succumbing to gettign an au pair help please

[mummydoc]

to all you have an au pair, please could you give me a quick run down on how recruitment works:

basically i have registered with au pair world and have had a few replies ( they all seem so fantastic on the site) , what do i do next , do you email they back with a specific job description ie hrs , responsibilities etc, or do you email chatty type reply . what kind of things have been useful to ask ? as they all seem so good from their profiles how do you weed them out ?? Then if you offer the job do use a formal contract ?

I have an idea of hrs, pay , perks etc but not sure of the nitty gritty for actually getting someone over here and started.

I send a copy and paste email with an opening paragraph talking about our family and the region we live in, then a 'typical day' for our au pair, and then end with a few questions asking them why they want to be an au pair, what experience with children they have, if they smoke (even if they have ticked non-smoker on their profile, some of them do admit they smoke later), what they like to eat,have they got contactable references etc.
I generally have a lot who are no-hopers (no experience with children, not wanting to live outside London, non-drivers) and I tend to choose 2 or 3 to email at a time (I find it too hard to juggle too many!). I always take up references - which are generally the deciding factor - if they have easy to contact good references I tend to offer them the job.
I typed up a contract for first au pair because she needed one as proof for some sort of grant but not bothered for others because they are just not legally binding. I do ask for them to confirm their flight details (as a way of knowing that they really are coming) and don't relax the search until a flight is booked.
Also ask them to email their next of kin details and their home address (you get a phone number and email from their APworld profile). I find it reassuring to have their parent's details in case of emergency!

I do similar to Millarkie - cut-and-paste to all likely candidates with a para about us, a para about our town and a few links about it, and 5 key questions for them to answer, and an open invitation to them to ask me questions.

My 5 key questions are:
"

1. Have you looked after children in the daytime? What were the ages of the children, and what did you do with them?
2. What is the date of your driving licence, and how many times in a month do you drive now?
3. Pocket money - we can offer £85 per week, is that OK? (This will be for up to 30 hours a week plus 1 evening a week babysitting.) You will have free time every day 9am ? 3pm and every weekend.
4. Do you like cooking healthy food? What do you like or not like to eat?
5. When can you start and how long could you stay? We would like our au pair to start in March 2009 and to stay as long as possible."

you will probably have slightly different key qs.

I send them a cut and paste para about us and where we are located. I then do a typical day for our au pair and then attach a really detailed schedule in Excel. I then ask them about 7 questions. Same roughly as indicated above. My key ones 1) Childcare experience 2) what are they hoping to gain from the au pair experience 3)do they smoke, 4) what do they like to eat. 5) Their health 6) Can they confirm they have references. 7) Can they confirm they have read the schedule and understand that is the role I am offering. Next I expect them to email me back answers, those who don't or who just email me back saying I love kids call me are binned.. that whittles down the list a lot. Then the ones I like the sound of I telphone interview. If they can't speak basic English on the phone or if they show any hesitation around the shedule (I have 22 hours childcare 13 hours cleaning)then they are excluded. If I really like the sound of one (by now I'll be down to only 1 or 2) I'll take up refs, at least one must be childcare related. Luckily a friend of DH speaks about 8 languages so it doesn't have to be in English so he calls for me. Then I offer them the job... and have a massive glass of wine once they confirm their air ticket. Who said having an AP was easy!!! PS I only take mine for 6 months after that we like to swap as we find they are bored.

oh my god - thought i might email a few nice girls, pick the one who sounded the best and hey ho all done - i am obviusly very naive. really need some one " like yesterday". better make huge effort tonight to contact all suitables on au pair world , get a schedule ready and a cut and paste intro. i am very worried about au pair being bored or lonely - we do live a rural location but am offering a car as part of the deal , but we do not know any other au pairs and very few young people we could introduce her too - do they need a social life organising

Again cut and paste email of about a dozen questions (experience with children, what are they hpoping to get out of being an au pair etc) with the last one being "and what would you like to ask us?" you can often tell a lot by the questions they ask, those that ask about the kids and the routine go to the top of the list, those that ask about pay, using the car and time off go lower.

I save the paragraphs about us and the routine for the second email, I found that just the questionnaire causes a lot to self deselect.

Then get an email dialogue going of both sides asking and answering questions, I have a list of stuff I think they need to know so will make sure this comes out in the second or third email even if they don't ask it. When happy with that do a telephone interview with all the kids chatting as well (DD will try and hog the phone DS2 needs some preprepared questions). Using the kids on the phone also ensures that English is good enough to be able to communicate when they arrive.

Offer subject to references, take up references, insist on work email addresses for references not hotmail (I am naturally suspicious). I do have a contract, the main person that insists on this is usually AP's dad.

Will also at this point start a dialogue with APs parents, making it clear that job offer is not dependent on this but that I want to know their opinion on what would make this work for their daughter.

Regarding a social life organising. I am rural as well, and so offer the use of the car to get into town (30 minute drive and on the very very clear understanding that so much of a whiff of drink driving is instant dismissal). My current AP found her social life through FB, I believe there is an AP in UK group, I have overlap with incoming AP so am hoping AP will introduce incoming AP around. From time to time you get requests on here of anybody got an AP near XXXX and I have facilitated a couple of intros into the local AP community. Where are you?

Snap with DIOM with using facebook for APs to contact each other...AP in UK group. And also mumsnet In fact, next AP was worrying about the fact that there are no longer other APs in our village but current AP emailed her and said 'Don't worry the host mum is on mumsnet' , so now I worry that I am being stalked by potential APs

dad instead of mum - we are in herefordshire . hadn't thought about facebook . am now feeling more confident about it and having sent messages via au pair world to a few today

jura - what was the spaceship designer episode ?? please don't put me off , i am convinced htis is the way forward but keep getting the panics and need help right now, am also rather gutted as have sent messages to about 6 au pairs and no one has responded ....not sure were i am gogin wrong

Only 6 APs? You have to contact loads really! At least, I'm on the other half of the persepctive, I was looking for families and did that! I hotlisted about 50 families and was approached by about the same. I then sifted through the ones I really wanted and the ones I knew were back up plans. I sent emails back and forth with about ten/twenty families over a period of a month, was in the stages of working out agreements with two/three families but I got the chance to actually meet the family I currently work for as they are British as well and lived two hours from my on-site job, and in my profile I had stated that I'd stay in the UK if I got the opportunity to study, which they were happy with and they offered me kayaking, which for me ended up a no-brainer :p Career building, paddling and offering me a better wage than the £80 a week for 50 hours I had been working! (and yes that is legal, they call it the 'apprenticeship' year in the outdoor industry even though you don't actually gain a qualification out of it!)

thanks pixi nanny - you don't want a nice summer job do you ?? we have 3 kayaks and live 2 miles from river, i am also very good friends with the chap who runs local canoe buisness ......you could work 25 hrs per week for us and kayak all weekend if oyu like ????? probably work for him aswell

Mummydoc, a couple of other tips;

I never contact APs who've already had 50+ replies; I reckon they will be so overwhelmed they probably won't get round to dealing with any more.

Last time I contacted 45 APs, got approached by another 35, got to 'second emails' with about 15, and had 4 very likely candidates from that list.

Beware the 'sudden silence' - this is where you have been emailing back and forth for a few days and are just about to phone them when they go quiet and you never hear from them again. Very frustrating and annoying.

I actually made a job offer over the phone to one girl who said she wanted to think about it, then I never heard again. She said she wasn't considering any other family, but that's the only conclusion I can come to. Another girl didn't answer her phone when I rang at the pre-arranged time and a couple of times afterwards. Her profile remained active.

there were others however who were really conscientious, organised, good at replying...I guess it's a selection tool in itself!!

Mummydoc, if you had been looking last summer I'd have been there! At the moment, I'm with my current family until next April, I love them to bits but my boyfriend wants us to 'be together properly' so I'm looking for work with him next summer, and I need to finish my NVQ and though I'm planning to be done by Christmas I want the leeway ust in case!
If you fancy a British 'AP Couple' (as they call them lol) or, the phrase I'm using online; "British Nanny & Boyfriend" next summer we'll be about

I think I only spoke to two families out of the three I was in the final stages with. One was my current employer, the other was the other main job I was going for and the third was a back up.

I must admit though, I was amazed by what people could offer me! I noted that I'd like to learn Farsi and French and that I paddled and would like to learn how to sail and I had people who had either the waersports side or the languages, and one Iranian family in Spain with sailing! It was really an experience just finding a family lol

It's weird being in the UK though as people say that I'm not an AP as I'm not foreign but I'm not a nanny as I'm not qualified (I will be by Christmas I hope!)