Helpful hints when hiring an au pair

Questions to ask

1. "Why do you want to be an aupair?" If they don’t mention children, think twice about why they are coming.

2. "If you’ve been an aupair before, what was the best thing about this experience?"

3. "Have you had sole charge of children previously?" This is important if you require the aupair to have sole charge at times. Your aupair needs to be confident in this situation.

4. If they have had no experience looking after children before, ask why they think it is something that they would enjoy and what qualities they have that they think will help them be a good aupair.

5. If they have had experience looking after children, ask them what type of experience they have had, ie, sole charge, babysitting, play groups, etc.

6. "Have you ever been away from home for a long period of time?" The biggest reason aupairs go home early is because they are homesick.

7. Give them some real life situations and ask what they would do in these circumstances.  For example, "If you were at home with the children and it was raining, what activities would you do to occupy the time?"  It is important to have somebody with initiative, rather than somebody who needs spoon feeding and who is going to put the children in front of the television all the time.

8. If you require a driver, ask them to be specific about how long they have had their licence, how often they drive and if they have their own car. Many of the aupairs from Eastern Europe have a licence but then don’t actually have their own car and very rarely drive. If you are going to ask an aupair to drive your children, it is well worth booking a few lessons when they first arrive.

9. If an aupair has a skill that is beneficial to your family and it is one of the reasons you are recruiting them, make sure that you ask detailed questions about this skill.  For example, if they can play the piano and you would like them to help teach your children, you could ask what grade/s they have passed, how often they play, and if they have had teaching experience previously.

10. Always ask for references and take them up, ideally, from people who they have worked for as an aupair before.

11. We would always advise that you interview the aupair over the phone this will help you understand their level of spoken English.

12. We would also encourage you to see if you can find somebody to interview them in their local language you can tell so much more from somebody in their local language.

13. What First Aid experience do they have? This may be important to you, especially if you have younger children.  It is always advisable to show your aupair the basic principles of First Aid when they arrive in your family, so that they know the treatment for burns, a temperature etc.

14. Ask them about their hobbies - you want to have someone with some interests otherwise not only will it be dull for your children, but for you as well.

15. Apart from wanting to look after your children it is always good to understand what they want to achieve during their stay in England.

16. It would be advisable to ask them about their own health or any allergies that they may have.

17. If you have pets and expect the aupair to help look after them or be around them, you should ascertain whether they are happy about this.

18. In order to gain more insight into your aupair’s interests, ask what sorts of activities your aupair will be doing on his/her days off. 

19. From the outset, put guidelines in place for what is, and what is not, acceptable in your home and set any ground rules for visiting boyfriends/girlfriends etc.
    
    The most important thing to establish BEFORE an aupair arrives in your country is what you expect from them, and what they will receive in return.  Many families will type out a schedule so that an aupair can comprehensively understand what is expected of them during their working day.  If this is established up front, then many issues or potential misunderstandings can be avoided.