Finding an au pair is hard this year!

[Cornwall73]

I just wanted to know how other people are finding it this year? I get a feeling that Brexit has put people off.

Last year we literally had hundreds of applications on au pair world in a week and we found a wonderful au pair. We are in the process of finding her replacement and we have had four applications. I have expressed an interest in nearly 150 and only about 50% have replied. Of those some will just not reply to my questions or even open emails!

Is anyone else having problem?

We've found one now, but I found the same when looking on Aupairworld. It was our first year though so not much to compare it to!

I found it a little more difficult this year, usually I'm interviewing a couple of weeks after putting my ad on and I was this time, but neither of them were suitable and I ended up doing another round (and again they weren't suitable).
Eventually I took my profile off for a couple of weeks and then put it back on, I also upped my starting pocket money by £10.

I have noticed that applications seem to beget applications! So if you only have 4, that may be putting off other au pairs. I'd recommend taking off your profile for a bit and then re-activating in a couple of weeks, but when you do, put that you will accept people from any country. It will mean that you'll get applications from people who are unable to come to the UK (and you will get some very determined Brazilians!), but it will bump up the number of applications on your profile and in turn make you look more popular.

Our new au pair is Australian and starts in a couple of weeks and seems absolutely lovely.

Yikes, it was harder last year and we have since moved out to the commuter belt so I'm really worried about this year already and putting off starting the process as I'm dreading it so much. I usually only accept French (we are a bilingual family and this has been great culturally for us). Have already decided I will be open re languages this year.

Underneath how did you educate yourself on who can and can't come? I need to look into this

I think we've found one now. She hasn't accepted yet and has been sending us and our current au pair loads of questions. I guess she just wants to check us out!

We have a back up choice if she doesn't accept. It I must say that it wasn't as clear cut as last year where there were several we really liked.

This website is really good for au pair nationalities that can live in U.K. We used all of them in our search criteria.
bapaa.org.uk/au-pairs/who-can-be-an-au-pair/

We at struggling too. There are so few people on aunpirnworld this year. Partly due to Brexit but I also expect a fear of terrorism. It's a sad indictment on this country right now.

Has anyone had any luck using sites other than au pair world.

This time in two years we won't be able to take au pair's from the Eu. It will be Tier 4 countries only. It will be impossible.

Not good
For everyone and everything involved not just au pairs

the link that cornwall pasted is very good.

The only other people who can come are those who live in commonwealth countries who have a parent/grandparent that were born here. They can get an ancestry VISA. Our SA au pair came here on that route. It is rather expensive though.

www.gov.uk/ancestry-visa/overview

I personally think it will change after BREXIT and may be open to other nationalities.

We used an agency in the end - just couldn't get ap world to work

Trying not to panic I just don't know how I will manage if I can't find one, we'd probably have to move to a live in nanny solution which will be financially difficult.

I meant to say that isn't ap world free for au pairs now? That might be increasing the number of timewaster profiles.