CCAP match time frame

[Anonymous]

If you are a CCAP family and went through the new match process last year and plan to stay with CCAP, has the affected your thoughts about when to start the matching process?

We definitely felt the sting of the new matching process last year and ended up with a mediocre AP. Prior to that I always felt we did ok matching in April or so for Aug. arrival, but I am wondering about whether I should move up the timing this year?

Or maybe I am just excited about the prospects of a new AP because current AP is so mediocre. . . don't want to start too soon, but I have already started looking at profiles. . .

Thoughts?

[Anonymous]

Ugh I don’t know I’ve been trying to match for 6 weeks now and haven’t made much progress.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ugh I don’t know I’ve been trying to match for 6 weeks now and haven’t made much progress.

What's your arrival date?

[Anonymous]

I think it depends on what type of candidate you are looking for. If you are looking for either a gap year candidate or someone who will have just graduated from university, it is not too early to start looking now for an August arrival (because if being an AP is their gap year plan, many candidates have already gone through the application process). If you are looking for someone older with more work experience, more of those candidates will likely be added to the system in the coming months. That being said, I still don't think it hurts to start looking now. You can X out candidates you don't want to interview and "like" those that you do and choose to start making "connections" whenever you are ready to interview.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it depends on what type of candidate you are looking for. If you are looking for either a gap year candidate or someone who will have just graduated from university, it is not too early to start looking now for an August arrival (because if being an AP is their gap year plan, many candidates have already gone through the application process). If you are looking for someone older with more work experience, more of those candidates will likely be added to the system in the coming months. That being said, I still don't think it hurts to start looking now. You can X out candidates you don't want to interview and "like" those that you do and choose to start making "connections" whenever you are ready to interview.

How do you do this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it depends on what type of candidate you are looking for. If you are looking for either a gap year candidate or someone who will have just graduated from university, it is not too early to start looking now for an August arrival (because if being an AP is their gap year plan, many candidates have already gone through the application process). If you are looking for someone older with more work experience, more of those candidates will likely be added to the system in the coming months. That being said, I still don't think it hurts to start looking now. You can X out candidates you don't want to interview and "like" those that you do and choose to start making "connections" whenever you are ready to interview.

How do you do this?

There is a little "X" in the upper right hand corner of each person's profile on the search page.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it depends on what type of candidate you are looking for. If you are looking for either a gap year candidate or someone who will have just graduated from university, it is not too early to start looking now for an August arrival (because if being an AP is their gap year plan, many candidates have already gone through the application process). If you are looking for someone older with more work experience, more of those candidates will likely be added to the system in the coming months. That being said, I still don't think it hurts to start looking now. You can X out candidates you don't want to interview and "like" those that you do and choose to start making "connections" whenever you are ready to interview.

I don’t think this advice makes much sense. And something is telling me that the PP is not a HM, but rather an LCC, or someone else, who is affiliated with CCAP. OP, if you follow this advice, you are going to spend much time looking through profiles now to decide which ones you may want to interview in the future. However, most of the good ones will be gone by the time you are ready. So chances are, you will have to start all over again. I suggest you wait until you are ready to devote time and energy to the matching process. Given last year’s disastrous experience with CC, I would not wait until April. Maybe start looking in March. I hope that reducing the number of matches to six rather than ten will make the process easier, though I probably would have done five or less. Anyway, good luck, OP!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it depends on what type of candidate you are looking for. If you are looking for either a gap year candidate or someone who will have just graduated from university, it is not too early to start looking now for an August arrival (because if being an AP is their gap year plan, many candidates have already gone through the application process). If you are looking for someone older with more work experience, more of those candidates will likely be added to the system in the coming months. That being said, I still don't think it hurts to start looking now. You can X out candidates you don't want to interview and "like" those that you do and choose to start making "connections" whenever you are ready to interview.

I don’t think this advice makes much sense. And something is telling me that the PP is not a HM, but rather an LCC, or someone else, who is affiliated with CCAP. OP, if you follow this advice, you are going to spend much time looking through profiles now to decide which ones you may want to interview in the future. However, most of the good ones will be gone by the time you are ready. So chances are, you will have to start all over again. I suggest you wait until you are ready to devote time and energy to the matching process. Given last year’s disastrous experience with CC, I would not wait until April. Maybe start looking in March. I hope that reducing the number of matches to six rather than ten will make the process easier, though I probably would have done five or less. Anyway, good luck, OP!

I am the PP, and I am a HM not affiliated with CCAP. You make a fair point and maybe I should have been clearer. Once you start liking people, you absolutely need to log in to CC everyday to see if those people are having connections maxed out. For context -here is my situation.
We are on a mid-August arrival time frame. I started sorting through profiles in early December (since I was less busy at work then) but I didn't really want to start interviewing until January. However, if I had seen any of my "likes" max out on connections, I would have started interviewing other people immediately. I started interviewing a few weeks ago and I believe we are close to matching. FWIW, I still have a lot of "likes" that I haven't connected with and I don't think there has ever been more than one at a time with maxed out connections.

I looked back through emails and we matched last year on January 31 for the same arrival time frame and the reason I started interviewing so early then was because I noticed candidates I liked were being held (still under the old system at the start of matching). I guess my thinking is, why wait until March when there are a lot of candidates now that may be gone by the time you start looking?

[Anonymous]

Following---I switched away from CCAP last year. MAYBE I'll go back. Honestly, it wasn't so much the new matching process that bothered me but the staff's total lack of acknowledging our valid complaints....get an attitude check, CCAP

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it depends on what type of candidate you are looking for. If you are looking for either a gap year candidate or someone who will have just graduated from university, it is not too early to start looking now for an August arrival (because if being an AP is their gap year plan, many candidates have already gone through the application process). If you are looking for someone older with more work experience, more of those candidates will likely be added to the system in the coming months. That being said, I still don't think it hurts to start looking now. You can X out candidates you don't want to interview and "like" those that you do and choose to start making "connections" whenever you are ready to interview.

I don’t think this advice makes much sense. And something is telling me that the PP is not a HM, but rather an LCC, or someone else, who is affiliated with CCAP. OP, if you follow this advice, you are going to spend much time looking through profiles now to decide which ones you may want to interview in the future. However, most of the good ones will be gone by the time you are ready. So chances are, you will have to start all over again. I suggest you wait until you are ready to devote time and energy to the matching process. Given last year’s disastrous experience with CC, I would not wait until April. Maybe start looking in March. I hope that reducing the number of matches to six rather than ten will make the process easier, though I probably would have done five or less. Anyway, good luck, OP!

I am the PP, and I am a HM not affiliated with CCAP. You make a fair point and maybe I should have been clearer. Once you start liking people, you absolutely need to log in to CC everyday to see if those people are having connections maxed out. For context -here is my situation.
We are on a mid-August arrival time frame. I started sorting through profiles in early December (since I was less busy at work then) but I didn't really want to start interviewing until January. However, if I had seen any of my "likes" max out on connections, I would have started interviewing other people immediately. I started interviewing a few weeks ago and I believe we are close to matching. FWIW, I still have a lot of "likes" that I haven't connected with and I don't think there has ever been more than one at a time with maxed out connections.

I looked back through emails and we matched last year on January 31 for the same arrival time frame and the reason I started interviewing so early then was because I noticed candidates I liked were being held (still under the old system at the start of matching). I guess my thinking is, why wait until March when there are a lot of candidates now that may be gone by the time you start looking?

Are you only talking with APs who have arrival dates close to August or are you also talking to those who are available now? I am not CCAP, but I am in the same situation, I need an AP for Ju;y, however most APs I talk to want to come earlier and don't want to seem to commit to July now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Are you only talking with APs who have arrival dates close to August or are you also talking to those who are available now? I am not CCAP, but I am in the same situation, I need an AP for Ju;y, however most APs I talk to want to come earlier and don't want to seem to commit to July now.

I am only looking at gap year Europeans, so they all want a summer arrival date.

[Anonymous]

just avoid CCAP. they have shitty admin's and LCC. avoid

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Are you only talking with APs who have arrival dates close to August or are you also talking to those who are available now? I am not CCAP, but I am in the same situation, I need an AP for Ju;y, however most APs I talk to want to come earlier and don't want to seem to commit to July now.

I am only looking at gap year Europeans, so they all want a summer arrival date.

Everyone we have looked at wants a summer arrival, but we always match with gap year au pairs. We generally start looking in Dec/Jan and match by Feb/March. I think that April might be too late to start looking.

[Anonymous]

I am matching now for a late July/early August and it’s busy busy busy! The good candidates are being snatched up, if you can even get them to respond! I am on CCAP and APC, and new ones come on daily. Now is the time. I hope I can match before someone else matches with my candidates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am matching now for a late July/early August and it’s busy busy busy! The good candidates are being snatched up, if you can even get them to respond! I am on CCAP and APC, and new ones come on daily. Now is the time. I hope I can match before someone else matches with my candidates.

I keep reading that there are so many more APs than HFs, how is it so competitive to match? Are there a lot of poor candidates?