When do you start recruiting for a September au pair?

[Millarkie]

Is there an ideal time to start recruiting for an au pair with a late aug/early sept start?
We are trying to decide whether to take the plunge or whether to use breakfast/after school club and I'm wondering how long we can procrastinate for.
Thanks.

Generally speaking au-pairs finish studying in their native countries in about June and look for an au-pair position from June/July onwards. They don't usually stay in their native country all summer and then get an au-pair job in September.

Could you take them from June or July, otherwise all the best ones will be gone and you will be left with less choice.

I normally look for Sept AP's beginning of June... the AP's who come for the summer have been organising it since March. There is plenty of choice then but this year is looking a bit different and there seems to have been shortage of decent AP's around

I think you'll find you need to be looking now as the "good" ones will have already made their decision to do au-pairing at the end of their academic year. I wouldn't say a Sept start was a problem (we had one last year) as they will quite often want to work/holiday/party over the summer with friends. However you may find they are therefore more likely to only want short contracts (less than 6 months).

Have a scout on aupairworld.net and see what dates applicants are looking for to give you an idea.

hi ingles, got to pay the CAT thing so I can receive your msg...

Thanks everyone.

We have a 'holiday' nanny working for us in July/August so don't really want au pair around as well.
Before/after school club would cover our childcare (s'only 7 hours a week) for £240 a month..so we are trying to work out if extra money/hassle of au pair is worth possible benefits (some tidying up?, babysitting, letting the kids chill at home rather than in school club).
Was thinking that, since dd will be on half days for the first 3 weeks of term it might be worth having a Sept au pair even if they didn't stay long, just to help out over those weeks...or then again, maybe not.

blimey ..really? even though I've paid it? tis a bit of a cheek me thinks.

Second question folks - can you make the 'hold control and select more than one country' thing work on aupairworld. It doesn't work for me and it's a bit tiresome searching individual countries or getting the whole lot (and I'm not too clear on visa requirements so was looking for obviously european people)