The International Schools Review Forum

Should I accept a teaching position with the large Saudi oil company schools?

With the new ISR rule enforcement I'm not sure if I can mention the name of the company, sorry.

How important is money to you? Generally speaking, salaries in the Kingdom are some of the highest in international teaching. Of course, you'd have to live on a compound and you wouldn't have much of a social life away from school, but many people have made it work for them. It's definitely a trade-off.

If you accept the job--do you know specifically which camp you'll be on? Do you know if you are on an actual camp or another compound that the company is using to house certain levels of staff?

You make bank there, not a huge amount is expected of you, but even on the nicest best biggest oil company compound, you will be either living a massive fishbowl and subjected to pressures from the company that don't exist in other jobs and it's an island in Saudi, which is a challenging place to live for a number of reasons.

If you want money and a pretty easy stint, then yes. If you want to be challenged, to grow as a professional, then probably not.

And make sure you know where you're actually going. We know of 2 couples who were ready to accept a position, thinking they were on the main big campus, but were actually going to be hired for one of the camps that were much more remote.

I generally agree with @mamava you go to the Kingdom you have to be a mercenary and be focused on the coin. If the coin is all the matters then many ITs have found they can deal with anything for the right price.

Thats got to be the alpha and omega of your priority list though, if your going to bank 6 figure coin and nothing else matters than yes.