Cultural care au pair

[Anonymous]

whats your experience been? Pros and cons. Would like to hear from au pairs and host families

[Anonymous]

We never got past the matching phase because our au pair's visa was denied. Honestly probably dodged a bullet because one of her references rescinded her recommendation not long after.

We were frustrated with the lack of immediate responsiveness after the visa denial. We'd assumed that our candidate's English ability was adequate to pass the embassy screening interview since she had made the initial cut to get into the CC system. This was a mistake--they want to have as many candidates as possible on the page to give the impression that we have tons of choices. In reality, they likely never expected anyone would be able to communicate in our candidate's somewhat obscure native language and to move on after being unable to communicate effectively in English... Eventually they re-tested her English and concluded that no, she didn't actually speak English.

On the plus side, we got all of our money back, including fees that aren't typically returned.

[Anonymous]

Every agency sucks in their own way. You just need to pick your poison.

[Anonymous]

The 11:19 poster is not informed about the requirements of the visa interview. Its not about the language - the interviews are typically conducted in the local language - Its about convincing the consular officer that the potential AP is not a risk to "overstay" her visa and remain in the US after her time as an au pair is over. She failed to convince them.

[Anonymous]

We are with CC and it works fine. We love out LCC, but I know that we got very lucky.

[Anonymous]

Pros: large pool of au pairs
Cons: unprofessional when it comes to any sort of remediation

Overall: Don't recommend unless you really want a specific candidate from them. Like the PP said above, we were fine with them also until there was an issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The 11:19 poster is not informed about the requirements of the visa interview. Its not about the language - the interviews are typically conducted in the local language - Its about convincing the consular officer that the potential AP is not a risk to "overstay" her visa and remain in the US after her time as an au pair is over. She failed to convince them.

Interviews for visas are definitely conducted in English in Mexico and Thailand (the two countries I have experience with). They give a lot of leeway, but it's in at least spanglish in Mexico.

Who they are as a candidate has to match what it says on their application. If someone arrives at an embassy who is supposed to speak fluent spanish and they speak none, it's a red flag.