The International Schools Review Forum

I work at a school in an exotic location, but not tropical and warm. It seems every year, despite our great package (and it is a really good one overall), lovable students, parents who trust us to teach and don't play politics, and great colleagues, we have trouble attracting people. At the fairs, they are NOT lined up at our table.

What are the absolute NO! things that stop you from considering a school?

Given that a school doesn't have one of your NO! things, what is the best way or ways to draw your interest if you are with Search?

For me, lack of minorities on the teaching staff is a red flag, unless there's a good reason for it. I'm just not looking to be a sideshow attraction or have to be "a credit to my people" at this point in my life. Lack of educational prions for my son would be a NO as well, and so would an area that isn't safe for women.

Well, Shadowjack, so far I like what you have to say. I will be looking in the fall if you can PM me more info. On your other point, maybe your school should go a step further and bring a teacher to the recruitment fairs. I used to be admin and from that point of view, that's what I would do.

Shadowjack,

Any chance of telling me where you work?

I trust as a major contributor you know what a good/great package is. They arent lined up at your table because of 2 reasons, really only one reason, but the other reason is related to the first.

Minor Reason: Your region just isnt on anybodies top anything list. Either the region/location gets poor/bad media coverage of internal politics, government, economics, etc.. or its a hardship (meaning not dream location). Even after the Paris and Belgium attacks, there were plenty of ITs interested in working in France, it didnt do anything significant to applications. Take Japan even after a massive earth quake, a nuclear plant meltdown (or whatever the exact nature of the incident), Godzilla could return and there would still be long lines of ITs and ETs keen on working in JP. THis is really outside of any one individual or ISs control. Your location either enjoys dream location status or it doesnt, and there isnt much you can do about it.

Major Reason: COMMUNICATION, They dont know about your IS, and you havent done much to change that. ITs are really a very 'focused' (closed minded) group for various reasons.
You have the family ITs that want the western experience as close to home as possible in terms of security, stability, access to resources and imports (they want their brand of cereal), language accessibility, and as close to or as much like home as they can get. Then you have the adventurers who want it as exotic as possible, while still being safe, they want the grittiness of Bangkok but dont want to be drugged and have their organs harvested, or other similar threat to their safety. Then you have the mercenaries who are in it for the coin, the older ones are padding their retirement, the younger ones are paying off debts, or saving for a major purchase.
Regardless of the motivation they dont know about your IS because the SA and ISS IS profile databases are more like a catalog of the same boring title photo and the same categories of information, that is mostly directed at parents as potential students than it is directed at ITs. ITs access the profile pages (in desirable regions) and they go right to the salary, they dont really care that much about the latest renovation, how many students there are, what there exam performance was, all the organizations they are accredited by, etc.. You want to build presence of your IS, you have to to do more than everyone else.

1) Put some adds in outside databases, SA and ISS are very membership orientated. Look for job boards locally, or the big ones like Daves ESL Cafe and invite some ETs in for interviews, even if you dont hire them or you throw some part time resource work their way, you need to build authentic presence thats directed at the eyeballs of your audience, ITs not parents.

2) Your website needs an employe focused and marketed portion that is separate and distinct from the general website. Dont just babble about how awesome your IS and its leadership, ITs, and students are. Show them what ITs do. Some video of a model classroom, a walk through video tour. Show them the resources you have. Put some pictures of the housing your IS provides or what their allowance can buy them. Show them the local scene. Faculty during orientation out for dinner, or at the beach, or wherever. You want to build a more visceral connection than providing them with numbers.

3) Think different, next fair you attend, book a conference room the night BEFORE signup. Buy some pizzas and soda (or whatever) and send out invitations to ITs (create a brochure, pamphlet, packet, thats focused on ITs. The same booklet they hand out to parents as potential students is an utter waste of time. All they do is contribute to landfills), free food on a night after a plane ride, then do your canned presentation. After signup for your normal regularly scheduled presentation bring some actual ITs, do an abbreviated video or slide show, but then do an open panel of Q&A. Build connections the same way great ITs transfer knowledge by creating an experiential classroom, create an experiential presentation. Even better if your own child/children or one of the ITs children is in the classroom bring them along, why because no one else does. Put everyone in a school polo shirt (theyre walking advertising now), and have all of them available at signup. At signup bring a whole bunch of small bottles of water for free, hand them out (even better prepare labels in advance and stick them on the bottles of water the night before). Its a hot room, ITs are stressed and they get thirsty more than anything else. At least then youll have a self made group at your table. Sure some ITs will just come for the free food, and the socializing, and just arent interested but you will be building awareness that those ITs will be talking about afterwards, and those ITs may be interested enough to stop by your table and then you can sell them on the great opportunity your IS is.
If your of the kind of IS thats open to it. Consider a current IT at your IS and use them as a shill. Send them to the fair as a candidate with the goal of talking up your IS in the candidate areas/rooms and during sign up. Put them in a long line and just engage with other ITs. Cancel any interviews they may get, but keep them moving.

4) Follow-up: Nothing ruins all the work you do building a relationship and then not maintaining a relationship. Set up an email address for your application materials that looks like its going to the HOS or senior leadership. ITs want to think they are contacting someone in actual leadership. Screen them and then respond back to everyone personally who makes the cut, not just a generic "too Candidate" form letter. Present the impression that their is a relationship involved. You want ITs to know you or believe they are in contact with a real person, then next year , and the years after that you will reap major benefits by being an IS that ITs are talking about. "Hey I have been talking with X at Y IS, and mentioned a Z vacancy they have, and I was really impressed with their presentation and my conversation with them". Coming from another IT, that sells your IS better than ANY amount of publication and sales talk will ever do. When you send out rejection letters make them personal, provide feedback, they know they werent the best candidate, someone else got the job, and it wasnt anything wrong with them. Tell them what the candidate you did select brought to the table.

5) Damage Control: We all know that the ruin of most ISs reputation comes when separating the IS from a poor/bad fit. Keep your promises, honor your contracts, but when you have to dismiss an IT dont rub salt in the wound. Apologize, listen to their griefs, come to consensus about the current situation being a poor fit (likely they arent happy either), then ask how they would like the situation to end, and fulfill reasonable requests, flight home, keeping their visa, a months severance. The goal is not pissing them off to the point they write a negative review or have an axe to grind. This isnt just building the image of your IS but also your region. Many ITs generalize one experience to an entire region and culture.

As to your inquiry:

Deal breakers are generally individual specific, in general:

1) Perceptions of Deception: Published information that is up to date, and congruent. If your BA+4 says $X than it should be that amount on your salary scale as well. If your saving seems really high or really low there needs to be an explanation. If you say X than do X. ITs can be very weary and timid in leaving the safety of their home country and any even small in congruences will fester and build and tip the balance into a non-arrival.

2) Socio-Paths: Leadership or ownership that has a whack job, nutter in charge of the IS.

3) Applications: Its one thing to have an application process thats identifying information, the teaching subject areas, number of years of experience and upload of resume. 10 Minutes or less to create an account type in some basic identifying information. Its another to have a 6 or more page application that requests the same or similar information than my resume. Especially when that application is a paper one and isnt going into a database but will be used for this and only this position vacancy.

So no beach then ;-)

I'm also curious as to where you work!

My guess is... Mongolia?

If I leave my current position (which I'm not going to do for at least a couple years as I'm in my first year), deal-breakers will be:

1) Lousy salary/savings potential. If I'm going to leave the place where I am right now, which I love, it's only going to be to make significantly more money.

2) Low-tier school. I'm already pretty high on the tier-scale for someone starting out (I got lucky), so there's no way I am moving on unless it's to a tier one or MAYBE high tier two school.

3) Large number of preps. I am a workaholic, but right now I teach only two different courses. This means I can put tons of effort into each of my classes and perform really well. I've seen postings before where a person is expect to teach 5 different classes. No thank you.

4) Lack of dating options - if I'm still single. Hey, I'm a woman in my 30s, and while I've never been super motivated by the whole husband-house-kids thing, I still enjoy love and wouldn't want to be somewhere I couldn't potentially meet someone. From what I hear, that makes much of Asia out. Right now I'm in Latin America and dating is super easy, and it seems to be fairly easy for my friends in their 40s as well.

5) War zone / high likelihood of kidnapping, etc. (If Canada's foreign affairs ministry lists it as "avoid all travel", I think I'm out)

That's about it. There's other things I would LIKE - nice weather, cosmopolitan city, but I have lived in a number of places and have discovered that just about anywhere can be interesting if you like what you are doing.

Uncertified and inexperienced administrators who are clueless about their jobs and make countless committees in the name of delegation.

Too-high proportion of local students is a no-go for me. I, personally, work best with a truly balanced population of students from multiple countries as opposed to a dominant population of local students (where the local parents tend to run the place).

Sounds like a school we are looking for. Is there a way you can give us a location so we can figure it out?
Main two things we look at are 1) the academics of the school ( we have children who would attend) and 2) how safe the country is.

I agree about a high proportion of local students being off-putting, depending on the location, but am also intrigued to know where we're talking about.

Apart from the local students factor, a climate with exceptionally cold and/or gloomy winters would put me off. So, I need a school somewhere warm and sunny, with hard-working students. Not much to ask, is it? ;)

@SJ

I understand your desire to maintain anonymity, I have no interest in knowing where you are.

Shadowjack you have me curious now as I've always found your advice here on the forum to be pretty sound. Perhaps you could include some examples of schools that are in "exotic locations" that aren't "tropical and warm" but are otherwise great places to work?

I think Shadowjack is ducking for cover. Just tell us the country at least.

I think schools that are "off the radar" may want to look through Search/ISS and recruit attractive teachers directly.