Employer's Guide to Caregiver Hiring

After you have shortlisted a handful of potential caregivers, the next step is to conduct one-to-one interviews.

What  questions should you ask during the interview? What should you be looking out for? How do you decide on the right person to hire?

We have prepared a comprehensive list of interview questions to help you.

How to structure your interview

1. Begin by asking the live-in caregiver to introduce herself.
2. If she is an experienced caregiver, you can run through each of her individual work experience. This section provides questions that you can ask about her experiences.
3. If she is new, certified caregiver with no experience, you can proceed with questions found in this section.
4. Beyond caregiving, you can go on to ask general questions such as her family situation, her medical background, her non-caregiving work experience.
5. Closing off the interview, you can communicate with her clearly about your care needs, job requirements, situation at home and expectations.

Things to look out for during the interview

(i) Avoid asking ‘yes or no’ questions.

These questions do not provide you with much details that will help you in evaluating the potential caregiver. Instead, ask open-ended questions.

(ii) Look out for details to determine the accuracy of what a potential caregiver shares with you.

‍Caregivers who are truly experienced in caregiving will be able to share with you at length about their past experiences confidently, without much prompting.

They would be able to highlight details like the timings that they serve medications or the usual blood sugar level of their care recipients.

They would be able to iterate clearly the step-by-step process of performing a caregiving task such as transferring a care recipient from bed to wheelchair, performing tube feeding or cleaning a wound.

(iii) Ask for specific details.

For example, when a potential caregiver says that she has assisted in showering for a care recipient, probe further.

For elderly who are still able to walk, sometimes a caregiver is only required to provide supervision and support (such as preparing the towel, body wash and shampoo) but does need not to help the elderly with the actual washing up. This might not be suitable if you require a caregiver to be showering your loved one.

For wheelchair-bound elderly, there may be situations where a caregiver might have extra help at home in transferring the elderly from bed to wheelchair as she had difficulties doing it independently. She might not be suitable for you if you are looking for someone who can manage the care independently.

(iv) Look for similarity between a caregiver's specific tasks and what your care recipient's needs.

When you probe for specific details about her caregiving tasks, compare to what your care recipient requires.

If many of her caregiving tasks match what your loved one needs, chances are she would be very familiar with your loved one's care and may someone you would explore hiring.

(v) Evaluate her language ability.

This is to see if your loved one would be able to communicate with her.

Is the caregiver conversant in English? Will your loved one be able to understand her? Is she able to understand your questions? Or do you need to repeat and rephrase your questions a few time before she is able to understand?

74 interview questions

This following list of interview questions is organised in 3 sections:

1. Questions for caregivers with experience
2. Questions for new, certified caregivers with no experience
3. General questions

Questions for caregivers with experience

These questions are designed to help you get a  thorough understanding of each of the caregiver's work experience. Through a caregiver's answers to these questions, you will get a better grasp of the skills she possesses and if she would be able to meet your care needs at home. The questions are classified into 6 sub-categories:

• Understanding the background
• Assisting with each type of activity of daily living
• Assisting with supporting tasks
• Performing advanced care
• Managing care independently
• Caring for persons with dementia

Understanding the background

• How long did you take care of the care recipient for? From when to when? What country was it in? Was it a stay-in or stay-out job?
• If it was in the home country, how are you related to the care recipient? Do you have a certificate of employment for verification?
• If it was stay-out arrangement, what were your working days and hours? Was it in the day or at night?
• What was your care recipient’s medical condition(s)?
• How old was your care recipient? Was the care recipient male or female? How heavy was your care recipient?
• What did you do for your care recipient every day?
• Walk me through your routine in a typical day. What time did you wake up? What did you do after you woke up? What was the next thing that you did? … Then? … What time did you sleep?
• Did you have your own room? Or did you share room with the care recipient?
• Were you the only caregiver for your care recipient? Were you able to manage your care recipient's care by yourself? Did you have extra help?
• Other than your care recipient, were there other people who stayed there? Who were they?

Assisting in each type of activity of daily living

• Showering: Was your care recipient able to shower himself? Did you have to wash him? For immobile care recipients, was the showering done in the toilet or on the bed? Were you able to shower him by yourself? Was there extra help from other people?
• Toileting: Was your care recipient able to the toilet by himself? Did you have to clean up for him after toileting? Did you have to wake up at night to assist your care recipient to the toilet? How many times did you usually have to wake up each night?
• Changing diapers: Did the care recipient wear diapers? When did he put on diapers (e.g. when heading outside or at night)? Did you have to change diapers for the care recipient? Did you have to wake up at night to change the diapers? How many times did you have to wake up each night to do so?

• Feeding: Was your care recipient able to eat by himself or did you have to feed him? If you had to feed him, did you have to feed him orally or via a feeding tube?
• Dressing: Was your care recipient able to change clothes by himself?
• Walking: Was your care recipient able to walk by himself? If care recipient needed assistance to walk, did he use any walking aide. Did he need to use wheelchair when going outdoors?
• Transferring: If your care recipient was unable to walk even with your assistance, did you have to transfer him from bed to wheelchair and back again by yourself? Did you transfer him with someone’s help? Describe to me how you transfer a care recipient from the bed to the wheelchair. Where does the care recipient place his hands? Where do you place your hands? Where do you put your legs? Are you able to transfer a care recipient of Xkg by yourself? How many times do you need to transfer the care recipient every day?
• Turning and positioning: How often did you turn and position the care recipient? Did you turn and position the care recipient at night? If yes, how often did you turn and position the care recipient at night? If no, why not?

Assisting with supporting tasks

• Serving medications: Who prepared your care recipient’s medication? Did you prepare and administer the medication? Or did your employer prepare the medication while you administer it?
• Monitoring vital signs: Did you have to take your care recipient’s vital signs every day? What were the vital signs you had to take (e.g. Blood pressure, Temperature, Pulse, Oxygen levels)? What device did you use to measure the vital sign? Can you describe how you would use the device for measurement? What is the safe range? What was your care recipient’s usual range?
• Exercises: Did you help your care recipient with daily exercises? What kind of exercises did you do for your care recipient? Show me. Where did you the learn these exercises?
• Rehabilitation: Did you have to assist in rehabilitative exercises? Can you show me the exercises? Who taught you these exercises? Was there any change in the mobility status of your care recipient over time?
• Massage: Did you perform massage for your care recipient? Which parts of his body did you massage? Where did you learn how to do massage?
• Accompanying for medical appointments: Did you bring your care recipient for medical appointments by yourself, or did your employer go with you and your care recipient?
• Preparing meals: What food did you prepare or cook for your care recipient? Did your care recipient have any special diet? Describe to me how you prepared these dishes.

Performing advanced care

• Blood Glucose Monitoring: Please describe to me how you would take the blood glucose level. When did you do the blood glucose test?
• Nasogastric Tube (NGT) feeding: Please describe to me step by step how you performed NGT feeding for your care recipient. What did you do to test if the NGT is in your care recipient’s stomach? What colour should the PH paper change into? Where did you learn how to perform it?
• Suctioning (oropharyngeal or trachea): Please describe to me step by step how you performed suctioning for your care recipient. How did you use the suction machine? How did you know when to stop the suctioning? How deep was the suctioning – was it mainly in the mouth or did you also go down into the throat to do the suctioning? Where did you learn how to perform it?
• Indwelling Urinary Catheter (IDC) care: What did you need to do to care for your care recipient’s IDC? How often did you change the urine bag? Where did you learn how to care for it?
• Wound care: Where was the wound located? What kind of wound was it (e.g. diabetic wound, surgical wound, pressure injury)? Please describe to me step by step how you had cared for the wound. How often did you need to change the wound dressing? Who taught you how to care for the wound?
• Oxygen therapy: What did you need to do for oxygen therapy? How many litres was the oxygen concentrator? How many hours did your care recipient need the oxygen concentrator every day? What did you use to monitor the oxygen levels? What was the safe range?

Managing care independently

• Were there times when your care recipient was uncooperative when you were assisting him to do something (e.g. refusing to shower, eat or take medication)? What did you do? How did you get him to do what was needed?
• Did your care recipient sleep well at night? When he stayed up awake at night, what did you do?
• Did your care recipient have mood swings? How would he behave when he was upset? How did you respond?
• What did you find most difficult about taking care of the care recipient?
• What did you like about working there as a caregiver? What did you not like about it?
• If contract was not completed, why did you not finish your contract?

Caring for persons with dementia

• We understand that your care recipient had dementia. Were there behaviours that your care recipient exhibited that were challenging for you? What were these behaviours?
• Was your care recipient forgetful? What were the things he forgot about?
• Did your care recipient have difficulty remembering that you were his caregiver? What happened when he did not remember you? Did he tell you to go away? How did you respond?
• Did your care recipient repeat himself many times in a day? How did you feel about it? How did you respond to him?
• Did your care recipient forget where he had placed his things and accused you of stealing them? How did you respond to him?
• Was your care recipient emotional? What did you do when your care recipient broke down?
• Did your care recipient have mood swings? What did he do when he had mood swings? How often was it? How did you respond when he had mood swings?
• Did your care recipient have sundown syndrome? How did you respond?
• Did you engage your care recipient with activities in the day? What were some of the activities that you did to engage him?

Questions for new, certified caregivers with no experience

For new caregivers without caregiving experience, the questions are focused on understanding her motivations behind pursuing caregiving, find out more details on the training she had undergone and asking situational questions to see how she will respond to and handle such common situations at home.

Caregiving

• You have not taken care of a patient before. Why do you want to be a caregiver?
• Tell me what you think this job requires you to do.
• Are you afraid of seeing blood? Are you afraid of giving injections? Are you afraid of performing suctioning? If you have to learn to perform these by yourself, will you be afraid?

Training received

• Share with me about the training you have undergone. What did you learn? Can you share with me in detail what topics were covered?
• How long was the training? How many days and how many hours?
• From your training, what did you like about caregiving? What did you not like about caregiving? What did you find challenging?
• Did you do any on-the-job (OJT) training or volunteering? Where was it at? How long was the OJT? From your experience during OJT, what were the tasks that you like to do? What were the tasks that you did not like doing? What were the tasks that you find challenging? 
• At the end of your training, was there an assessment carried out? What were you assessed in? Who assessed you?
• Do you have TESDA NC II (for caregivers from the Philippines) or Certificate of Caretaker (for caregivers from the Indonesia)?

Situations that a caregiver might face

• The care recipient will wake up a few times at night to go toileting and you will need to assist him. It is a very tiring job. What do you think about waking up multiple times at night? Are you willing to do this every night over 2 years?
• The care recipient is wheelchair-bound. You will need to transfer him from bed to wheelchair and vice versa multiple times a day. Are you willing to do this every day over 2 years?
• The care recipient experiences mood swings very often. What will you do when the care recipient gets upset?
• The care recipient has dementia and is very forgetful. He will repeat himself many times a day. What will you say to him? He may forget that he has already taken his meals and demand to eat again. What will you do in this situation?
• The care recipient does not comply with his caregiver sometimes. If he refuses to take his medication, what will you do? If he refuses to go for a shower, what will you do?

General Questions

• Do you prefer to take care of children/perform household chores or to take care of a care recipient with care needs? Why?
• There are also jobs available as a normal domestic worker. Why are you applying for the role of a caregiver?
• What personality trait of yours do you think will make you a good caregiver?
• There will also be other helpers in the house. You will need to work closely with them. Are you comfortable with it?
• Have you worked abroad before? What country was it? What did you work as? What were your job duties? If contract was not completed, what were the reasons?
• After you returned to your home country, did you work anywhere? What did you do?
• Do you have any allergies?
• Do you have any past or existing medical conditions?
• Do you have any pain or aches on any part of your body? Any pain on your shoulder, neck or back?
• Do you have any prior injuries, especially when giving care to your previous care recipients?
• Can you stand and squat a few times for me? Can you walk a few steps for me?
• Do you have any dietary restrictions? Do you have any food handling preferences?
• I have a dog at home. Are you afraid of dogs?
• Do you have children? How old are they? Who will take care of them?

Communicating clearly on your requirements

Be upfront and tell the caregiver the elderly’s medical condition and care needs.

This includes mobility status, care recipient’s build, whether to care for him in the day or at night or any potentially challenging behaviours like mood swings or non-compliance with caregiver’s instructions.

Do not leave out anything important, even if you think that it may result in the caregiver not accepting the job offer.

For example, if your elderly loved one might shows signs of aggression and physically hits out at people due to dementia, it is important to let the caregiver know this clearly during the interview.

This allows a caregiver to evaluate for herself if she is comfortable in taking up the role and prevents any misunderstanding.

It is better that the caregiver decide not to accept the job instead of finding it out when she starts work and then quitting.

Changing caregivers is disruptive for the care recipient and the continuity of his care. This is especially so for persons with dementia where stability is preferred. The family would have to go through the whole process of finding a new caregiver while your loved one needs to adapt to being cared for by someone new again.

Beyond care needs, it is also good to communicate clearly on:

• Job scope – Beyond caregiving, what chores do you expect her to help out with
• Situation at home – E.g. How many people are there at home, whether she will have her own room or she will need to share room with the care recipient and whether there are CCTVs at home
• Expectations – E.g. Handphone usage and rest day arrangement

A major red flag to look out for will be if she seems unwilling or hesitant with some of the requirements you have shared. For example, you may ask a caregiver if she is willing to care for your elderly father as her past experience was mainly in caring for female care recipients and she seems quite uncomfortable with it in her response.

Deciding on which caregiver to hire

To help your evaluation on which caregiver to hire, you can request for supporting documents to verify her work experience and employment history.

This may be in the form of employment history in Singapore from the MOM WP Online portal, certificates of employment, feedback from previous employers or entry and exit stamps in her passport for the duration in the country she had declared that she had worked for.

Typically, after your interviews, you may have a few caregivers whom you are keen on hiring.

Looking at a caregiver’s past work history, can help you evaluate if she is a reliable worker who manages her job well and completes her contract.

Ultimately, based on your interaction with her during the interview, you will need to feel comfortable with having this person to care for your loved one.

Once you have decided on a caregiver, read our free guide on 16 Things to Know Before Signing a Contract with Your Employment Agency for a Caregiver.

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