanting to speak to me at the end of the process.) If she can get across that she is used to pulling her weight at home that will help. She should also be able to clearly articulate why she wants to be an au pair, that she understands what the job is, and what she thinks she can contribute to the household. People who are really wooly in all of these areas worry me as I think they aren't that committed to the role and could pull out if something better comes along.

Totally agree with the first aid recommendation by the way. And the drivers license in principle although at her age it might be too expensive to insure her anyway. So someone looking for a driver may not go for someone that young that just got their license.

This is one thing that would change the profile of applicants I was looking at - if we needed a driver and the job was sole charge in a relatively remote region I would go for someone older (although I would still worry about sustaining their interest.)

Is there anywhere she really wants to go to? We are in Australia and i tend to look firstly at girls realy wanting to come here. I find that otherwise they are not really sure what they want to do , see , experience whilst they are here. I also like applicants to be really sure what they feel athey are able to do for us? We are a very.. urmm.. soft and relaxed family and allow our ap's to have alot of free time and facilitate in every way we can travel plans etc for them, after all they are here to not only help us but a give and take thing too! But i do have a young baby at home and a 3 year old so i need to know they are really ok with that, some applicants say they want kids aged 1/2 upwards and still apply! I second the driving thing. Our ap needs to drive, we are close to everything but close in a car not by foot! yet we ghet applicants who cannot drive!

Harriet - it's worth considering the older ones - we've had two gap years and 3 grads and the grads have been far easier to fit in to our lives than the gappies. They know how to flatshare/give people space/not expect you to be their mother. In terms of sustaining their interest we have found the grads easier because they are maor independant and build up good social lives that they are then reluctant to leave.

Our last 3 APs have all stayed 12 months plus and two of them are back and forth visiting still because they put down loads of roots.

Oh! How long is she wanting to au pair for? We usually look for someone in the summer, but no longer. Our favourite aupair has fallen in love and can't come back this year, so I was thinking about trying Au Pair World for someone. We usually get loads of applications (we live near La Rochelle), but I'm finding the idea of wading through them a bit tiresome.

Squiffy that's worth knowing. One issue for us though is I am reluctant to hire anyone who is older than our 24 year old nanny. The au pairs don't exactly report to the nanny in practice - certainly by the end of their stay- but I just think they're might be issues with taking instruction in certain areas, etc. with someone much older.

HOWEVER, it seems this time we seem to be encountering some quite immature gap year girls for some reason (who would also drive the nanny mad for other reasons). So I could be rethinking my tune. It's so hard to generalise.