Photo by Jana Rabenhauptova

When it was coming towards the end of our first au pair Jana’s stay, we have started to look for a new au pair. We have clearly left it a little too late as she was leaving in late May 2007 and we did not start to look till March/April. We have contacted two Cork based au pair agencies. One did not respond to our e-mail or voice-mail at all (and it is an agency approved by IAPA!), the second one had no suitable candidates at such short notice. Apparently there is always a shortage of au pairs and families need to apply many months in advance. 

Meanwhile, we have turned to the internet and found Christelle via www.aupair-world.net as mentioned in the previous blog entry. The premium membership for this site was 39 Euro for 3 months and we were very lucky finding a suitable candidate within a few days.

Then suddenly in June, we heard from the Cork agency that they have a suitable candidate that can start in July. The agency sent us a few Word documents with T&Cs, information about what is an au pair, when to call them and not to call them and most importantly their price list. An au pair that would stay for 6 months ‘costs’ 400 Euro. The agency has asked us to fill in ‘Welcome letter’ and ‘About our family letter’. They did not visit our house, nor did they ask for reference. 

The Au Pair application we have received contained these sections: personal information, education, employment history, childcare experience, family preferences, domestic duties, declaration about having clean criminal record, ‘Dear family letter’, photos, references from a teacher and a neighbour, medical info stamped by a doctor, copy of passport and signed ‘Au Pair Agreement’.

The applicant was Andrea from Munich, Bavaria, Germany. She sounded like a lovely person and we thought that if she works out and is as good as Jana or Christelle, then 400 Euro is still worth it even though it is a lot of money for an application form only! The agency does not do any vetting; we still had to do the same ‘research’ and ‘getting to know them’ before arrival as with Christelle, which we met via the WEB.

Andrea came at the end of August and she ‘overlapped’ with Christelle for a couple of days. This is always a good idea when you are happy with the ‘old au pair’. I would not recommend if the ‘old au pair’ has a few habits that you would rather the ‘new au pair’ not to pick up. You may be better off to start out fresh.