Hi,
My husband and I are attending the SEARCH Bangkok fair and have narrowed our top picks. I would like your opinion on sending CVs and such to the schools before the fair. Do you suggest it? Do you ask for an interview in advance? Are we behind in the "letter of interest game"?
We have been to 1 AASSA fair and 1 ISS and did not contact any schools before hand but had plenty of interviews.
What do you think?
How much do you approach a school before the fair?
Contacting schools before the fairs
We've always contacted the schools and sent our CV's, etc. before the fair. We've even offered to fly to the schools that we were particularly interested in. (at our expense) We have found that many of the better schools prefer to hire outside the fairs.
For the time and effort it takes it doesn't hurt to contact schools prior to the fairs. Send a cover letter and resumes to the schools you are really interested in. Having said that though, we have only gotten one job offer from a previously contacted school. In another case the director didn't read our letters closely because he had no clue that we have 3 children. In most cases we have been hired by schools in countries that weren't even on our radar prior to the job fair and in the end we feel very fortunate.
I would be very cautious about flying to a school to interview. It is very expensive and the worst part is that you may be considered a local hire if they offer you a job and you are in the country. We have had several teachers who are Americans but were hired as "Locals" because they were in the country. I have also read about this at a couple of International School websites. Once you are classified as a "local hire" you lose your airline tickets, housing allowance, and extra pay. Please be very cautious and ask before you fly!
There was no question when we flew in for an interview that we were overseas hires! We were simply arranging to meet with the school "on site" rather than at a job fair. We've done this a couple of times at top tier schools and when we've arrived for our orientation in the summer have discovered that most of the other new hires did the same thing that we did. If a school doesn't see you as a top candidate, they won't encourage you to come.