How to find your person: choosing the right au pair for your family (Au Pair Series Part 2)

Welcome to part 2 of my Au Pair Series where I’m sharing all the information about being a host family that I couldn’t find anywhere else. Part #1: Is an au pair really worth it? covers program requirements, how to determine if the program is a good fit for your family’s needs, a cost breakdown and comparison, finding an agency, and what to expect from the process.

Finding our au pair was a surprising mix of high stakes sales and modern dating. Once we got through the initial screenings with the agency, our local counselor shared with us a one-pager of interview questions, recommended we set up our profile and “request to connect” with any au pairs we like, and use Whatsapp to connect with them. Easy enough!

A process note: host families review au pair profiles and make the first contact with au pairs. Once the family makes contact, the au pair can see the family profile. Before that point, au pairs can’t see family profiles, they’re not browsing families. Families can contact multiple au pairs at one time, and au pairs can be in touch with multiple families at a time— everyone is always interviewing everyone.

After setting up a bare minimum profile (because I assumed they’ll get to know us in the interview) and sifting through hundreds of candidates, I had a 50% response rate. And the ones who did respond turned out to be very available for a reason (usually their English or their lack of understanding of the job). This was starting to not feel quite as easy as it sounded at the jump.

After my first few interviews I realized I needed to be using filters for our non-negotiables: strong swimmer, over 21, a certain level of English proficiency, and countries with shorter visa timelines and high approval rates (the local counselor can share this information).

Next I gave our host family profile a makeover. We added pictures of the au pair’s spaces with descriptions like “this is the au pair’s private bathroom” and “this is the au pair’s bedroom which is located in the basement with a separate entrance to the home”. We added pictures of our house from the inside and outside, and a video of our family talking about why we wanted to host an au pair— for a reason I can’t remember we filmed it sitting on the kitchen floor and I posted the best version we could get with a two and three year old and figured the video would at least prepare people for the chaos in our home.

After these updates I was working with a significantly smaller pool and my response rate went up to 85%. And at this point I interviewed someone I really rocked with. I took my time, I reflected, I talked to my husband, I had him schedule an interview a few days later, I sat on his feedback for a few days. I reached back out and found out, to my surprise, she had already matched with another family! Even though we really connected! We liked each other! And that’s when I realized I was running a sales funnel where the lead to conversion time is minimal and needed to treat it as so. So I tightened up the interview process.

I treated interview one as a 10-15 minute screening with just me. This where I assessed language, childcare experience or at least willingness to learn, and a vibe check. And I’m sorry, I absolutely hate when people say to “trust your gut” or "find what vibes with you” but in this case, it’s the only way. For example, my family requires an unserious person in this role. We are kind of a disaster. It’s two little kids. Plans change constantly. There’s a lot of poop. You can read if someone is going to be able to laugh things off and not be too serious in a few minutes.

For round one I asked them to tell me about themselves, reviewed our schedule, asked what they know about Washington, D.C. (if you were following our live adventure you know one poor candidate thought they were interviewing for a job in their dream location of Seattle, WA), asked about time they have lived away from family, and then questions around our non-negotiables (how long have you been a swimmer? How often do you drive?).

If round one went well, I told them on the spot I would like to schedule an interview with my husband, and that I would follow up with our house rules, sample schedule, and availability for the next round. I found sending the schedule was really helpful because some au pairs are looking for specific schedules and they are usually nervous in the interview and might miss the details. I immediately sent the house rules and schedule after hanging up and asked for their availability for round two in the next two days.

If I knew it wasn’t going to work out, I told them on the call that I would follow up shortly with next steps and handled the rejection via whatsapp message (“thank you so much for taking time to speak with me today, you will be a great au pair! Unfortunately we are moving forward with someone else whose skillset is more aligned with our family’s needs”). I didn’t want to reject them on the call because a) these are young people and b) there are so many cultural differences that make a conversation like this challenging (speaking as someone who worked at a global company and had to figure out how to deliver feedback to people from many different countries) and I want to be as respectful as possible with this.

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I conducted 12 first round interviews. Five made it to round two, some self-selected out after receiving our schedule and house rules and some I didn’t offer a second round interview to. In this round they talked to my husband and got more into the particularity questions that matter to us (how well do you adjust to chaos? how would you rate your cleanliness? what do you like to do on the weekends? how do you spend your downtime? how do you handle feedback?). If that went well, he offered a facetime with the kids on the spot and we scheduled it for the next 24 hours. Only two people made it to this round.

Round three was with the kids and was a general check to make sure they weren’t weird with or overwhelmed by kids, and a facetime house tour with a heavy focus on the au pair’s living space—we didn’t want anyone showing up surprised. Our current au pair lit up when the kids got on, she asked them questions, she laughed. It was good. We offered her the job on the spot.

The timing can be a bit jarring, the time from first interview to offer with our current au pair was five days which I learned is pretty standard. Once we agreed to the match, I updated the portal and the process kicked off from there—a counselor in Italy worked with our au pair on the visa process and we got the home ready!

Next week I’ll share how we prepared for the au pair’s arrival: a family manual, welcome gifts, house stuff, and admin to take care of for a smooth transition. Make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss week 3!