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Au pair interview questions for host families

Tell us three things about your family and questions for your situation move to the top — or skip the chips and use the general list below.

Children’s ages

Will they drive?

How your week runs

Just the reference-call questions ↓

Childcare in practice

  1. It’s 3 PM, the kids are home from school, and you have three hours until dinner. What does that afternoon look like?
  2. You’re at the playground and another child hits mine. What do you do?
  3. The kids are fighting over a toy and one pushes the other, who starts crying. Walk me through your response.
  4. Tell me about the children you have looked after: how old were they, how often did you see them, and what were you responsible for?
  5. A child has a high temperature and neither of us answers the phone for an hour. What do you do?
  6. The kids are hungry, the fridge has leftovers, and you’ve had a long day. What do you make for dinner?
  7. Plan a rainy afternoon indoors for our children. What would you suggest?

Living in our home

  1. Describe a typical day in your life right now, from when you wake up to when you go to sleep.
  2. Have you ever lived away from your family before? What was the hardest part?
  3. What do you do when you’re bored and alone in a new place?
  4. Here is where we live on a map. How would you spend your free evenings and weekends from here?
  5. How do you feel about house rules on guests, overnight visitors and the time you come home at night?
  6. When something isn’t working for you, how do you want to tell us: straight away, or in a regular sit-down?
  7. Do you have allergies or dietary needs we should plan for, and are you comfortable living with pets?

Expectations and the hard parts

  1. What would you do if you disagreed with how we handled a situation with the kids?
  2. Tell me about a time you felt really homesick or lonely. What helped?
  3. What’s a house rule you’ve had to follow that you didn’t agree with?
  4. What would make you want to end the au pair year early?
  5. Here is our real weekly schedule. Which part of it worries you? Check a week against the hour limits
  6. What do you expect your pocket money to cover, and what do you expect us to pay for? Pocket money by country
  7. Apart from the childcare, what do you want to have done by the end of the year?

The reference call

  1. Would you trust them alone with your children again?
  2. What surprised you about having them in your home?
  3. If you could change one thing about the experience, what would it be?
  4. How did they handle disagreements or difficult situations?
  5. How reliable were they with times: starts, pickups and replies to messages?

This page’s address holds your chips — send it to your partner.

After the interview

Once you have matched, AuPairSync keeps your au pair’s schedule, tasks and the children’s information in one app you both use.

Download AuPairSync

Related reading

How to interview and choose an au pair

Running the calls, reading the answers, red flags and the final decision.

Au pair rules by country

Hours, pocket money, driving and permits, each with its official source.

Au pair schedule checker

Check the week you describe in the interview against the hour limits.

Au pair pocket money calculator

What you hand over each month, checked against your country’s minimum.