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[quote=Anonymous]You should call all the agencies that have a large presence in your area and arrange to meet with the coordinator. Who you have as a LCC will be your primary relationship with the agency and will be the person you deal with if you ever have to go into rematch. So you might as well interview her before committing.

Nothing is keeping you from signing up with multiple agencies. Some will charge a small fee to register, but if you call the main office, that may be able to give you a code to join for free (or they may have special promos every now and then).

I am with InterExchange and I have been happy with them, but they may not have a large presence in some areas, which means smaller clusters, or being far away to other APs.

Au Pair in America does not have male APs but they are the only ones with Canadians.

The matching systems and search engines are also different depending on the agencies.

Cultural Care and InterExchange have exclusive matching, which means that when you find a candidate and select to interview, you are the only person who has access to the profile. (CC will hide candidates that are being interviewed, IE will grey them out only so you can still review).

Au Pair Care allows candidates to be reviewed by up to 3 families at once (I think, maybe someone can confirm). They will also filter some candidates out of your results automatically if they don't meet certain criteria- which I don't particularly like. I want to see everyone.

APIA is more free for all. No limit in terms of number of families that can interview an Au Pair, so there could be a bit more competition. If your family might be difficult to match (a lot of kids, less desirable area, far from center), you may prefer exclusive matching.

Also to consider...
If you ever go into rematch with CC or APIA, whatever you have spent on your AP until the day she leaves is pretty much lost (vacation, tuition). Then if you get a new Au Pair you are responsible for paying what left she is owed, which might mean double vacation, double tuition int he same year. Also both agencies will only give you a 'credit' if you decide to leave the agency. APIA and InterExchange will prorate vacation and tuition and will give you back prorated fees left in the year if you choose to leave early.

CC will pay for the AP's flight back if she goes into rematch and does not find a new family. The other agencies I listed will ask AP to pay for her flight.

Lastly, in general I have found the fees from APIA and CC to be generally more expensive that IE. I just receive my bill for next year and it is $7225 repeat family and twin discount). Maybe other HF can chime in with their rates?

Of course, there are many more agencies out there. I think it would be great to have a spreadhseet to compare all of them.... Maybe I should do this in my spare time!

On how easy to find APs from a specific country, I think it really depends on how large is the pool with the agency. You may want to ask when you speak with the coordinator. They have access to the entire pool and should be able to tell you how many are available from your preferred country/countries.[/quote]

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