Evgenia@Contact Maid

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Process of selecting a SUITABLE MAID

Mostly it’s all about agreeing on general condition and teaching her in your way. Please pay attention to a lady’s experience and especially her first employer because the skills that she learned in her first family will stay with her forever. It may look not important enough but if you think deeply about it, Arabic or European or Asian mothers are even boiling potatoes in a different way 🙂 Imagine now, every single detail what she does, will have to be adjusted and changing it to your need will take a lot of time and power. Ask yourself how ready you are to invest such time and power. Thus, I would recommend choosing a person who already works for the same nationality or type of family (Arabic / European / Asian, etc.). Because there is a huge difference between Arabic and European types of daily routine.

One of the critical points of choosing a maid is her task learning time. Some ladies may take way longer than others.

Questions to discuss:

Basic rules (salary / benefits / vacation / etc.).

Previous employer nationality to make her adaptation process easier for you.

Run some short verbal test: combine 3 different tasks in one sentence and ask her to repeat it for you. If she can recall only 1 out of 3; then her learning process will take a very long time. Also, her ability to listen to you will reduce your frustration level unless you enjoy talking with yourself and things are never done in the right way, then you can skip this point 🙂

Another type of test you can perform in such a situation is showing her 3 different brands of kitchen cleaning liquid and see if she can confirm it’s all the same. After my home kitchen countertop has been cleaned with furniture polishing spray, I run this test all the time. This can be anything, feel free to create your own liquids 🙂

Running errands procedures. You will be surprised to know how many of those ladies have never seen a washing machine in their life…and I am very serious about it! Even a sophisticated fridge maybe something to discover. Unless you like your favorite wool pullover being washed in 90-degree one day and shrink to your daughter size after it I would recommend asking a lady to read clothes tags for you and once she is hired, be sure she will memorize washing machine cycles blindly!

Family budget plan. Unless you are a queen or super-rich lady with an unlimited budget, you may need to pay attention to extra expenses that this maid can put on your budget or it can be simply avoided. For instance, washing 1 towel in an empty washing machine, THEY LOVE TO DO IT! Your electricity and water bill will raise because she is not the one who is paying, remember this, she will not care unless you do.

https://contactmaid.com/process-of-selecting-a-suitable-maid/

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Looking for a Full or Part time Maid, Nanny, Pet Sitters or Governess? Select Online Preferred Candidates Today and Interview them Tomorrow. Individuals ONLY! No Agencies Allowed.

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This website was created to make the life of every mother in the Middle East easier, because, as a busy mum of 3 beautiful daughters, I strongly believe that every mother is a hero who deserves help and some time to rest. Being a mum, managing a job, maintaining a cozy home and having some sort of social life means that there are never enough hours in the day.

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www.contactmaid.com is the biggest online site in the Middle East, specifically designed for mothers who are suffering to find Maid, Nanny, Governess & Pet Sitter.

Our site supports more than 20 different languages.

The easiest way to register is to log in with your Facebook account. If you need more help Whatsapp on [phone].

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Hire Full or Part Time Maid, Babysitter, Pet Sitter or Governess Online & Search Jobs Locally or Abroad | Contact Maid

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Selecting the RIGHT NANNY GOVERNESS

Choosing the right Nanny is like getting married! I find it more difficult to get the right nanny than my beloved husband. When you live with someone for the long term, every small habit will make you feel frustrated. So, choose carefully! Once your kids become comfortable with her, it will be very difficult to change her.

We all dream about a GOVERNESS but searching for a NANNY. Honestly, I fall to this trap myself.

Understanding the difference between NANNY / GOVERNESS

NANNY The main role of a nanny is to provide a safe & caring environment. General responsibilities include all tasks related to the children’s care. Each nanny position may have slightly different responsibilities, but typically, nannies are responsible for keeping the children’s area neat and tidy, doing their laundry, in addition to providing attentive and high-quality childcare.

GOVERNESS A governess is an educationally qualified & employed by the parents to educate the children in their private household. Generally, governesses are not responsible for the general caregiving tasks but are primarily focused on education / lead children’s activities / hygiene training / teach manners / etc.

Actually, I have to say it will never be black and white, in most of the cases it will be always a combination between:

Maid 70%-Nanny 30% or

Nanny 70%-Maid 30% or

Nanny 70%-Governess 30% or

Governess 70%-Nanny 30%.

What will make a huge difference is your clear understanding of who do you actually need and what are you ready to give up receiving that required peace of mind and long waited rest! BUT PLEASE NEVER EXPECT GOVERNESS to be MAID AND NANNY IN ONE PERSON!!! This is a false expectation that will never lead you to a good choice!

Selecting your NANNY is a longer and more precise process. I would suggest:

Understand your priorities, what makes you rest? You will be surprised to know that this is not an easy task. Everyone believes that it’s all about cleaning. In reality, there may be totally different things to make you feel rested and relaxed. For instance, in my case, I need to continue night sleep and it must be 8 hours long. I am ready to compromise other duties as long as I am well rested at night. So, you have to find your pain points and be sure you will make your helper understand what is most important.

Be ready to give up or skip some maid/ housekeeping tasks if you need a maid; this is a must. This may take some time as well because now you will say its ok, I will close my eyes but when it comes to the reality you may not be able to cope with it.

Remember it’s all about you! You will have to discuss the priority points during the interview, like waking up during the night or performing some other duties; as not everyone will be ready to perform.

Asking RIGHT questions will make it way easier to shorten your candidate list. I have selected a questionnaire interview list, you can read it here: https://contactmaid.com/what-to-ask-in-interview-20-basic-questions/

https://contactmaid.com/selecting-the-right-nanny-governess/

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MAID vs NANNY. 3 CRITICAL MISTAKES

I have come upon with 3 major mistakes that most of the women make while choosing helper, which are listed below:

MISTAKE 1. Many mothers make mistakes while choosing proper helper which often leads to a lot of misunderstanding, frustration, & fights on both sides. You must be honest with yourself who you need more, it’s a critical point for your satisfaction and long relationship with this lady. The formula of understanding your needs is easy; if your child spends more than 20% of the time with your maid, then you definitely need a nanny. However, it’s only applicable if you are not at home.

MISTAKE 2. To expect one person to do everything and with a perfect result. Even you as Mother can not do everything alone and perfectly, so how can you expect domestic workers to be able to do it? That is why selecting your priorities will help you to give up some secondary tasks that you may close your eyes on. Actually, I must say it’s not that easy as you may expect, it’s very common in human nature to expect more and more. The best practice which I have discovered by bringing me back to reality is to close your eyes and imagine your life without this help!!! Trust me, you will be back on track very quickly 🙂

For better understanding, differentiate between their duties:

MAID: Is someone who is employed to assist in domestic chores. She is employed to carry out tasks like cleaning the house and cooking, ironing, washing, cleaning the house. Priority is given to cleaning.

NANNY: Refers to a person who is employed to take care of the children in a household. A nanny housekeepers make a balance between domestic duties and care of the children, but priority is given to kids and safety.

MISTAKE 3. The majority of mothers use the same questions to select between maid & nanny. I strongly believe it’s absolutely wrong. The process of selecting each one of them is totally different; the salary range also differs. It’s a different type of relationship between you & maid / you & nanny. While in the first case, a maid is relatively easy to change, it’s not that critical who will clean your dishes. However, it absolutely matters who will shower your kids when you are not at home or administer medicine on time or even stand up at night when they cry.

At the end of the day, it’s your relaxation level which will help you to understand that you made the right choice. I heard from many mothers trying to convince themselves that they did the right choice but next minute complaining about their maid. I would say that a happy relaxing smile on your face will tell everything.

Be honest with yourself and you will get that rest you are looking for!

https://contactmaid.com/maid-vs-nanny-3-critical-mistakes/

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Trial is over! SHE ARRIVED! WHERE TO START?

After interviewing, hiring, and having a trial with the one… It’s time to start with the actual work. Let’s have a look at the suggested below points.

Firstly, you will have to set clear priorities for her most important tasks. Remember she will try to do everything at the same time to satisfy you while compromising your priorities most of the time. If she gets used to it, then she will do what she believes is a priority. This will create a big problem for you in the long term. To avoid this, you will have to return her back on track as she will start to run out of power very soon.

Write it down! I mean it, write it down; depending on the duties everything must be written… No matter how much you believe she will remember, trust me, in the next 24 hours she will hardly recall 15-20% of what you will tell her. So, you can make a task list with 1st and 2nd priorities to make it more clear. 

No matter how experienced this lady is! She will require 6 months to become perfect (if you can say this). I am with the opinion that an extremely experienced lady will take about a month, in most cases, when getting used to your family will take around 3 months. However, if a lady is fresh with no experience, be ready to invest 6 months of your time. It’s good and bad at the same time; the less experience this lady has, the more you can customize her under your requirements…

On the first day, I will suggest discussing your home rules: 

Grooming routine included, but not limited to: hair tightening during work hours / nail shortening / using specific perfume etc. 

Where to keep her phone during working hours 

Home closes (uniform if any) & sleeping clothes. I get a lot of complaints that some ladies would like to sleep naked or nearly naked, which creates some tension within the family. 

Using electricity & water which can dramatically affect your bill 

Sharing family / children photos on her social media profiles 

Performing religion-related procedures outside or inside the house 

Bringing friends home rules & sharing family details with them in private conversations 

Calling her family timing and allowance, if any, because in many cases her family may not have internet at home, so she will need to use normal phone & charges will apply.

Going out to public area with you or your children and making friends with other domestic working ladies j. setting up her wardrobe and keeping it clean & tidy k. in case of sleeping out agreement, exact time to come back 

She will probably need some toiletries or a few other items, get a list and order it. Which one to buy? Well, this is totally up to you…

My biggest advice here is not to move as much as possible. Your first intention must be to run around and show her everything, but after you have done with it, sit & watch. Every action that you want to do, stop yourself and ask your lady to do it. This will be the best and fastest time for her to learn. If you continue doing it yourself, she will never get used to it and will never learn.

https://contactmaid.com/trial-is-over-she-arrived-where-to-start/

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10 SIMPLE STEPS to select Suitable Maid or Nanny for an interview!

Are you not with the right candidate for the first time? Don’t worry! It happens sometimes when people cannot get the right helper. This might depend on your requirement and it may take a few rounds of the interview as well. As per my experience, I would suggest simple steps:

Call each one of them one by one; Try to clear all the basic questions over a simple phone call and you will be surprised that your selection list will lose half of its candidates. Also, be ready to hear totally different information that you may read in CV!!! I was shocked and was grateful to myself to call them first. From 15 candidates, I was left with 2 after phone screening!

Select any public place that is easy to be reached by public transport. Be ready that majority the candidate will be late sometimes for about an hour!

Each interview will be around 45 min to 1 hour… You will also need to take a deep breath in between, so having 10 min will be a good idea…

Now the most common question is what should I ask? Well, it took me a lot of time to set these questionnaires for you, but I am happy to share it. This whole site as you notice is build using my question system which I was working on really hard. Read my Questions for 1st interview blog https://contactmaid.com/what-to-ask-in-interview-20-basic-questions/

After you are done and barely can reach back home))) Take a deep breath 🙂 Avoid making decisions on the same day.

The next day, you will need to inform a few selected ladies that you have selected them and willing to go forward. Ask these ladies to confirm whether they are willing to work as per your discussed conditions or not. You will be surprised that some of them will reject your proposal after chatting with their friends or relatives.

Ask them if they have any more questions, most of them will do!

Few selected candidates finally can be invited to your home, where they can see real working conditions and probably meet some of the family members.

On 2nd interview, I would propose to ask a totally different type of questions which will give you a clearer understanding of the person in front of you. Inform candidate (if selected) where she needs to come for 2-3 days of trial, so she can bring some of her needed stuff & clothes with her.

Here is the most important point of this blog. YOU MUST TRY every lady you have selected. Be prepared if some ladies may reject working with you after trial, at least better now than later! You save your time and money, not to mention your nerves 🙂

I would suggest that at the end of the trial, don’t forget to pay these 2-3 days! Simply divide 30 days on the agreed salary and give them this amount. I honestly suggest covering transportation too, however, this is definitely up to you…

My biggest advice at this stage is to remain silent during your interview. The majority of women make the mistake of talking; please remember, the more she talks, the more real stories will come out. I would also suggest you sleep without analyzing anything you see that day and start thinking about it by tomorrow. Your decision will be way clearer about what you have seen yesterday.

https://contactmaid.com/10-simple-steps-to-select-suitable-maid-or-nanny-for-interview/

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WHAT TO ASK IN INTERVIEW? 20 BASIC QUESTIONS

If you are wondering about what to ask her during the interview, then I can help you here. Below are the categories listed to sort out the 20 interview questions.

CANDIDATE DETAILS: Start with some basic information like:

Availability status, end of tourist / residential visa / grace period (for trial Purpose in case, if she will be selected)?

Possible joining date and last vacation time. I found that many of them once selected suddenly remember that they didn’t go on a vacation and they need it right now ))

How do you spend your free time? What are you doing? How many friends you have? Where are they? What do they work? Maybe some of you will say it’s not important, in my case I find this to be extremely important because there are many different types of characters and I was specifically looking for a homely person. I didn’t feel secure to hire someone who only counts hours to escape from home and go to a party. At the same time, I want this person to feel comfortable while staying home most of the time.

Candidate family status & amount of kids (boys/girls)? What age did you leave them? Who helps you to grow them? Upon asking these questions to ladies, I found that a lot of ladies ONLY deliver their children but NEVER RAISE them! They just simply give kids to their relatives or family members and travel for work. If you are looking for a nanny, be sure your selected candidate has grown her kids herself until at least 3 years and after that only had started traveling for work!

EXPERIENCE:

How many years of experience & in which countries? List all of them.

I strongly believe that the first experience makes a huge difference. The first employer will inculcate the basic working skills that will be very hard to change after and the more experience a person has, the more time will require to adjust them. My advice is to choose an experience that suits your requirements. For example, a lady working in a European home with 2 children will hardly fit in an Arabic house with 5 kids. The difference in tradition and way of handling household are huge. The way these 2 ladies structure their daily routine is totally different, as well as kids’ babysitter relationships, also vary. Adjusting those habits will require double-time rather than teaching a fresh lady with similar to yours or with 0 experience.

Ask to mention them all one by one and pay attention to the type of employing family (Arabic / European / Asian etc.) that make the whole difference! Remember to ask the same questions listed below per each employer:

Employer name, why is it important? You will be surprised how many times experience doesn’t exist and was created only to add some fake value, asking precise name will reveal this point.

Mother’s daily routine makes a huge difference in the ability of maid to work Independently; schedule her tasks and be sure that it gets executed and completed Properly especially if kids are involved. It is a critical point to understand if kids spend the whole day alone with nanny without mother supervision. That is why you must ask the lady to describe her daily routine in each house hour by hour!

How was your day in this family from morning till night?

Resignation reason. Even I believe most of the ladies will not reveal the truth but it is worth trying!

Cooking / what type of food they use to eat / did you eat with them? Honestly, this is not much important point but can bring you some free time. A lot of ladies will tell you they can cook, but be sure and check it yourself.

JOB RELATED:

What salary will make you feel comfortable under my working conditions? The majority of them are ready to accept any salary just to get a job, especially without knowing the whole details it’s difficult to decide.

Put as a priority: cleaning or babysitting. That looks like an easy question, but many candidates were honestly answering and that was my rejection point in many cases because most of them were putting cleaning as a priority on kids and in my case that was not acceptable.

What is your previous medical history? Do you have any allergies\ intolerances? Smoking?

Benefits expected?

What is your biggest fear?

What are the factors which make you lose your temper?

How do you feel about a dress code/ uniform/ tight hair/ short nails?

SOME IDEAS ON TESTING QUESTIONS:

In case of fire, would you use stairs or elevator?

Run some short verbal test:

Combine 3 different tasks in one sentence and ask her to repeat it for you. If she can recall only 1 out of 3, her learning process will take a very long time. Also, her ability to listen to you will reduce your frustration level unless you enjoy talking with yourself when things are never done in the right way then you can skip this point.

Another type of test you can perform in such a situation is showing her 3 different brands of kitchen cleaning liquid and see if she can confirm these are all the same. After my home kitchen countertop has been cleaned with furniture polishing spray, I run this test all the time. This can be anything, feel free to create your own liquids.

https://contactmaid.com/what-to-ask-in-interview-20-basic-questions/