The Au Pair Application & Process
- Abbie
- May 1, 2019
- 9 min read
I had seen an advert on Facebook to Become an Au Pair, I clicked the link and searched through the website, reading as much information as I could. I thought it sounded amazing, like a dream come true, in fact it almost sounded too good to be true. I remember thinking there has to be some kind of catch to this, a loop hole in the system this website isn't real because if it is then why isn't everybody doing it.
Turns out everybody was actually doing it. Being an au pair is more common than you'd think, where I'm from there not heard of and not many people know what they are. Turns out being an au pair is a popular thing and is very common for families to have them and not just in the states but in other countries as well including Australia, Sweden and Germany.
I kind of just woke up one day and decided you know what I'm gonna do it. Why not? Living in a country that I've always dreamed of living in, taking care of kids which is a job I love doing, being able to travel and make friends it was an incredible life changing experience being offered to me how could I possibly say no.
Little did I know that the journey to become an au pair is a long, scary and challenging one. I had no idea the amount of time and effort I would need to put in, I had no idea how much it was gonna cost. Then again I also had no idea how amazing and truly life changing it would actually be.
The Final Decision
I had lots of things to consider when deciding that I was gonna do this. Could I stand being so far away from my family, would I be able to live in another country, was I the type of person that could do something like this, how would I cope just moving thousands of miles away and completely changing my life as I knew it.
Will I be able to leave my family?
How will I cope living with new people?
What if the kids don't like me?
What if people don't like me and I can't make friends?
What if me and my boyfriend don't make it through this?
What if I do this and then later on find out that it wasn't anything like I imagined and I disappoint everyone by leaving and coming home?
What about if it turns out that I love it so much that I won't wanna come home?
These questions I frequently went over and over in my head. Worrying that I was going to make a big mistake and that I would regret it after 4 months and come home. I was worried that I would disappoint everyone and that this massive thing wouldn't turn out how I imagined and I'd have to tell everyone how I failed and couldn't follow it through.
The thing is in the end I felt so much joy and excitement about the whole experience that eventually I kinda stopped asking myself those questions and focused on the positives. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity that I was being offered, it was a dream that was finally coming true. Even if it did turn out bad I told myself that it didn't matter and that I would just learn from the mistakes I had made. At the end of the day thats what life is all about. I stopped worrying about what everyone else would think and whether or not they wanted me to do it, I put myself first. In the end that's all it came down to, it was so important to ME to do this and so I wasn't going to let anything stop me. I had never wanted something as bad as I had this and that made it a no brainer. I was doing it and I wasn't doing it for anyone other than myself.
Cultural Care Au Pair
Cultural Care is the programme that I decided to do this with and I highly recommend them for anybody who is looking to become an au pair. You might ask how I came to the decision of choosing cultural care. My main answer is that I wasn't really aware that there were other programmes out there similar to cultural care. Although now I know there are other options out there I'm still glad I choose them and I'm still certain I made the right decision by going with them.
"It has been a dream" - Cultural Care Au pair from Mexico
Cultural Care are extremely helpful and friendly, many of their employees have previously been au pairs so they can offer you some very reliable and solid advice. Due to their experience of being an au pair I often found that they could relate to the worries and questions that I had. They use their experience to help you and they really do provide a 24/7 support system.
That support and advice continues to be given to you throughout the whole process and even continues on with you during your journey in the states.
Cultural care have offices in around 20 countries and all of them help to recruit au pairs for families living all over the USA. Every au pair that the family has will have had an interview with someone from cultural care. I had my interview at the main office in London, where I was told more about the programme, spoken to by a pervious au pair and had a one to one where I was asked some questions about myself, my experience and why I wanted to become an au pair.
"My host kids are so cute and I love to have fun with them and make them smile. I definitely feel like I have a second family here in the U.S" - Cultural Care Au pair from France
It was very informal and relaxed and it was more like a general chat than an "interview", I was there the whole day and I was also joined by two other girls, one who was currently already an au pair living in London and the other who like me was wanting to become an au pair. There was a slideshow including lots of useful information about the programme, the fees, the application form, everything you need to know, they answered all my questions and more.
*Check out the link below where you can read other Cultural Care au pair stories on life in the US.
https://culturalcare.com/our-au-pairs/#oap-au-pair-stories
Cultural Care Application Process
The application process is different to your standard everyday application form for a job, it's very long and they ask you to go into a lot of detail about yourself and your life. I think overall the application form has like 8 parts or sections and within those sections there are more than a handful of questions.
It's all very understandable why they ask so much and want to know all about you as this "profile" that you make is what the families will see when they're looking for au pairs. You want it to be filled with interesting and exciting information about yourself and your family. You wanna stand out and make your profile as unique as possible, the more unique the more requests you'll get. When it comes down to experience like I've said in my previous uploads, it is not a necessity for the programme but it will get you more families interested. Parents love seeing that you have childcare experience, makes them feel like you have an idea of what you're doing it when it comes to taking care of their children.
Within the application form there are things that are needed before you can make your profile "online". You must have at least 3 childcare related references, you must upload a minimum of 5 photos of yourself and upload a unique video that the families will see when they look at your profile.
After your application is complete and your profile is "online" families will be able to see your profile and reach out if they are interested in you. I was so worried because after my profile went "online" it had been 2 days and I still hadn't heard anything from any families, I thought no one is gonna be interested in me and I that I wouldn't ever find a family.
After that day I had about 7 requests from families come through and after that it was non-stop request after request.
So what happens is you'll get an email saying a family is interested in you and your then able to look at their profile this includes; information about the parents, kids, where they live, their employment status, the hours you'd be working, if you get a car, if you get weekends off etc. It takes a little time to fully look through a profile but I think it's vital that you read over it properly and maybe even more than once to just see how you feel about the family. So after you've looked at the family and you've decided if you like them or not you can connect or disconnect. (You do only have 24 hours after the request is sent out to connect or disconnect). If you connect then you're able to reach out to them or they can reach out to you and you get to know each other and possibly set up a few Skype calls to further along see if they're a good match for you and if you're a good match for them. If you decided that its not the right fit for your then you decline and you write a polite note saying simply saying why you didn't connect (this is just for cultural care purposes as they will go from the families you connect with to help find you that perfect match with that perfect family).
You're only allowed to connect with ten families at a time, believe me trying to keep up with ten families all in different areas, all with different aged kids is tough to keep track of. It can become stressful very fast and you'll find yourself not being able to keep track of all the information that you're being given. I found it easier to write stuff down about each family as it helped me remember all the important information. So I bought myself a notepad and wrote in important things about each family and it was a really good way to weigh up the pro's and con's and help me decided whether to take the process with the family further.
Getting to know loads of different families is actually super fun, I really enjoyed the process of meeting new families and getting to know them. On the other hand it can rapidly become stressful and confusing so you must be organised and keep track of the families you're getting requests from, the families you're not that interested in and the families that you're talking to.
Once you feel like you have found the perfect match or the family feels that you are the perfect match you can request to match with them. Once matching with them this is you deciding that this is the right family and a family that would like to live with and work alongside. Even though you should of already spoken to them a numerous amount of times and gotten to know them well that doesn't mean after matching you stop talking to them. In fact this should encourage you to speak to them more, you should keep checking up with them and be giving each other regular updates on each others situation. It's also nice to keep in touch as it gives you extra time to chat and get to know each other and bond with the kids before you arrive.
*If anybody reading is interested in this and thinks that they would like to become an au pair click on the links below. The first one is is the general cultural care page and the second is a direct link to the application process page.
https://culturalcare.com
https://go.culturalcare.com/gb-aupair-application.html?_ga=2.25786173.1857955968.1556224865-342724455.1537270685
The next BIG step
After you have matched with your family the next steps of the process begin and you start to become prepared for the day you leave. Before you leave there are certain things you need to have for example:
- DBS (Police check) *If like me you worked in a childcare setting (pre-school/day care/schools) and you already have a DBS check you do have to pay to get another one.
- Health check signed and dated by your local GP (you also have to get tested for tuberculosis)
- J1 Exchange visitor visa (this is probably one of the most important documents for your trip to the US. The visa process is kind of long and you have to make sure you apply for it as soon as possible so that you give it enough time to have your passport checked and also make enough time for you to get an appointment with the American Embassy to be thoroughly checked and get your visa signed off so your able to enter the states)
-Insurance card *This comes through the post and you just have to make sure that you have it on you at all times whilst in the US.
- DS2019 *This is an extremely important document, this gets signed at the American Embassy and it’s just another document allowing you access into the US. Once in the US you must get this signed before leaving the country.
- Cultural Care agreement form *This is just a form that you must sign just agreeing to all the terms and conditions but you must also bring this to the US with you.
Cultural care also sort everything out in terms of your flight, they give you all the information and your able to print out your tickets or save them on your phone.
When you land in the US you attend a Cultural Care training school, Cultural Care organise the transport from the airport to school.
Overall the process is a long one but it’s also enjoyable and it’s definitely all worth it, Cultural Care are extremely helpful and they offer out some amazing advice. They help you every step of the way throughout the process and they really do provide the best care for au pairs all over the world.
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