Since I have been reading on this site a lot, looking for information myself, I thought I would share my experience as well. Perhaps it could be useful for others.
[b]My background:[/b]
Primary teacher, 4 yrs experience, PYP experience, no teaching qualification, EU passport holder.
[b]Before the fair:[/b]
I registered with Search Associates a couple of months before the fair. I feel it is definitely worth the money. It helps to be able to see their database and to get a fair idea which schools are recruiting and, in my case important, which schools hire teachers who are experienced, but not certified.
I am also very, very impressed with the guidance given by my associate!
I booked my tickets early and decided to stay at a friend's place and not in the hotel. I have not really experienced any problems with doing this.
For the fair I printed out 15 copies of my resume on fancy paper (it looked really cool!) and I had designed a greeting card that I used to leave messages for recruiters. I felt this was helpful!
I had written to several schools (many actually...) and not really got any responses. A few days before the fair I suddenly received some messages from schools who were interested in me. Felt really good, great confidence boost! With 1 of them I set up an interview time for during the fair.
[b]The fair itself[/b]
Friday was the registration and I went there with my greeting cards. Met my associate, got a file with several forms (schools details, feedback form, interview timings list, school presentations, etc) and we were shown the final list of schools and jobs. Some schools withdrew last minute (1 of them being a school I was really, really interested in), some others joined last minute. All in all there were 50 schools.
I dropped a greeting card in the files of schools that I was interested in with a text on the lines of "would love to have an opportunity to interview with you for the post of...." and left for the day.
On Saturday we had a welcome speech by David Cope in which he explained what the fair would be like. He also said that many people would not get a job offer during the fair and that the most important thing was to get to know people and to have fun! He and Harry Deelman were available in their hotelrooms for any advice and other associates were available throughout for a kind word or any other help.
After the speech we had about half an hour to chat with others and during this time the big conference room was set up for the next activity: interview scoring! I found this to be the best part of the fair. It is true that it can be quite stressful and I saw somebody in tears because she did not get any interviews, but I actually had a lot of fun overall.
You find schools that you are interested in; either because they have a job that matches your profile or simply because you really like that school. You line up in a queue (for many schools there is a queue) and when it is your turn you sit down, hand over your resume to the recruiter and tell them quickly who you are and what you are interested in. I have had recruiters who immediately gave me an interview slot, some were not sure and said they would get back to me later if they wanted to interview me and some gave me a 'no', mostly because of my lack of certification.
Oh, I had 2 schools who had left a message in my folder in the morning which felt nice again and I went to them first to get an interview slot.
There is around 1,5 hours to get interviews and you can schedule slots on Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday there are also school presentations throughout the day so I had first blocked off the presentations that I really wanted to see and scheduled interviews around it. While waiting in the queue you get the opportunity to talk to other teachers.
In total I had 6 interviews with which I was really happy.
On Saturday I attended 4 interviews and 5 school presentations and on Sunday morning I had another 2 interviews. Once you are done with everything you fill in a feedback form, have a chat with your associate and then you can go.
The interviews were mostly fun: I felt they were mostly about getting to know me as a person. The presentations were very useful as well; there were schools that I really loved on paper, but their presentations made me realize we would not be a fit. The other way around happened as well.
Saturday night was the reception for which you get 1 free drink and there is good food. I used this time to chat to other candidates mainly, not so much with recruiters.
[b]After the fair[/b]
And now the big question: was it useful? Did I get an offer? Yes, I did. However, I decided not to take it up, mainly for personal reasons.
I still think it was useful because I met so many people, I learned a lot about different schools and it was a lot of fun.
Would I go again? Yes, definitely!
Would I recommend others to go? There are 2 things that I found will work greatly to your advantage: IB experience and having a EU passport / be able to work in the EU.
So far my experience, hope it is helpful for anybody :)
London Spring fair experience
I have an option to stay at my current school, but decided to go back to Europe and try to get into a PGCE(+QTS) course in the UK since finally I would like to settle down there.
I see it as an investment and if it means (and it will probably mean that) that I have to rough it for a year or two, I rather do that, so that ultimately I will reap the benefits.
I see it as an investment and if it means (and it will probably mean that) that I have to rough it for a year or two, I rather do that, so that ultimately I will reap the benefits.