My Cambridge Fair Diary

[Peregrination]

@newchapter: Oh, I definitely agree! I'm sure there were many happy folks at the fair with jobs and dependents. I just didn't have first-hand experience, so I didn't want to talk about "everyone we knew" getting jobs at the fair, without mentioning that everyone we knew were couples. People have mentioned sad stories from the fairs, and from the posts I've read over the past couple of years, many of these people had dependents or other complications.

Since calciodirigore was referring to "leveling the playing field" by not attending fairs and describing what we went through as "sad", I thought I would bring up that I've heard the same problems occurring regardless of whether you interview at the fair or on Skype. I think the fair/skype issue is just a matter of preference, and the results are generally the same, although I think breaking into international teaching is easier through a fair.

I also still think logistics play a huge role with many schools (from talking with recruiters at Cambridge), but places like AS Paris definitely do not mind dependents. I think most schools, if possible, will pick the best candidate if they can, regardless of their status. If all things are equal (experience, IB, education) between a group of candidates though, they do tend to go for the cheaper hire.

Anyways, I'm glad we both enjoyed the fair and are going to fabulous schools next summer!

[exnewyorker]

calciodirigore mentioned "leveling the playing field" by not attending fair. I presume that to mean that calciodirigore feels that candidates who attend the fairs have an advantage in securing jobs over those who don't attend (perhaps due to financial costs or not being able to get time of school) and he/she deems this to be unfair. Perhaps, that is true, I don't know. We have heard success and failure stories with both Skype and fair interviews. The bottom line is, however, some people do enjoy the fairs and they are not going away. I have to imagine also that they are much more convenient for schools to interviews multiple candidates over a few days rather than the scheduling nightmare that would occur trying to schedule they same amount of interviews via Skype across multiple time zones. I agree with NewChapter that the words like "pathetic" "sad" and "silly" just sound bitter and are not useful. Also, exaggerating by saying interviews are conducted sitting on beds is counterproductive.

[jensensei]

I just wanted to post to say that having dependents does not mean that you will not be competitive. My husband and I decided to go back to international schools this year and signed up with SEARCH. We weren't sure how competitive we would be since we have 3 dependents. We ended up interviewing with over 10 different schools and received multiple offers. We attended the job fair in Cambridge and really enjoyed the experience. It was great to have many options there at the same time and be able to weigh multiple offers and decided on what was best all at once.

[SKMNVMAH]

I understand the and get both sides of the to have or not have Fair debate but I am wondering if the fairs and the process is any more pathetic, sad or silly than having people declare in November or December that they will not be returning.

Basically, teachers who sign a 2 year contract and decide not to extend have spent the first 6 month adjusting, the next 6 doing some great teaching, the next 3 deciding to stay or go and then once they decide to go they spend 3 months worrying about getting a new job and the last 6 months they are lame ducks.
Where else and in what other industry does this happen? and even more worrying is how does it effect our students-- aka paying customers and their education? Would 3 year contracts be a better idea?

I know the in theory we are all professionals and everyone is committed to their current job but we have all seen the teacher who is itching to get out and get started at their new job-- my kids have had a few!

Just my two cents