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[quote=Anonymous]I have been with InterExchange for many years and enjoy their lower prices (non-profit) and excellent service. Though I agree that if you want to edge your bets in case of rematch, their rematch pool is thin and you cannot 'shop' for rematches yourself on the Website. That being said, our coordinator hails a 12% rematch for her cluster, and so do we (1 rematch out of 8 APs). I wonder if their rematch rate might be lower? (I guess we will never know...). We experienced one rematch and quickly rematched with one of our best APs.

Personally, I have found the candidates to be well qualified, but I have often pre-matched with au pairs I found myself online who were already with APC or CC and brought them to InterExchange. All of the APs I brought over to IE told me it was much cheaper for them to switch over anyway (especially true for the CC candidate).

My impression of other agencies is primarily based on my interaction with the LCC and matching specialists.

I found CCs search engine to be great, and their matching specialist was very eager to help, but the LCC was a complete dud and I don't like their refund policy, so I would never go with CC.

APCs coordinator seemed really great, and diligent. They have a similar refund policy to CC though, and I really dislike their search engine. They hide a lot of candidates for various reasons (CC does it too...).

Finally APIA's coordinator was my favorite but her cluster was over 40 families! I can't imagine how she can provide a personalized service under these circumstances (we are about 15-20 families in our IE cluster). Their search engine is pretty bare, and I found the profiles to be not very detailed, but I could see everyone, which I liked. And although I appreciate the exclusive matching of IE and CC, I can also get behind the 'free for all' of APIA's matching system which basically allows APs to speak with multiple families at once.

I would suggest you sign up with multiple agencies and experience the difference for yourself. You don't have to pay for anything until you match anyway. It may seem like you have to pay to register, but if you call the office they should be able to give you free access. Also if you are looking for one country specifically, it may help to call the agencies in advance and ask how many candidates they have from that country, and ask about how they vet candidates from that country. For example, CC has their own offices in countries they pool from (which some families like a lot), and IE (and others) might work with partnering agencies abroad. I really really like IE's partnering agency from the country I pool from. I feel like I know them personally and really trust their interview/assessment. They also stay very involved once their APs are here in the USA.

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