Interviewing a foreign domestic helper candidate in Hong Kong

Start With What the Job Actually Needs

You've got a shortlist from GMA and you're about to sit down with people who might live in your home for the next two years. That's a bigger decision than a normal job interview, and it's normal to feel a bit unsure what to ask. The good news: you don't need a script. You need clarity on what your household actually requires, and a handful of good questions that get honest answers instead of rehearsed ones.

Before you meet anyone, write down the three or four things that matter most in your home. Young children who need patient supervision? An elderly parent who needs help getting around? A dog, a big flat to keep clean, a particular way you like meals cooked? Everything you ask in the interview should trace back to one of these. That keeps the conversation useful and keeps you from asking things that just don't matter.

Set the Tone for a Good Conversation

Remember she's assessing you too — whether this is a home she wants to commit two years to. An interview that feels like an interrogation gets defensive, rehearsed answers. A conversation where you explain your household honestly, and invite questions back, gets the real person.

Start simple: introduce your family, describe a typical day, and ask her to tell you about her own experience in her own words before you get into specifics. People relax once they're talking about what they actually know — their work.

Talk Through Your Household, Day by Day

The most useful stretch of an interview is usually the plainest: walk her through what a weekday actually looks like in your home. Who gets up when, who needs to be where, when the flat is busy and when it's quiet, what happens at mealtimes, what happens at bedtime.

Then name the tasks you'll actually need — cooking, laundry, marketing, care of a child or an elderly parent — and ask how she has handled each one before. Not "can you cook?" but "we eat Chinese food most nights and my son is fussy about vegetables — what would you do with that?" You will learn more from how she answers than from whether she says yes.

Our printable checklist is a useful prompt if you would rather not work from memory. What matters is that you both leave with the same picture of the job.

Ask About the Job, Not the Person

Here's a reframe worth keeping in your back pocket: almost anything you're worried about can be asked as a question about the job, not a question about who she is outside it. The job-shaped version usually gets you a better, more useful answer anyway — the personal version just gets a rehearsed one and puts her on the back foot.

A few swaps that work well:

• Worried she might not see out the contract? Instead of asking about family plans, try: "This contract runs two years — is there anything that would make it hard to see it through?" You'll learn what actually matters without prying into her personal life.
• Need to plan meals and her day off around her needs? Instead of asking about religion, try: "Are there any foods you don't eat, or regular commitments I should know about when planning the week?" Same information, asked as logistics.
• Need to know she can manage physical care work? Instead of a general health question, name the actual task — "this involves helping my mother from bed to a chair each morning" — and ask if she's done it before and is comfortable with it.

Each of these gets you what you need to know, and gets a straighter answer in return.

Check Comfort With the Physical and Daily Realities

If your household involves elder care, stairs, a heavy cleaning load, or lifting, be specific rather than general. Describe the actual task and ask her to walk you through how she'd approach it, or whether she's done something similar before. "Have you cared for someone who needs help walking?" is a much more useful question than "are you healthy and strong?" — it gets you a real answer about real experience, and it respects her as someone with a skill set, not a physical specimen to assess.

One thing to be clear about, because employers sometimes ask: there is no such thing as a trial. A helper may work only for the employer named on her visa, at the address on her contract, and only once that visa has been granted. Having a candidate come and help for a day to see how it goes is illegal employment, and it is the employer who carries the exposure. If one conversation hasn't settled it, the answer is another conversation — ask us to arrange a second call, and tell us exactly what you're unsure about.

Talk Rest Days, Food, and Home Life

A weekly rest day is a standard part of the contract, so the useful conversation isn't whether she gets one — it's how the two of you will plan around it. Ask how she typically spends her day off, whether she has regular commitments like meeting family or attending a place of worship, and let her know how flexible or fixed your household's schedule is. This gives you the practical information you need — what to plan meals around, when the flat will be quieter — without turning it into a question about her personal beliefs.

Language and How She Handles a Misunderstanding

Don't just check whether she speaks English or Cantonese — check how she communicates when something goes wrong. A useful question: "If I gave you an instruction and you weren't sure what I meant, what would you do?" The answer tells you far more about how smoothly daily life will go than a straight yes/no on language ability. Watch, too, for how she asks you questions back — a candidate who asks good questions about your household is one who's thinking ahead about the job.

Before You Decide

Once the conversation is done, trust your read of it — but don't decide in isolation. Talk it through with GMA; after 23 years of these interviews, we can usually tell you what's a normal nerves-related answer and what's worth a second conversation. If you liked more than one candidate, that's a good problem to have, and we can help you weigh it.

This guide is the starting point for meeting your shortlist. Once you've chosen, the next step is turning that choice into a signed contract and a visa application — and that's where the paperwork can get complicated fast. See what happens next, and check our pricing for how our support is structured from interview through to your helper's first day.

Ready to Meet Your Shortlist?

GMA handles matching, paperwork, and the employment visa from day one, so your interview can stay focused on the person in front of you — not the process behind them.