how risky is it to employ 19 yo au pair with no real work experience?

[MizZan]

we've had au pairs in the past - 1 was brilliant, 1 decent, 1 pretty poor. All 3 had prior au pair experience and I always said that was a "must". however - kids are a bit older now (3 and 6) and I've just gotten an application from a nice-sounding German girl who says she loves kids and they love her, and she has babysitting experience and small siblings, and is happy to help with housework cooking and to stay for a year, which would be very helpful.

Am I nuts to consider this? She sounds lovely but then so did our disastrous one - and there's no way for me to meet her in person before hiring. she has never been to the UK before, nor lived away from mum and dad for more than 3 months. but seems like the experienced ones are rather thin on the ground this year (we're not in london through in an attractive and "desirable" smaller city). And as we found before, experience is no guarantee, but at least it helps that they know more or less what they're getting into.

MizZan. I think it depends on the person to be frank.

We have had a lovely 19 year-old German girl as an au pair this year and will be really sad to lose her next month. She had no other prior experience apart from looking after nephews and came straight from school. She is now off to university and I think the fact that she knew what she wanted to do with her life really helped.

It might have helped that we have an older DS (14) as well as DS2 (5), so there was someone for her to bond with.

i would give a try.speak to her on the phone i thing if she speak reasonably good german to express herself it can give you the idea. you never know what they are like until they are there. lack of exp doesnt necessarily have to mean that she is crap and vice versa. on the othere hand you can pay less for less exp and after some time give her a pay rise if she is good.

sorry obviously meant reasonably good english . also if she has lived away from home for 3mnths i would consider it a bonus. it's not such a difference between 3 and 6mnths and she will quite likely want to fly home for christmas anyway. i think a typical aupair hasnt been away from home for more then a few weeks so she's ahead here. good luck with the decision.

to be honest it's no more risky than employing any AP... The ones you expect to be brilliant never are and viceversa... hopefully she'll be great

I'm hoping that my next ap will be the exception that proves the rule then ingles2! She sounds really good, is pretty academic, is fluent in both the languages I ideally wanted etc.

MizZan, I am interested to know as well.

Like you, I do lookout for previous aupair experience and my first and current aupair (who is also German) who came to us in her second year of aupairing, has been outstanding.

I don't think I will be so lucky with my second, whom I need to get round to looking for. How did the horrendous one slip the net? Was she able to provide a good reference from her previous family?

I had a range of au pairs, too, but I could never hire someone without meeting them. You basically buy a lottery ticket and just hope that things will work out. Even with references, you can't have the slightest idea of what the person will be like unless you meet them first. Maybe the other family liked her, but you won't. Maybe she has a nose ring (that she took off for the photo) and a belly button ring and wears cut off t-shirts and no bras. This is just my take on these things... At least, have her send you a 10-minute video of herself talking about her life and herself. Have her post it on youtube (as a private video), have her film her family, her friends, so you get a feel of what she is like.

i see what you mean mmax, but if i was the aupair taht would quite likely put me off. i think quite often you cant tell even if you meet thme in person.

Mamax that sounds like a good idea but am afraid au pair might think it really strange, also not sure it would weed out the bad ones (unless some really obvious freakiness).

blueshoes the horrendous one was the only one we didn't get to meet in person. She sounded great, teacher-in-training, excellent English, not too young, and had been au pair for 2 summers in the UK before. I suppose the red light should have been that one of the references she gave from one of those summers had basically vanished and all the contact emails and numbers she gave for them did not work. Considering that was for just 9 months previously I should have been more suspicious. As it was, she was not one of these absolute horror stories in that she didn't steal from us or burn down the house or anything stupid, but she was not respectful of us nor made any effort to integrate into the family (in room with door shut every minute she was not working), and then did something irresponsible that endangered dc2's life and didn't even think it worth a mention to me. that said she sounded great on paper - I do think a lot of it is just a matter of luck but this time around I'd be a lot quicker to put someone on a bus back home if I'm getting a bad feeling about things.

That is interesting to know, MizZan. lol, about burning down the house or stealing - sadly, not unheard of.

I haven't had a bad one under my roof (except a no show!). But I too would be prepared to show someone the door pretty sharpish (within 2 weeks) if it was clear it was not going to work out.