Agency Recommendations

R

rebekah

Registered User
Since no one seems to know of any good helpers needing a job, does anyone have an agency they can recommend? PM me if you wish. Thank you!
 
Try Arrow Agency. http://arrowes.hk/
They seem to have a good screening / training procedure in the Philippines, and their prices are reasonable. I would recommend trying to go through one of their 2 expat managers, at least in the beginning. They operate out of Kowloon.
We started doing interviews in early April and signed a contract Apr 20. Our helper arrived June 22. So it took almost exactly 2 months.
 
I second Arrow and you can read more through this older thread. We hired our current helper through them and continue to be pleased with their service and the quality of helpers.
 
Must say I had a terrible experience with Emry. Asked them to help with the paperwork for my helper's cousin, who we hired as a second helper. It took them 3 months to everything done, even though we chose her. When we called for updates, they said people would call back and we never received returned phone calls. In the end, my husband had to their office twice, me once and I went to immigration myself to get the visa. Once we had the visa in hand, we went to their office, where they called the helper in the Philippines and instructed her to leave for Manilla immediately and report directly to their offices. Once she got there, they told her they were closed! Overall, very unhelpful and unprofessional. Under the wire, they got my helper here 5 days before my c-section, which ended up being necessary as my first helper had to go home for a family emerency. Will NEVER use them again.
 
had a good experience with Emry's (hired 3 helpers through them - for my friends / relatives)...think the key might be that the people at the office are mostly Filipinos and they talked directly with my helper in tagalog so the information processing was very smooth. the whole process took 3 months as it was a direct hire from the philippines (even though we chose the helper) but I think that is quite normal in terms of timing...unless you write direct to the immigration office / or have "friends" in immigration to speed the process.
 
I had the same lousy experience with Emry's as fafreak. Totally unprofessional, to a point of being rude. Some charges/fees were injected in the middle of processing and it took them 4 months for a direct hire. The helper's complete papers/medical results were sitting with them for 10 days even though they were ready for submission to Immigration. Maybe I got unlucky, but if this agency is a hit or miss, then better choose another agency with consistently satisfactory service.
 
This process of finding a good helper is so difficult! Some say use an agent,others say agents are not good.
Finding a helper by personal reccommendation is best and you can save by not using an agent. But then, there is the question of processing which although seems to be straighforward, takes a long long time!
My question is what is the best option? Find a good agent who gives a good service (do they guarantee the girl?) or hope and pray I can find a girl on my own. It seems each girl has their own back story and it is all too confusing. Also what if I actually hire this girl and don't like her at all, then what? All that money is gone and I am back to square one....
The government should give us a 90 day grace period on both sides, what if she doesn't like me? If I use an agent then isn't she out alot of money too? This is a whacked system.
 
Thought we'd found a helper an she seems to have gotten a raise from her current employer, back to square one. I can't believe what a pain it is this time! I'm trying arrows and still keeping a close eye on geoexpat classifieds,but if anyone has a good recommendation, I'll happily take a personal reference!
 
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