[rani]

Met,

have a read through this thread on interviewing helpers

http://www.geobaby.com/forum/showthread.php?t=114395

[hunhun]

met_74,

My Filipino helper has a cousin who has over 10 years looking after babies and children in Singapore. Apparently, she is also absolutely fastastic at baking cakes. She is looking for a job in HK (as the salary here is higher). Give me your email address (hotmail, gmail etc will suffice) if you are interested in talking to her and I will email her details to you. I have talked to her on the phone, but have not met her personally, so you have to find out more about her yourself. I don't know how feasible it is to interview her beforehand, as she is in Singapore, I suppose one way to do it is to pass by S'pore when you fly to HK. As for paperworks, I can walk you through it if you want. It's not that hard.

Hunhun

[Britz208]

Met_74

The phone number is +(852) 91577149. The plan is call the Domestic Worker Protection. I think it should be more than adequate for your purpose. Alot of my expat friends have it too.
Hope this is helpful.

[PettsWood]

met_74

rani's link is very good. By now I am sure you have read it all.

As for the age group and how to pick a helper, I think it is getting very personal and lots of people would have very different ideas. I also think of it just as hiring people. Only rarely do you get someone meeting your exact requirements at a particular moment that you are hiring so it is always a compromise. I think it would be useful to get someone with adequate experience looking after kids in your case because it is not a trivia task. During interview a lot of helpers have the tendacy to say yes to everything you ask whether or not they have the skills or the patience. Having kids of their own does not mean much because some of them would have to work in HK the whole time while their children are being looked after at home.

One thing you may like to know is that you may find lots of them not having their contracts renewed for the third term which is not necessary a bad sign. This is only because if you have been with the same employer for six years or more, you have to pay an additional long-service fee when the relationship is finally severed. A lot of people would do anything to not to pay that even if that means getting rid of a good helper...

Do bear in mind that it takes time to hire someone. We hired ours six months after settling in so there was no problem with income and residence proof etc. Just for your interest, here's a link of one of the more well-known agency in HK: http://www.overseas.com.hk/web/html/...seas_index.jsp It does not have all the information and some are also confusing particularly regarding fees but we are talking about that range anyway (less than a month's salary of a helper).

Again hope this is useful.

[met_74]

Thank you all very much!