How to find a family/an au-pair

So you decided to find a family or an au-pair, but you don't want to pay the agency fees? Don't worry, he're is a tip how to do it yourself!

Please note that this only works for au-pairs from the EU countries who go to other EU countries. I have no experience with going out of the EU or getting an au-pair from outside of the EU and I have no knowledge about how it works. I can't take any responsibility for any problems caused to you by this article.

Searching for a family/an au-pair online

There's this great website, it's called the Aupairworld. My friend once defined the Aupairworld as a "website, that is like Facebook, but is actually useful." 

The first thing you need to do there is to register. It only takes a little while. You write your name and your contact details into the registration form. You need to write your real details here, because they are checking every single profile and if anything seems odd, they will ask you for a proof and if you fail to prove that you live on a Poop Lane 123, they will not let you register - ever again (not even under a different name or email, somehow they know that it's still you. I am going to write an article about it soon). The next steps are a bit different, depends on if you're a family or an au-pair:

You will need to edit your preferences. If you're an au-pair, you will pick a country where you'd like to become an au-pair, the number and ages of children you'd like to look after, if you want to live in a big city, in a small town or in the country. They will also ask you what nationality you are, if you have a driving license, if you smoke, how good your language skills are and if you're willing to look after disabled children.  

If you are a family, you will pick your nationality, country you live in, what country you'd like your au-pair to be from, her age, you will be asked if you live in a big city, a small town or in the country, if you're smokers, how many children you have, their ages, if you need your au-pair to drive and if any of your children are disabled. 

In both cases you will need to decide how long you want your au-pair to stay there or how long you want to stay there as an au-pair. 

Then you have to write the letters. You have to write a Dear Au-pair/Dear Family letter, something about yourself and why you'd like to be an au-pair/what do you expect from your au-pair. 

If you want to succeed, you also upload some pictures of yourself. 

Then you click finish and you wait. While you're waiting, you can browse the profiles of families/au-pairs, and if you find someone interesting, you send them an automatic message saying that you are interested. They will check your profile and if they like it, you can start talking a little bit more and then it's just up to you two to decide if you "clicked" or if you want to keep looking. 

For communication on Aupairworld, at least one of the two sides has to pay the membership fee. This is usually expected from the families and the au-pairs rarely pay that. Actually I've never met an au-pair who would pay the membership fees. It's about 40 Euro and you usually don't have to pay it again because you find the au-pair within the paid membership period. 

The au-pair is expected to pay for the travel and insurance, unless the family offers to pay for that. Some families offer paying the travel expenses for the au-pair's journey home after completing her stay. 

Another site I really really like is Kangaroo Aupair. I found a great family in there. It's fairy new so not many people know about it, but they are getting more and more people every day. Definitely try it, because I even like it more than the Aupairworld. True story. The process of registration is more or less the same, maybe different in a few details, but nothing major. 

Good luck!