How to Tell at Interview Whether a Domestic Helper Will Stay Two Years
- Hiring Process
- interview questions
- helper interview
- helper reliability
- candidate assessment
- interview cluster
- discrimination law
- household fit
- hiring process
In short
How to read a work history, hear a truthful reason for leaving, and ask the stability questions that are fair, useful and allowed in a Hong Kong interview.
Two years is a long time to plan around. You are choosing someone who will be in your home every day, and underneath every interview sits the same question: will she still be here in two years, or will you be doing all of this again in five months? It is a fair thing to want to know. The difficulty is that the questions which feel like they answer it are usually the ones that answer it worst, and a few of them you should not be asking at all. This guide is about the ones that work.
Before you start
Have these in front of you before the call begins:
- Her work history with dates, and any gaps you noticed reading it.
- An honest description of your household: how many people, who needs care, what a day actually looks like, and the parts of the job that are hardest.
- A settled view of the rest day, the sleeping arrangement and the duties you are offering, so you can describe them without hedging.
- Somewhere to write notes. After three interviews they blur together.
Read the work history before you meet her
Lay the dates out and look at the shape of it. What you are looking for is not perfection.
A two-year contract completed, then another, then another, tells you plenty, and so does a long stretch with one family. But short contracts and gaps are not automatically bad news, and reading them that way will cost you good candidates. Employers emigrate. Households change. Children grow up and the job disappears with them. A contract that ended early sometimes means a placement that was wrong from the start, and she may well have been the reasonable party in it. When and how a helper can move from one employer to the next has its own set of rules, and this FAQ covers them.
What is worth a second look is a pattern rather than a single event: several jobs that each ended at around the same point, say four or five months in; a gap she cannot account for at all, as opposed to one she explains easily; or a history that does not match the work you are offering, such as years of newborn care when eldercare is the whole job. Write your questions from what you see, and ask them plainly.
Ask why she left each job
Ask about every move, and ask it the same way each time: why did that one end? The answer matters less than the texture of it.
A candid answer usually has particulars in it. A name, a place, a reason with edges: the family moved to Singapore, the grandmother she cared for passed away, a second baby arrived and they wanted someone with newborn experience. It may not flatter anyone. Someone telling you the truth about a job that went badly will often say something slightly awkward, and that is a good sign rather than a bad one.
A rehearsed answer is smooth and empty. "Finished contract" three times in a row, with nothing behind it. If that is what you get, stay on it gently. What were you doing for them? What did a normal day look like? What did you like about it, and what was hard? People remember real jobs in detail, and detail is very difficult to invent on the spot.
Talk about the first month, not the second year
Placements that end early tend to end early. The strain sits in the first few weeks: a new city, a household whose rhythms she has to learn, and her own family a long way off. Asking "will you stay two years?" invites the answer yes. Asking about the first month gets you something you can use.
Try these instead. When you started your last job, what was the hardest part of the first few weeks, and what helped? Who do you talk to when you are missing home? What would make the first month here easier?
Listen for someone who has thought about it. A woman who names a specific difficulty and a specific thing that helped has been through it consciously and will manage it again. One who says it was all fine may be being polite, or may not have noticed what she needed.
Find out how she raises a problem
Almost every early departure has a small unspoken thing at the start of it. A duty she found unreasonable and never mentioned. A misunderstanding about the rest day that nobody corrected. Three months later it is a resignation, and the employer is genuinely surprised.
So ask directly. If something in the job was not working for you, how would you bring it up with me? Has that happened before, and what did you do?
You are listening for someone who will say something rather than swallow it. You are also telling her, by asking, that raising it is allowed here. That is worth as much as the answer.
Ask better questions, not more personal ones
There is one part of this that trips up perfectly decent people. You want to know whether she might leave for reasons in her own life, so the instinct is to ask about her marriage, whether she plans to have children, how old her own children are. Those are not questions to put to a candidate in a Hong Kong interview. The good news is that they are also the weakest ones you could ask: easy to answer smoothly, and they tell you almost nothing.
The stronger version asks about the job instead.
| The instinctive question | The one that gets a truer answer |
|---|---|
| Are you planning to have children? | This contract runs two years. Is there anything that would make it hard for you to see it through? |
| Are you married? Where is your husband? | How do you keep in touch with your family, and what would help that fit around the job? |
| Are you healthy? Any medical problems? | The job involves carrying my mother's shopping up three flights and being on your feet most of the day. How does that sit with you? |
Every question on the right is harder to rehearse than the one beside it, because it is about the work you are actually offering. That is the whole reason to prefer them.
Remember that staying is two-way
It is worth saying plainly: helpers stay where they are treated well. She is weighing you up as well, and the parts of the job you are least keen to describe are the parts she most wants to hear about honestly. A frank account of the workload, the sleeping arrangement and the rest day will lose you a candidate now and then. It will also stop you losing one in month four, which is much the more expensive of the two.
So describe the job as it is. Say what is hard about it. If what you are offering is good, say that too.
Before you decide
Trust the interview that felt like a conversation over the one that produced the best answers. Take a night to think about it. If you are torn between two people, a second interview or a video call with the rest of the household will tell you more than another list of questions.
If it helps, our guide to interviewing helper candidates covers the wider interview, and our household rules template gives you a structure for the conversation once you have chosen. Where her work history includes a contract that ended early, this FAQ explains what that actually means.
And if you would rather not run this process on your own, that is what we are here for. GMA handles the matching, the paperwork and the employment visa from day one, so your energy goes into the conversation rather than the guesswork. See how the process works, or look at what it costs before you commit to anything.
This article is general information about employing a domestic helper in Hong Kong. It is not legal, immigration or professional advice, and the rules do change. For your own situation, check the official sources below or talk to us.