1. Interview questions to be asked:

• Types of cuisines and dishes that the cook can prepare.
• Previous experience
• Family background
• Salary expectation
• Last salary
• Reason of leaving the last job
• Other work commitments and their time engagement (in case of a part-time cook)
• Personal commitments (in case of a full time domestic cook)

2. Practical Trial:Ask the cook to prepare a dish that she knows well. Observe her speed of cooking. Finally, taste the dish and let her know if it is different from your preferred taste. Observe how flexible she is to incorporate your suggestions. If the dish is largely ok and the cook is receptive to suggestions, this item on the checklist is ticked.

3. Job Description:

1. Job timings. Clarify if she needs to be flexible on some days for eg. when you get late from work
2. No. of family members at home and approximate quantity of food to be cooked. This is especially important to mention approx. number of rotis. That’s the most tedious part of cooking, right?
3. Please tell her in advance that on a few days, you may have guests coming in for lunch/dinner

4. Salary discussion:Salary to be offered to the cook will depend on the following factors:

1. Going rate in your locality in Mumbai. Ask around to get this info.
2. Quantum of work
3. Her previous experience and how much you liked the dish prepared in the trial
4. Are your asking her to come at odd working hours?

Generally, in Mumbai the salary for a domestic cook who cooks breakfast, lunch and dinner for a family of 2 adults and 2 kids is Rs 6000 per month. There is a premium to be added in South Mumbai.

Remember, don’t be too stingy with your Cook. Rs 500- Rs 1000 is not a big amount for you but it may be all that she will be able to save every month.

Now, the next question is how to source candidates who may be interested for your job. Broadly, there are three sources:

1. References from friends & family and your friendly watchman
2. Job portals which provide you with contact details of potential candidates for a fee.
3. Specialised maid agencies like Job Nukkad, that are using technology to organise the blue-collar recruitment market in India. JobNukkad has one of the highest number of cooks in its database ranging from MarawadiMaharaj, South Indian cooks, Marathi cooks to Gujarati cooks.