Almost two months after I first started floating the idea of hiring an au pair, I am excited to say we have officially found an agency, matched with a lovely young au pair from France, and have started the paperwork to welcome her to our home in July of this year!

While we are hardly experts in this area (I’ve discovered that some families have hosted over 12 au pairs over the years), my daily obsession of late has been reading up as much as I can on the process and consulting other families with as many questions as possible. Because of that, I somewhat feel equipped to share with all of you about the initial stages of hiring an au pair, from finding an agency to matching with the right person for your family.

Step 1: Choose the right agency for you.

We are going with Cultural Care because they had a large pool of French au pairs (we were looking specifically for au pairs from France because of wanting Lila’s previous French lessons not to go to waste!). My close friend chose Au Pair Care because she was looking for a Korean au pair and they had the most Korean au pairs of the agencies she researched.

Another agency I’ve heard of that people pick for specific reasons is Au Pair in America due to their Extraordinaire Program which allows you to find au pairs that have more direct or specialized childcare experience.

There are over 17 officially sponsored au pair agencies in the U.S. that provide J-1 visas to young people between the ages of 18 and 26 years old to provide childcare as part of a cultural exchange program.

Some people also choose their agency based on their experience with the Local Childcare Consultant who serves as your main contact during your year with the au pair. So far, we have a good experience with our LCC and matching specialist from Cultural Care, so I am hoping we made the right choice for our family!

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Other things to consider might be what special rates certain agencies are offering for waiving registration fees, referral fees, and how many au pairs are hosted by your agency in your immediate area. I was told that there were about 15 in our immediate area, which seemed a little low, but that there were over 500 in the Chicago area which sounded like a good opportunity for our au pair to network and meet new friends, which is apparently an important part of their adjustment to the U.S.!

Step 2: Fill out your family profile online.

This process, although overwhelming and time-consuming at first, turned out to be a great way for me to really narrow down what our childcare needs were and what our family was specifically looking for in au pair.

For us it made sense primarily because of the flexibility of the au pair’s schedule. We essentially had a need for a split schedule, approximately 6:30 a.m. – 8:00 a.m. in the mornings before school, and 3 p.m. – 8 p.m. in the afternoons and evenings.

When my youngest was still in preschool, it made sense to have a babysitter come for 8 hours a day, but now that both kids are in school full-day it has been nearly impossible to find consistent, affordable childcare for the hours we needed.

Which brings me to the financial reason we decided to go with an au pair. Although the initial agency fees are far from cheap (on average about $8000-$9000 dollars for most agencies), the weekly stipend for an au pair is slightly less than $200/week, for up to 45 hours of childcare.

Obviously there are other costs associated with room and board, insurance, possibly getting a third car, etc… but for a family who needs close to the 45 hours a week and with two school-age kids, it seemed like a pretty ideal solution.

Step 3: Consult with other families who have experience hosting au pairs.

This is the point where I fully jumped into the world of host families and au pairs. I was lucky to already have a close friend who had just completed two years with her au pair, as well as meeting several other moms in the area who were on their third or fourth au pair and relatively happy with the program.

They told me the good, the bad, and the ugly, which really gave me a more realistic sense of what hosting an au pair would be like. They also introduced me to several Facebook groups specific to our area for families with au pairs, and I found a wealth of information on blogs like Au Pair Mom.

I loved being able to ask other moms really specific questions like, “What do you think about an extension au pair already in the country for a first-time host family?” or “How do you handle working from home when you have an au pair living with you?”

Step 4: Begin reviewing applications and searching for candidates.

This was really the most agonizing part of the process for me. We had somewhat of a narrow pool because I was looking for a French-speaking female over the age of 21 (due to not wanting to deal with any underage drinking issues in the U.S.) who could drive and swim. However, I still found that the process of sifting through multiple applications and figuring out which ones might be a good fit basically took over my life and all my free time for about 3-4 weeks.

The matching specialist at Cultural Care was extremely helpful in this regard, speaking with me on the phone and through email about issues from whether we should consider a male au pair, to what kinds of personality profiles would fit with my older daughter. She suggested a few matches, but I found her most helpful when it came to narrowing down our top 3 to the final choice. When I found myself wavering between two of the candidates, the matching specialist and my husband both told me, “Well, unless you want to host 2 au pairs, you still have to choose one!”

Step 5: Schedule Skype interviews with potential au pairs.

The first time I Skyped with a candidate I think I was more nervous than she was! She was an extension au pair who was already in the U.S. and had a lot of solid experience. I reviewed her application over and over again, checked all her references, which were all glowing, scheduled a second interview with my husband and kids, and also sent her a very detailed handbook of what our schedule would look like and our family and household rules.

After a couple other Skype interviews with other candidates, I kept coming back to the first girl I had interviewed and thinking she was the one. Unfortunately, she ultimately decided she wanted to go to California. We were disappointed of course, but after moving on, I discovered that there were still several other candidates that seemed to be a good fit for our family.

About 6-7 candidates later, we ended up matching with a caring, kind, intelligent 23-year-old from France who had an immediate connection with HJ the first time they met on Skype. They bonded over her current obsession with the Rubik’s cube (the constant clicking sound of her working on the puzzle has been driving me nuts for the past month!), and I’m hoping the au pair will be more patient than I am in this regard

Step 6: Finalize your match and begin making preparations for the au pair.

This is currently where we are at, and although we have 3 months to prepare, I already feel like there is so much to do. We have to clean out our guest room, purchase new furniture, prepare the kids for the adjustment to having a new live-in caregiver, figure out all the details about getting our au pair a Social Security number, state driver’s license, and help her register for classes in the local colleges.

I’m hoping Mr. Juice can take on all the details about Social Security and setting up a bank account, introduce the au pair to driving a minivan, etc…

As for me, I’m going to continue working on our family schedule and handbook, think of activities we can all do together during the summer when she arrives, and generally keep over-researching every aspect of hosting an au pair.

I’d love to hear if any of you have hosted au pairs in the past or are currently hosting one, and how your experience has turned out!