Yantantether, I wasn't too thrilled with it either. I put it off for about a week, but then figured they'd do it anyway, so I filled out the online form and, blah, no more database for me. Annoying, but them's the breaks.

It's only unethical if, after the interview, you string them along if they say they'd like to hire you. But agreeing to interview is not the same as agreeing to take the job. If they want to interview you and you don't mind interviewing with them, why not do it? Best case scenario: they blow you away with how awesome the school is and you end up with a job. Worst case scenario: you still don't want to work there, but you got some good interview practice.

wntriscoming, that's well over $2300 a month. If I remove rent and car insurance from the equation, I didn't even spend that much when I lived in the NY metropolitan area, widely considered one of the most expensive places to live.

Maybe I'm just super frugal (expect... I'm not), but if I'm not paying for rent or car insurance, there's no reason I should be spending that much EVERY month. Around holidays (for travel), sure, but... that just seems high to me.

We interviewed with them. Our impression of Malcolm Pritchard (from what you can get in a 30 minute interview) was that he would be a pretty interesting guy to work for. We enjoyed talking to him and he had what sounded like a lot of good ideas about the school.

We didn't take the job. Not because of Pritchard, but because the school didn't seem like a good fit for us at this time.

I've a couple friends who've worked there for the past four years and they seem to love it. They just signed on to stay for another year or so.

I chaperoned a MUN trip to Qingdao last February. The city seemed okay. Nice mall. Right on the coast, so there's a beach you can picnic on and the sea breeze seems to blow away the worst of the pollution. Not the most exciting of places, but as far as mid-tier cities in China go, it seems like a decent enough place to spend a few years. You could do a LOT worse, city-wise.

LOL PsyGuy. I HATE driving, but after living in China for nearly four years, I really miss having a car!

My friend got a job teaching in Italy last year. She's American. The school procured the work visa for her, but she had to go through a LOT of rigmarole before they could begin the visa process, including degree attestation (which is a long process in itself), criminal reports, having various transcripts sent. It took her about six months for the process to be completed.

julie33, it's actually pretty easy NOT to go crazy over shopping here. At home, yes, I love shopping. Here, either the clothing is absolute garbage quality or it's so ridiculously overpriced (H&M clothing here is stupidly expensive) that you're better off waiting to shop if/when you go home for the summer. Or you could go to a tailor, but the quality varies quite a bit.

As for other things you might want to buy, don't expect anything to be "real." If that's not an issue, go to town. If it is, wait until you go home. We don't even buy baby formula here. You can't trust that it's not poisoned. We import it all from home.

Anyway, 30k RMB per month is a very nice salary. If you were making that money AT HOME, while having to pay rent and bills, you still wouldn't be doing too badly. Here, with no rent to pay and no car to service, you'll do very well, even if you eat out several times a week. You'll definitely be able to afford nice holidays.

Connections definitely help. My friend just got hired at Cairo American College. No international teaching experience at all and only a year in the classroom, but he's good friends with several teachers at the school and they put in a good word for him.

Can we please refrain from letting PsyGuy hijack ANOTHER thread with his ridiculous drivel? This is ridiculous to the point of frustration. The adults are trying to have a conversation.

So... how did others fare at Bangkok?

Based on what I saw, I'm hoping that if we stay at our school for the next few years (we're hoping to stay at least four, more if we really like it there), doors will really start to open up for us at the next job fair. We'll have that coveted IB experience that seems to be the key to moving up the ladder (or tiers).

It's between 30-40K USD before the 25-30% taken out in taxes.

The superstar teacher is a male kindergarten teacher. I believe he took the Concordian offer.

Shadowjack, we're sadly not all that warm to begin with. It's pretty cold outside right now, but we're heading to warmth and very happy about it! The school feels like a great opportunity for us (IB training, curriculum building) and it's in a (warm) country/region we're interested in!

We met one teacher who hadn't gotten a single interview. Another teacher left with no job because he was very picky. He would only interview with schools in Japan. You really do need to think broad, at least for Bangkok.

We interviewed with them. Glad we didn't get the job. The salary is not all that high, the health insurance is good only in Jordan, and they described the workload as "intense." Intense as in expect to regularly work from 7:30-6:30, plus weekends.

If you have dependents under high school age, you have to pay to send them to one of the international schools in the area. If your dependents are under school age, you have to pay for the onsite daycare.

We didn't get a good feeling from the three people interviewing us. Very cold and aloof. Didn't crack a smile the whole interview, but maybe they just didn't like us. Who knows? For other candidates, they may have been pouring champagne and raising the roof.

I'm sitting here totally exhausted, so apologies if I repeat something I've already said.

We didn't stay at the fair hotel, but at a hotel about 5-10 minute walk away, with a pool. I had this great idea that at the end of every day, I'd take a nice relaxing dip in the pool. Yeah, that didn't happen until Friday, but damn was it nice to get the opportunity.

We interviewed with seven schools, including one that had arranged an interview before sign ups. That interview was surprisingly the worst. We could practically feel their disinterest oozing at us during the interview. Wonder why they bothered?

We had a great conversation with my top choice school at their presentation, an equally good conversation during sign up, and then the interview... fell totally flat. Got a rejection in the box for that one. I have no idea what happened.

We ended the fair with one offer in hand and two Skype interviews with a decision to come later. We went with the offer in hand. They're IB, going to give us IB training, and are in a country/region we're very interested in.

We met one guy at the social who hadn't gotten a single interview. Rough. He was the only one in that position that we MET, however, so I'm not sure how common it was.

We will probably accept our one offer. We feel good about the school/country, and it's IB, which is something we really wanted to get into. But we're waiting until tomorrow morning, just to see if the other three schools have anything to say.

The paranoid part of me is waiting for the school to turn around and rescind the offer.

Meanwhile, I've seen some real superstar teachers here. One teacher got offers from JIS, Nagoya, Concordian, and IS Beijing, and was waiting on a few more offers before formally turning down JIS and Nagoya. Single teacher, too. It's not just a couples' fair.