Some tips for hiring/interviewing the helper/maid/FDW

You might read through lots of articles about how to interview helpers, as an employment agency, our most terrifying employers are the people who hold one book listed with many questions they copied online, but neglected their real needs for employing the helper. Every time, they found they were not attractive enough for the helpers they desired for. Here’s the article different from most the others, and we will tell you the true reason.

1, Am I an attractive employer

To be honest, every helper wants to find a job with more money, less workload, more rest day and a dream employer who can also respect her. But helpers’ voice for salary is low, so they will choose work that might not be so exhausting.

We have an employer A, 5 persons in total, 2 adults and 3 kids, 2 dogs, live in 3 floors landed house with one basement, they wanted to find a super experienced helper to work for them. On the other hand, helper with rich experience they all refuse to work for them just hearing 3 floors. So this kind of employers aren’t the popular employers. Our suggestion for them is to give more job opportunities to new helpers who have no working experience as helper before, they are more humble and eagle for a job.

2, Focus on your real needs

What problem bothers you most and you expect the helper to solve urgently, like taking care of the newborn, taking care a stroked elder, or just doing house cleaning and cooking. Always focus on your urgent needs. It is so difficult to find a perfect helper, she loves to play with kids, has passion for cooking, very patient for elders even facing scolding, likes gardening and learning for new things. The perfect helper always come from mutual efforts from both employer and helper, and it usually takes long time to that step.

3, Ask relevant questions

List relevant questions, if you are interviewing an experienced helpers, it is much more important to ask her daily working details than just throwing your own requests. Some helpers they are eagle to find a job so they will say yes to all your requirements but found herself inadequate for her tasks. Those helpers who say no to some of your requests are not bad, on the contrary, they take seriously to all your requirements. You should ask yourself, are these requirements that important and must be stick to ?

4, Do not follow the online posts blindly

Some employers don’t have many requirements at first place, but after going through some posts, she felt the posts really make sense and changed her requirements into a long list.

Employer B, very nice person, because she never hired helper before, so she download an article about 100 questionnaires for interview. Including all clothes hand wash, all floor hand mop, massage every day, no handphone at home. The employer’s intention is to find an hard working helper, she thought if the helper can accept all her requirements means she is hard working. No doubts, the whole interview process went horrible, the helpers she interested in all turned her down.

Employer C, long relationship with us, we know she is pretty easy going, but her problem is she behaved totally different during her interview, no smile and very serious, her attitude gave helper lots of pressure during interview. One helper she interviewed for a long time, and at the beginning, the helper was very polite and patient facing every aggressive question, then the employer expressed that she wanted to offer her, and asked her one last question that whether she can accept hand washing all the clothes, the helper replied cannot, employer took a back step say she only needed to hand wash T shirt, but the helper still replied cannot, the employer has no choice but give up this helper. Actually, we know the helper can do hand wash, she just don’t want to work with this employer, she thought the employer would be very demanding during her daily work.

5, Please treat the helper as employee, not family member in the first place, and you’d better choose upon your own condition

1. If employer is very busy and has no time to teach helper, should hire an experienced helper. Usually the experienced helper can work independently, but also she will ask for more rights as she know her value.
2. First employer should hire an experienced helper, if the employer is uncertain about anything, she can ask the helper for advice.
3. If employer has guideline of doing chores and want helper to follow exactly, it is better to hire a new helper so that she can fully adapted to employer’s needs. Usually new helpers are more hard working but not so fast at the very beginning, need the employer to be very patient.

6, Your attitude during interview is important

Experienced , unlike the new helpers, they know what kind employers they are looking for, because they are experienced, they know what their advantages are and what kind of work they don’t want to do.

The good experienced helpers are like hot cakes in market, if employer acted too superior and aggressive during interview, they might not get her dream helper. If you really like to hire someone, need to show your sincerity during interview. 

7，Don’t be too sympathetic, hiring a helper simply because she is talking about her tragic experience.

Some helpers met terrible employers indeed, some just like to act vulnerable to manipulate others. So you need to pay attention to the words and try to tell the differences rationally.

8, Lots of interview capped at the handphone use

If the employer insist on helper’s limitation of hand phone use, make sure you made it very clear during interview.

About the handphone use, some employers have some misunderstandings, if helper have time to play her phone means she is not hard working. Some helpers work efficiently and they do their work well and fast. If the handphone is not a barrie during her work, we suggest employer do not need to set much limitation on her handphone use.

If the helper has very little time to use her phone, she will become more addicted to her phone, like you don’t allow your kids to have candy, they become crave for candy sickly. If you allow the kid to eat, they won’t think about candy all the day.

If their desire always being suppressed, sometime it turn out lying. Some employer found out the helper would buy another handphone when employer has limitation on helper’s handphone use.

In additionally, if you like the helper you interview means she is better than other, and under most circumstances, other employer also like her better than others.

It is obvious that employer will choose the helper she/he likes, but we also know the helper will also choose the employer she likes better, especially for the experienced helper.

Please show your kindness during interview to attract your desired helper.

We have a case, actually many cases like employer E and employer F

Employer E, offers 750 basic salary to a Philippine transfer helper, they are quite rude during interview;

Employer F, can only offer 700 basic salary to the same helper,  but with less requirements and act more friendly

 If the helper don’t want to look for new employers and want to settle asap, she would mostly choose employer F instead of employer E.

A good helper is the same as good employee, she wants to work with an employer she likes most. The whole article is about some tips of how to make yourself more attractive when you want a good helper. We will be very glad if you found it useful.