How long did it take you to recruit your au pair and how many

[HarrietTheSpy]

sites/agencies, etc were you using at the time?

TIA

I used two sites and one agency, but both times actually ended up with someone via AuPairWorld.

I ended up doing interviews with around 20 people each time. Was very time-consuming but important to find the right person.

4 months, but I recruited one and her successor in the same round of searching.

3 weeks, used AP world and got someone who was already in the UK and able to do a face to face interview.

Less than a month - used AP world.
Have been half-heartedly looking for her replacement for early next year for the last 6 weeks or so but can't get into it. I find that the APs want you to commit to them so quickly it feels so rushed - or else you lose them.

Shoot, I'm not finding people dying to commit. Just got binned by an Ozzie today. But we have rejected loads. I just changed our profile because the first thing coming up was 'family in Essex' which is strictly speaking true but I don't think people are bothering to read that we're on a tube line and 25 min from central London. Do I sound defensive or what?!

i sympathise harriet the spy. we are also looking for a nanny/ aupair but the other way round we are in aus. ive been trawling all the sites and so far au pair world seems the cheapest to subscribe to, almondbury looks good but very expensive and they dont seem to do anything much.. can someone corect me if i am wrong there before i make a choice where to subscribe to?
great aupair looks good too but loads of asian girls that cant get work permits here so no good,
My aupair worry is how do i ensure continuity of care? If finding one is this hard???? how will i ind another in a few months? or please does it get easier?

I know what you mean Chloeb. A friend swears by Almondbury, found a fab au pair there. If my current options fall through I'm going to consider registering with them.

What do people think about an au pair who wants to work on their days off, hence work seven days a week? Other job would be cafe work. Fluent in English, so obvious way to meet people, i.e. language school not an option.

Also, can anyone tell me about conversations with parents. What sorts of things were they interested in about YOU or did you mostly ask questions about how the au pair would cope.

I'm bumping for myself!!!

Please keep fingers crossed we don't get binned by girl I spoke to last night. SOunds perfect!

harriet - seven days a week! So when will they get down time, relaxation time, social life, meeting up with friends, getting to know the area, culture, country, when will they have time to get to know the family? errrr, on your time, when they are doing au pair duties?

seven days a week is not sustainable. you will have no flexability with babysitting or her other hours and she may well make herself ill

The second job is to meet people, in theory. She speaks English so wouldn't be doing that at a language school.

I need her to be around in the house two full days a week, the other three days she only has to work between 3-6.30 (say 2.30, as she needs to leave enough time to collect DD from nursery in the afternoon). I've said no regular evening jobs during the week as we can't be rushing back for something like that. But if she finds cafe work at the weekend, I wasn't going to say no automatically. I don't think it's that stressful making cappucinos but maybe you're right. If it were a full time nanny we were employing I would feel able to be categoric about it.

Current one took five weeks of looking, but being a single dad in a rural location I wasn't inundated. But the most depressing thing is when you get an expression of interest through APW (I also use newaupair.com) and you send them a short questionnaire, 90% never respond.

Talking to the parents, I have only ever done this by email, and yes my questions are about how they will cope. They tend not to ask questions back of me but I do get "and my parents would like to know ..." from APs. Tends to be practical stuff about health insurance (explain not required for EU citizens dues to good old NHS), driving lessons, English lessons that sort of stuff.

Harriet it really depends when you are looking... if you are looking in August or June it's quite quick to find an AP through APW / NAP etc. I've used a few agencies, when I've been looking out of season and it's taken 6 weeks or so.
2 of my AP's have had weekend jobs in a pub and tbh this has been great. They have a social life, some more money, somewhere to go. I don't think it's too much work, let's be honest neither APing or bar/cafe work is stressful or that demanding and they are only 20ish.

We lost an au pair to her "weekend" hairdressing job, so I don't blame you for being wary. I use greataupair and aupairworld. On average, I'd say it takes me about 3 weeks of fairly intensive searching to find an au pair (about an hour each evening looking at profiles, then follow up emails & phone conversations). There are loads of German girls looking for au pair jobs in UK. We're on our 2nd German AP and both have been brilliant: good English, no culture shock, drive well, level-headed, really interested in the children. Maybe I've just been lucky, but I'm tempted to limit my search to German girls when current AP leaves in February.

I'm right in thinking it's a bad bad move to take on someone who complains in her first email to us about her current family, yes?

I would say not necessarily. I'm about to move nanny jobs because the family and I don't fit together, it's very amicable but I am making it clear in jobs I apply for that my current family is not working out for me so I'm looking again.

Of course it depends on the type of complaint!

Oh no, I got some details in the first go. It was her first email to me.

I would say no way to the cafe job, but only because I want ap to be available at weekends in case of need. If you don't ever want a weekend babysitter (we use ours to go shopping or to visit art galleries without kids from time to time) then it doesn't really matter I suppose.

Harriet - it depends on what they are complaining about - if it's that they work 60 hours a week for £65 then fair enough. If it's that 'the children are horrid and rude' then I wouldn't (because I would assume that the AP wasn't great with understanding kids).
I had an email from one potential AP who said 'I will do some house work but you must realise my priority is the children.' - when I had been very clear that 1) my kids are in school all day and 2) the 'housework' was emptying the dishwasher and sweeping kitchen floor after breakfast..not really enough to get stroppy over I felt.

Specific complaints re family were to do with how much time alone she spent (they never take her anywhere, don't eat dinner with her). I'm afraid it came across as a bit of a rant. Otherwise, she complained that the city in NAmerica where she is currently living is very cold and artificial with bad food.

I think my patience is wearing thin with this process. At least the nannies we've had interaction with (and honestly from Gumtree it's often the smae sort of profile) had the courtesy, after an interview or telephone call, to follow up with an email: No I'm not interested. Not, here's loads of pictures of my family (and house) and info about our area...and NOTHING. So, there's my rant. (DDs are CUTE too!)

I found a good internet site, which seems much better than the others:

www.rightperson-aupair.com

was that helenas first ever post? how can you tell?