Slovak Au-Pair in Europe – The interview with the host family

The most beautiful job you can do when you are eighteen years old is working as an Au-Pair. In this article I decided to talk about how to prepare for the Skype interview with the family, what are the questions that you will be asked and what you should ask your host family. Happy reading!

The first step to a successful interview with the host family is to prepare yourself. Write down all the questions that you want to ask your host family, have your resumé and your cover letter on why do you want to be an Au-Pair ready. It is very common to send your resumé and cover letter before the actual Skype interview. 

The cover letter that is written about why you want to be an Au-Pair is a very important part. Why? Because the family needs to know information about you as a person, what are your free time activities, what is your personality, what do you like to do, and also, if you had a previous experience working as an Au-Pair.

The resumé is sometimes a very highly requested document, too. But in my opinion, resumé does not tell the family all the important information about you. It basically is just a chronological list of your achievements which is not that important for the Au-Pair work if you don’t have the achievements as, for example – working with children. It does not persuade the family to choose you, because it doesn’t speak on a personal level to the person.

That is why I think, that the most important part before the interview is to take your time to fill in the cover letter and make it very good. I will give you some tips on how to write the cover letter in the upcoming article. In this article, I will mainly talk about the interview and the questions.

Every single interview with a family is different and unique. But  there are similar questions and situations that I can talk about. You will agree on the time of the Skype interview up-front with the family. The first rule is to be always on time. Never be late on Skype. Put on some shirt that you normally wear to school, nothing fancy and then, have your room at clean. At least the parts that will be seen on the camera. No one has to know that you had a Harry Potter marathon last night and there is a coke bottle and an unfinished bowl of popcorn on the floor.

So the first type of questions I would like to talk about are the ones that the family will most likely ask you. Here are some examples:

• What is your motivation to be an Au-Pair? Why do you want to be an Au-Pair?
• Did you work as an Au-Pair before? If yes, what was it like?
• What are your expectations of this job?
• For how long will you be able to work for us?
• Do you have any siblings? if yes, older or younger? If younger, did you take care of them? What was it like?
• When will you be able to start working? The exact date of arrival.
• What are your hobbies? What do you like doing in your free time?
• Do you have any food allergies?
• Do you like children?

There are, of course, so many question that a family can ask you. So be always prepared, listen carefully and answer clearly.

And what should you ask your potential host family? For example:

• What are your expectation of me as an Au-Pair?
• What will my chores look like?
• What does a day in your family look like?
• When do the Host Parents usually come home from work?
• What will my working schedule be?
• On which days I will have a day off?
• Will I have my own room? Bathroom?
• What food does the family usually eat? Is the main meal for lunch or dinner?
• Will I prepare the food for the whole family or only for the children?
• How far is the house form the nearest public transport stop?
• And how far is it from city centre?
• What will be my pay per month/week?
• Will the family provide the insurance for the Au-Pair?
• What about the language classes?
• Are there any other Au-Pairs nearby?
• Did the family had an Au-Pair in past? If yes, what was it like?

If the family had an Au-Pair before you, it is very handy to ask for the contact. Also, if you were working as an Au-Pair before, it is kind to give the contact to the host family, too.

There can be so many questions that you can ask each other during the interview. The aim is to feel calm, without stress and to answer honestly and clearly. The conversation should be very spontaneous and comfortable on the both sides. You will speak with people with whom you will spend most of your upcoming months. It is important to feel confident while talking together. Also, pay attention to your gut feelings. If the family offers you big amount of money for small work, it might be a scam. And if the family offers you small money for big amount of work, it is not worth it at the end of the day.

Also, talk about important decisions with your biological family at home. Discuss the pros and the cons. Talk about the transport, the money, the children you are going to take care of. Basically everything. You can even talk to another Au-Pairs in your age on different Au-Pair Facebook groups. There, you can find more experienced Au-Pairs that are willing to help you decide and to tell you what to do in difficult situations.

At the end of the day, I believe, that you will find a loving host family for you, that you will have a great feeling after the interview and that you will accept the work offer. After the interview it is nice to stay in touch and to discuss the arrival date, the form of arrival, and also the same for the depart. Don’t forget about the transport from the airport to the host family´s house etc. You won’t even blink and you will find yourself in a foreign country with your host family, learning how to work with children.

We are coming to an end of this part about how to prepare for the interview. I hope that you found some useful tips and that you will also find a useful tips in the upcoming article about how to write the perfect cover letter for your host family. Stay tuned!

Also, I wish you only the best of luck with finding your perfect host family. I really do hope for you to find a nice and kind family that will help you during your whole stay. Thank you for reading and see you in the next part of this series!