Au Pair Resumes & Writing Guide

Are you looking to travel the world and land your first gig as an Au Pair? Or perhaps you have done it before and want a change of scenery/country/continent. Well, you are on the right webpage because our Au Pair resume sample and write up is the perfect tool to get you started in designing your own unique resume.

An Au Pair is defined as a young person from a foreign country who assists the family with housework and childcare in exchange for board and lodging. Au Pairs also receive a weekly stipend or pocket money during their employment.

Our Au Pair resume guideline will show you step by step how to present your experience, qualifications, accomplishments, and critical skills to a potential employer or hiring agent.

Au Pair Resume Sample

(Free sample downloads are at the bottom of this page)

Au Pair Resume Writing Guide

Resume Sections

1. Contact Information:

  • Name
  • Address
  • Phone
  • Email
  • Nationality

2. Career Summary:
Your professional summary should be designed in such a way as to provide the potential employer with an incentive to review your entire resume. Things to include would be the total number of years experience as in an Au Pair, or in a Childcare Environment, the ages of the children cared for personality traits, and achievement or two. The aim is to hook the person into calling you up for an interview.

3. Qualifications Summary:
Most Au Pairs have just completed High School, but there are instances where a family may need someone with an associate’s or bachelor's degree. Make sure to state your highest qualification and also include training programs, workshops, certifications, or courses that you have completed, which will add value to the role of an Au Pair. Provide accurate details about the licenses, certifications, and qualifications you have finished with the institution, qualification name, and dates. Don’t forget to include the qualifications you are currently in the process of completing.

4. Relevant Au Pair Experience:
Au Pairs may have different responsibilities depending on the hosting family’s needs and requirements. Highlight the primary purpose of each Au Pair job you have held and use bullet points underneath to explain daily or weekly tasks. Also, include contactable references with each post you decide to list on your resume. Keep descriptions brief and to the point and remember the resume length should not exceed more than two pages.

5. Other Employment Experience:
If this is your first Au Pair gig, feel free to include additional employment experiences you have had working with children from instance babysitting or volunteering at a creche, for example. The tutoring experience is also relevant to childcare as well as helping out at the afterschool programs in your area. Camp counseling is another example of a relevant vocational experience you can add to fill up your resume.

6. Skills Summary/Key Skills:
A separate skills section may boost the impact of your application significantly because you are providing a list of the most prominent technical skills and also interpersonal skills, which gives the reader insight into your proficiencies as well as the type of person you are. The best way to add capabilities is by using a Skills Matrix. More on this later on in this write-up. A skills summary also helps to get your resume noticed by recruiters (whether human or IA), mainly if you use the same wording of the skills set listed by the job advertisement.

What to Highlight in an Au Pair Resume

To land an au-pair job, you need to create a compelling resume with all the vital details that parents and family representatives need to know about you to decide on whether you would fit into the family structure and get along with their children.

The first aspect to highlight would be your availability. Some Au Pairs work part-time because they combine childcare work with studying at a university in the host country. How many hours would you be available to the family? Au Pairs in general work between 20 – 45 hours per week. Also, indicate whether you are available during weekends and if you are comfortable traveling with the family when they go on vacation or take short trips during weekends.

Have a look at the Au Pair Classifications below and choose the one that is most applicable to your circumstances:

  • Full-time Student Au Pairs:
    They are available for more than 4 hours per day and Part-Time Student Au Pairs for about 1-2 hours per day or 1-2 days during the week, depending on their other commitments.
  • Teacher Au Pairs:
    They are educators who work at schools during the mornings but are available to look after children in the afternoons and evenings as well as during weekends. They also have associate degrees and even teaching licenses with emphasis placed on helping students to improve their academic performance in conjunction with the regular duties of an Au Pair.
  • Personal Assistant/Au Pair:
  • In this role, you are also assisting one of the parents or both with administrative tasks, personal errands, events planning, or managing household staff in addition to the typical duties of an au pair. A PA Au Pair usually have more extended hours, sometimes up to 10 per day.
  • Professional Au Pair:
    Even though the majority of Au Pairs are recent school leavers or freshers from university, there is a percentage of individuals that make a full-time career out of it. They have many years of experience, have worked in numerous countries, and are excellent with infant care, toddler care, and early childhood development. Professional Au Pairs also stay with one family for a long time, maybe five years or more, as opposed to the usual Au Pair gig that lasts 12 to18 months.

Now that you have classified yourself accordingly, its time to tell your Au Pair story. This may include a paragraph of the countries you have been to before (whether traveled or to be an Au Pair), the languages you can speak and understand, the type of families you have assisted in the past, and also the ages of the children you have cared for previously.

Then delve into your main childcare proficiencies and skills. To help you create this paragraph, think of the primary activities in the daily life of a child in terms of mealtime, bath time, sleep time, going to school, returning from school, attending extramural activities, playtime and doing homework.

  • Mealtimes: Describe your role in this regard. Are you responsible for breakfast and lunch or tasked witch cooking a proper dinner for the children in the evenings?
  • Bath Time: Do you bathe the children under your care and if so at what time during the evenings and explain the typical bathing routine? (sounds like much detail, but be as descriptive as you can without writing a book)
  • Sleep Time: Do you read them stories, help with prayers?
  • School: Are you expected to drive the children to school and fetch them from school? What are the drop off and pick up times? Do you have an international driver’s license and a clean driving record? Are you used to automatic vehicles only, or can you drive with a stick?
  • Extra-Curricular: Are you responsible for taking the children under your care to their various afterschool activities and pick them up again afterward? Which additional activities do they have and what is the schedule during the week?
  • Play Time: What is your role during playtime? Are you actively involved and engaging in games with them or merely overseeing what they do to make sure they don’t hurt each other?
  • Homework: Do you help with homework or only supervise that schoolwork is being completed?
  • Housework: Some Au Pairs are expected to assist with light housekeeping such as cleaning the children's rooms, tidying up after mealtimes, loading and unloading the dishwasher, and also shopping for groceries and food items. Be sure to mention your exact responsibilities in this regard.

Next on the list is the safety, emergency, and security aspects of your experience. You need to mention certifications such as First Aid and CPR and also indicate if you ever had to make use of this training where an accident or event has taken place.

The last section to highlight is specialist skills if you have any worth mentioning. These may include being able to care for special needs kids, unruly adolescents with learning problems, or infants from a few weeks old. If you have potty trained toddlers before, this is the paragraph to mention it in. Also, experience in sleep training or having skills in play therapy and motor stimulation should also be discussed here.

Au Pair Career Summary

Au Pairs apply for jobs in droves because it is such an exciting opportunity to get immersed in another culture, learn a foreign language and receive free board and lodging (having a passion for children is, of course, a given).

Parents and families require the services of Au Pairs because their schedules are so hectic that they need assistance in taking care of their children. With this in mind, imagine the limited time these parents have to read through resume applications. Make their lives that much easier by including a career summary underneath your personal particulars on the first page of the resume document.

Parents can be antsy about whom they entrust to take care of their children; therefore your summary needs to be packed to core competencies, personality traits and value-adding statements to catcher their attention and reinforce the message that you would be a good fit for their kids

With that said, remember it is a career ‘’SUMMARY” not an essay/ Write 4-6 lines in paragraph format or uses bullet points. The entire summary should take no more than a few seconds to read.

Examples

Career Summary 1

Enthusiastic, competent, and energetic Au Pair with a level head and proven record of providing exemplary childcare assistance to families. Well-groomed and eloquent with a diplomatic demeanor. Specialized competencies include tutoring mathematics and science subjects for Elementary School children. A registered play therapist with a Bachelor’s Degree in Early Childhood Development. Fluent in English, French, and German. Transported children daily with a 100% clean driving record.'

Career Summary 2

Junior Au Pair with copious amounts of energy and enthusiasm in looking after toddlers between the ages of 2 and 4 on a full-time basis. Certified Child Development Associate (CDA) with 12 months of experience caring for twins aged three at the Wilson Family residence. Responsible for attending to children’s daily needs, including mealtimes, free play, emotional and physical stimulation activities, as well as potty training. Completed comprehensive training in CPR and Advanced First Aid via the American Red Cross Association. Holds an international driver’s license and has a clean driving record.

Career Summary 3
'Compassionate, diligent Au Pair with a passion for children of all ages. A career Au Pair with over 15 years of experience assisting families in Europe, Australia, and American with their childcare requirements. Proven commitment to providing excellent quality emotional, mental, and physical care for children while helping with their social and educational development. Highly skilled in infant care as well as looking after special needs toddlers. Certified in CPR, Advanced First Aid, and Children’s Nutrition.'

Au Pair Job Descriptions, Responsibilities and Duties

A family representative or parent would expect to review your primary duties and experience previously gained in other Au Pair or Childcare positions. Be as specific as possible without waffling on with obligations just to fill empty space. When listing previous Au Pair work tenure, including the family’s name first, followed by the dates

Herewith a few generic Au Pair job descriptions to help you get started

Live-In Au Pair:

  • Responsible for taking care of 6-year-old twin girls
  • Prepare breakfast in the morning and pack lunch boxes with nutritious foods
  • Drop the twins off at school in the mornings and fetch them in the afternoons
  • Drive children to ballet class twice a week and violin lessons once a week
  • Provide them with a mid-afternoon snack before they start their homework
  • Assist with homework activities where needed
  • Take them to play dates during weekends
  • Occasionally drive the children to doctor’s appointments when neither one of the parents are available
  • Ensure that children are fed and bathed by 7 pm in the evenings

Au Pair/Personal Assistant: 

  • Responsible for business administration activities during the mornings
  • Tasked with taking care of an eight-year-old girl and a ten-year-old boy in the afternoons when they come home from school
  • Schedule appointments with clients and handle all email correspondence
  • Do shopping for dinner parties and organize vendors for décor and serving staff
  • Tidy up the children's rooms after they have left for school
  • Responsible for washing and laundry duties as well as ironing the children's clothes
  • Supervise contractors and tradesman such as plumbers, carpenters, and gardeners when they complete projects at the house
  • Tidying up the children's rooms
  • Washing and laundry duties, including ironing the children’s clothes
  • Meet the children at the bus stop and walk them home after school
  • Assist the children to complete their homework assignments
  • Prepare mid-afternoon snacks and refreshments
  • Read stories to them before bedtime
  • Take them on outings during holidays such as the Waterpark, Museum or Adventure Playground Centre

Teacher Au Pair:

  • Help to promote the academic, social and mental development of two children of ages 5 and 7
  • Provide after school tutoring in mathematics and science at the school premises
  • Take the children home after tutoring lessons are done
  • Engaged in play therapy sessions with time twice per week, and supervising free playtimes
  • Oversee homework assignments and class projects
  • Teach the children basic Spanish and French
  • Prepare the evening meal for the family
  • Ensure that the children bathe themselves and clean up their rooms before dinner
  • Read stories to the children before bedtime

Highlight Your Accomplishments

The accomplishment section is integral to an Au Pair’s resume because parents and families are eager to find out what makes you the right fit for their children. If you can showcase the benefit and the positive contribution you made to other families and children from previous employment stints, your chances of standing out from the rest of the applications are so much more favorable.

Writing accomplishment statements can be tricky, but if you incorporate these three aspects, your resume is good to go:

  1. Think of activities you had to do where you improved in the children or family’s daily lives
  2. Now explain what that improvement or value-adding factor was
  3. Add quantification to your accomplishment statement by providing numerical values such as time frames, scores, percentages, rankings or frequencies
  • Received three letters of recommendation from the family, physician, and psychologist during the period caring for an autistic boy aged 11 and making a valuable contribution to his social skills by taking him to volunteer at an animal shelter once a week
  • Assisted a ten-year-old girl by improving her overall academic performance by 45% after realizing that she has dyslexia and bringing that the parent’s attention which in turn got her the professional help she needed
  • Assisted a six-year-old boy with basic maths principles resulting in his performance increasing by 15% within the first four months of the school year
  • Transported children to school daily without being late once in 12 months coupled with maintaining a 100% clean driving record

Au Pair Education Section

The majority of Au Pairs can get jobs with just a High School Diploma, and if this is your highest qualification, make sure to beef up this section with courses you have completed or self-learning conducted online. The other percentage of Au Pairs start with their 12-month contracts after completing a degree at university or studying while they are au-pairing part-time.

Ensure to provide accurate details about your highest qualifications, date completed, title, and institution Remember to mention the current qualifications you busy completing too. Regarding courses and certifications, discretion and relevance must be considered. Think about what parents would be interested in hearing about, for instance, that you are certified in Water Safety, have completed an Advanced Driving Course, or special skills to care for infants.

Completed Post School Education should be listed as follows:

2015 – Professional Au Pair Certification, English Au Pair & Governess School, Chagrin Falls, OH

2014 – Certified Advanced Infant Caretaker, Newborn Care Specialist Association (NCSA)

2013 – Basic Au Pair Skills Programme, International Au Pair Association (INA), Milwaukee, WI

2012 – Intermediate Driving Course, AAA, Denver, CO

2012- CPR certification, American Red Cross, FL

2012 – Water Safety Education, American Red Cross, FL

2011 – Child Development Associate (CDA), Council for Professional Recognition, Washington, DC

2010-2013 Associates Degree in Education, University of Ohio, OH

What to Write in an Au Pair Resume Skills Section

Being an Au Pair is a hectic but incredibly fun and also rewarding job to have. However, it places a tremendous amount of responsibility on your shoulders, and your technical proficiency in caring for children should be top-notch. Apart from hard skills, parents will also be interested in your interpersonal traits when ranking you as a potential contender for the job.

Instead of using bullet points to list your crucial skill, why not opt for skills matrixes as per the example below:

Technical Proficiencies

English - ExcellentGrocery ShoppingAdministering Medicine
French - NativeCreating GamesCleaning & Sanitizing
Spanish - CompetentCharacter ImpersonationSupervising Children
Meal Planning & PreparationVacuuming, Dusting, and MoppingHomework Assistance
CPR & First Aid KnowledgeLaundry, Washing & IroningDressing Children
Childhood DevelopmentSense of DirectionToddler Care
New Born CareAdvanced Driving SkillsPositive Discipline
Potty TrainingChanging NappiesPreparing Baby Formula

Interpersonal Skills

CommunicationLoyalProblem Solver
Cultural SensitivityResponsibleIndependent
Adaptable & FlexibleEmotionally MatureSound Judgement
ResourcefulSafety ConsciousPatience
MeticulousEnthusiasticConflict Resolution
PunctualPhysical StaminaOrganization Ability
TrustworthyCreativeTime Management
EmpatheticIntegrityAccountable

Qualifications/Certifications associated with Au Pairs

CPR CertifiedDriver's LicenseNutrition and Cooking Courses
Water-Safety CertificationSpecial Needs Care for ToddlersPositive Discipline Training
Professional Au Pair CertificationAssociate’s Degree in Early Childhood EducationAdvanced Driving Certificate
Certificate in Childhood NutritionChild Development AssociateCertified Childhood Development Specialist
Basic First Aid CourseInfant Care CertificateINA Credentialed Au Pair

Action Verbs for your Au Pair Resume

TeachingAssistingEnriching
SupervisingInteractingCleaning
ReinforcingProtectingDressing
InterveningEntertainingDriving
PreparingFeedingCaring
ProvidingDevelopingCooking

Professional information of Au Pairs

Sectors: Childcare, Education, Infant Care, Young Adult Care, Toddler Care,
Career TypeSupervising, Tutoring, Educating, Mentoring, Caregiving, Helping, Young Adult Care, Infant Care, Child Support
Person type:  Helper, Tutor, Care Giver, Assistant, Educator, Supervisor, Overseer
Education levelsHigh School Diploma up to Bachelors Degree
Salary indication: $195 per week (*AuPair.com)
Labor market: Expected 2% growth between 2018 – 2028 (*Bureau of Labor Statistics)
Organizations: Parents, Families, Afterschool Centers, Childcare Centers, Au Pair Agencies

Download Au Pair Resumes

Resume Sample Au Pair

Au Pair – Resume (0).PDF

Resume Template Au Pair

Au Pair – Resume (1).PDF

Resume Example Au Pair

Au Pair – Resume (2).PDF

Resume Sample Au Pair

Au Pair – Resume (3).PDF

Resume Template Au Pair

Au Pair – Resume (4).PDF

Au Pair Resume

Au Pair – Resume (5).PDF

Au Pair Resume

Au Pair – Resume (6).PDF

Au Pair Resume

Au Pair – Resume (7).PDF

Au Pair Resume

Au Pair – Resume (8).PDF

Resume Sample Au Pair

Au Pair – Resume (9).PDF

Au Pair Resume

Au Pair – Resume (10).PDF

Resume Example Au Pair

Au Pair – Resume (11).PDF