Our 21 best tips for hiring an au pair or nanny
We’re knee deep in the process of finding a new au pair after a wonderful year with our first one. After a bit of trial and error, with our nanny interview years ago and au pair trials this time round, we’ve got it down – if not to a science then at least a less stressful, more efficacious routine. Here, the best tips gleaned from the experiences of the Alpha Mummies – Jennifer, Eleanor and Sarah as well as T2’s editor Emma Tucker.
Got some of your own? Please, enlighten us! (We need all the help we can get.)
1. Don’t say things like “fun-loving” or “adorable” in the advert – it only attracts flakes, Sarah advises. Instead, sound serious or even a little bit scary, so you get serious applicants.
2. Stipulate right from the start what you will and will not tolerate in terms of things like boyfriends/smoking/nights out.
3. Be very precise about things like driving and hours. Last-minute mix-ups can leave you scrambling for cover or play havoc with the au pair’s plans.
4. Familiarise yourself with the difference between an au pair and a nanny and the advantages and disadvantages of using an agency to find one. Good agencies can perform CRB checks, streamline the references process and otherwise screen candidates. Bad agencies just take your money and pass through any potentials. Nannies, especially those with NNEB qualifications, can be better suited to have sole charge of small children. Au pairs are good for older children and to use as mother’s help. A reliable source for au pairs if you don’t use an agency is www.gumtree.com.
5. Know the standard au pair “package” in your area – own room with some type of Internet connection and a TV, salary range, expected duties. If you don’t know anyone with an au pair, check out gumtree.com.
6. In your ad, emails or meetings with potential au pairs, tell them frankly about your family, your child’s interests and how you spend your time at home, so you can predict how they’ll fit in. At our house, it’s not all listening to classical music and reading novels. Sometimes there are the marathon sessions with the True Blood season one box set.
7. Use the same questions in every interview – it makes it easier to compare candidates.
8. Ask why they left their last job. Their description of it always lends insight. If it’s simple and straightforward – family moved, one of the parents decided to stay home – that’s good. If it’s papered over and sounds fishy, investigate further.
9. Take references. Everyone who’s going to work with children should be able to provide at least two references, even if they aren’t specifically in professional childcare. A restaurant manager or a family for whom they babysat can attest to their reliability, their conscientiousness and their maturity. Ask whether the previous employer would hire them again and what the person's downsides are. Keep pushing until they tell you the truth. If the reference is at all dodgy, don't hire them.
10. Ask them about their plans during the day and on weekends when off duty. You don’t want to experience what one friend did: a homesick young woman moping around the house all day.
11. Want to keep your free time separate from the au pair’s? Opt for someone older or who’s lived in your area longer. They’ll have more connections and outside social activities.
12. Ask about the flexibility of their schedule. If you’re banking on them covering school holidays, make sure their school or part-time work schedule allows them to take days off or shift their commitments. The last thing you want is to hear that she has an unmissable test or an uncompromising manager when you need all-day coverage.
13. Introduce children to interviewees to gauge their responses. Does the au pair play with them? Do they get down to their level? Even watching a shy child interact with them can help you gauge how comfortable they’ll feel when they’re alone with him or her.
14. Be honest with them (and yourself) about your priorities, Sarah says. If you can’t stand a single item out of place at home, make sure they know to keep things tidy. If timekeeping is essential, stress that tea at 5:30 means exactly that. The more that’s mapped out in advance, the better.
15. During interviews, let them see the house as is. No use giving them a false impression that you always keep the toys out of sight and the magazines arrayed just so on the coffee table. They’ll know your real habits soon enough.
16. Make sure they will do some housework. “The biggest mistake I ever made in hiring my first nanny was letting her just do kids stuff,” says Alpha Mummy’s Eleanor Mills. “I would leave a cup on the breakfast table and it would still be there when I got home. It’s never going to work without give and take.”
17. Don’t turn him or her into a personal assistant without asking. Keeping the common areas and the children’s room tidy is a given. And they may not mind picking up your dry cleaning or doing your laundry for free. Or they may not mind doing it for extra money. But many an au pair has complained about being expected to suddenly run errands and be at the family’s beck and call instead of the childcare job they signed on for.
18. Give them a written list of agreed responsibilities when they start. It doesn’t need to be a contract per se, but it’s a lot easier to enforce rules and avoid misunderstandings when hours, holidays, house rules and such are in writing.
19. Consider a trial period, says Sarah, so both parties can decide if it the set-up works for them.
20. “Word of mouth beats everything,” suggests one friend. “Tell everyone you know, however little you know them, that you are looking for an au pair” and you’re more likely to land someone with a known track record.
21. Trust your instincts. “It something feels odd, then it is,” says Eleanor.
