The International Schools Review Forum

Hello everyone,
I am in my final year as a school counseling graduate student and am currently completing my full-time internship. I will be graduating this May (Hoorah!) but I have a few questions that I'm hoping someone could help me with.
I am really interested in counseling abroad at an international school and have been researching as much as I can but am not finding much (a lot of groups and forums with experienced international school counselors in them seem to be listed as private or in a pay only portion of a website). The areas that I am most interested in are South America and East/South East Asia but of course I am open to anywhere.
I am most concerned with my marketability. I am 25 and unfortunately, I don't have much experience outside the classroom because I went straight from undergrad right into grad school.
My questions are:
1. Are there any specific areas that are more prone to hiring recent graduates/first year counselors? If you know of any, please share!
2. Does anyone have any experience in attending the UNI international job fair or any others? Could you share what your experience was like?
3. Being new to the counseling job market, what types of questions do you think will be asked of me during an interview and how should I prepare?
4. What should I include in my counseling portfolio? When I ask this, I want to know what would be considered too much and what is not necessary.
5. Do non-teaching and non-counseling experiences such as coaching a sport help make me more marketable or is it seen as irrelevant? I was an assistant track coach for two years at a division 2 university. Within those two years, I also coached for a semester at a high school part time.
6. When is prime time to start reaching out to schools?
7. And lastly, is it frowned upon to reach out to schools even when there is no position being advertised on their website?
Sorry for so many questions but any information and experiences will be greatly appreciated!

In reply to your inquiry:

1) LCSA is probably the best option for marketability. The region generally has much lower salaries and thus difficulty attracting ITs. Lower tier ISs in the region are more likely to offer shared housing which is more palatable of course to single (I assume you are single) ITs. There are just fewer logistical issues that match with your profile resulting in you being more attractive despite a lack of experience.

2) Please search the forum, there has been an EXTENSIVE amount written by the forum contributors on REs/fairs, and a summary of the process would still amount to a treatise. The UNI fair is at the end of the peak recruiting season, though a large portion of its vacancy base is the LCSA region. However, counselor is a junior leadership appointment and recruiting for it tends to start before the peak of the recruiting cycle. As the season progresses ISs in the lower tiers become less selective. The concern with UNI is that like fairs and recruiting events in general, you have to plan attendance well before you know what is actually available. You may go to Uni and discover on the first day there is only 1 or 2 vacancies, and they arent interested, the ISs you had planed on visiting and applying for having filled their vacancies earlier in the recruiting season. The general rule is you go to the most competitive RE/fair you can get an invite to.

3) Be very, very, very likable. Mental Health (MH) issues are such a small part of the tasking that its almost insignificant. Your going to be dealing with acute depression issues, and some body image issues. You will spend more time on the SPED/SEN/LS tasking then you will in clinical session. The bulk of your tasking is going to be scheduling, parent POC, curriculum, and social activities (the weekly morning coffee mixer) than anything clinical. Most recruiters wont know much about the MH aspects, and are far more interested in your student management skills and abilities. Being a counselor is being the designated schmoozer.
The much more marketable and significant aspect of the tasking is career and Uni counseling, which I imagine you know nothing about, and arent graduating from an Ivy nor did you work in an admissions or enrollment management office.

4) Dont do a portfolio, all its going to showcase is that you really arent qualified or experienced for any of the tasking that is going to comprise the role you are applying for. Your portfolio is going to amount to little more than your transcript/degree and license/credential and a nice photo of yourself.

5) It would if you were an IT, but counselors are part of leadership they dont do ASPs. Your ASP will be either attending a meeting, meeting with parents or a student or delivering some kind or seminar to students. Basically ASP = Meetings.

6) The fair/RE for leadership is November, so ISs will start pushing their vacancies around October, which is about the time intent letters are due. An IS losing a qualified, competent and experienced counselor who does the MH, leadership and career/uni is a big loss to an IS, its something recruiters and executive leadership stress over, its a face front appointment.

7) Frowned upon, no. Mostly because no one will see it. At best if your resume is even seen by anyone in leadership they may have a magnanimous moment and be able to forward or direct you to someone in their professional circle who might be interested. Not likely to happen though because your resume is a lot of white space, and you lack essential tasking skills for the role. ISs dont catalog cold resumes much anymore, its likely you will get a form reply, to consult X agencies or directed to their HR website to review open vacancies when they are available. The greatest harm is your frustration of reaching out to X ISs and not getting any meaningful response from them.

Firstly, I want to thank you for replying and being very thorough in your response. However, I think there is a way of saying something without being rude and making blatant assumptions.

> "The much more marketable and significant aspect of the tasking is career
> and Uni counseling, which I imagine you know nothing about, and aren't
> graduating from an Ivy nor did you work in an admissions or enrollment
> management office."
>
> "Not likely to happen though
> because your resume is a lot of white space, and you lack essential tasking
> skills for the role."

Seeing as though you know nothing about me other than what I have shared in my original post, I would appreciate it if you did not make these assumptions. I also never specified what level of students I care to work with so assuming that university counseling would be the primary role of the counselor, at the middle school level this is not fully applicable and at the elementary level it's not applicable at all.
Again, thank you for you response though. I will continue to do my research.
If anyone else has any information to share, I would greatly appreciate it.

@TheCloudRunner

That isnt an assumption, its a conclusion based on the data you provided, specifically "I don't have much experience outside the classroom because I went straight from undergrad right into grad school", this means your resume as far as it is relevant to IE, is a lot of white space.

Its also not really relevant what level of students you want to work with, not in IE anyway. While there are a few ISs large enough to have a lower secondary counselor (even primary counselor), they are a distinct minority. The ISs that you are going to be marketable to are going to be whole school counselor opportunities at smaller (even moderate sized ISs) so you have to do the Uni/Career counseling tasking.