How to ask for references & chances of landing a job

[platingirl]

Hello everyone. My spouse is currently teaching in an international school and he is interested to work outside of our home country in South East Asia. From the vacancies that we see, it is noted that some schools require references from the current head of school. How does one go about this, without "announcing" that you have a plan to leave the current school and possibly straining the relationship with the school's management?

It is for now just a plan and may not even materialize as we understand the difficulty of obtaining a job overseas, seeing that he has dependents (spouse and kids), non-Education degree etc, despite having more than a decade of teaching experience - mainly in university college with recent 2 yrs experience in a formal IS. Part of the teaching in colleges includes A-Levels and foundation programs. Does that even count as having experience of teaching in senior school, although its in a college environment as its quite common for students to take up A-Levels in colleges here in our home country.

[chilagringa]

In IT there's the expectation that you will move on. If you announce your leaving with plenty of warning I don't see how it would strain relations. I know some people at my school that look for jobs behind the admin's back and those are the ones that piss people off.

[PsyGuy]

You cant, the only way to do so is to ghost the experience from your resume. Even if you dont request a reference in essence indicating that you are looking to leave, any recruiter/leadership can simply Google search the current IS and send an email to the current HOS and they will likely do that even if you do provide them an open reference, since open references are pretty worthless, and verifying the reference is relatively easy.

Where I disagree with @chilagringa position is that your not announcing you are leaving, you dont have an appointment in hand, youre just looking, and the concern that looking will strain the relationship that you may be staying at for a long time is very real. In your leaderships mind you have one foot out the door already, suddenly your lesson plans look less creative, your service delivery looks less enthusiastic. You lose out on opportunities because why invest in someone who wants to leave. Its a very real concern.

No tertiary education and teaching do not count in IE. You might be able to negotiate some steps in aggregating the Uni experience but dont count on it.

[chilagringa]

Well, all my colleagues that moved on to killer, tier-one gigs all put in their notice in October before they had found new jobs. Then they hit the fairs with great references in hand and are now all making a whack ton of dough at great schools.

[PsyGuy]

@chilagringa

So thats everyone who gives notice goes on to a tier one IS, "everyone"? You can guarantee that?

[shadowjack]

Be honest with your head and principal(s). It might be that you don't find anything. Then stay. But work before the deadline so that you can line something up. If you can't - you already have the references, so you can go. ..

[PsyGuy]

@SJ

The honesty position only works if leadership is accommodating and my interpretation from the LWs post is that they have had some time but leadership is going to require them to renew their contract a short time from now, which I cant see how leadership is going to agree to renew but allow them to also continue recruiting. Those references are only as good as what leadership will verify.

[chilagringa]

No, but it seems to be the pattern. If you have a toxic admin that's another thing but most people would know that already. The admin at my school for all their faults don't get all pissy and do the right thing when someone announces their intention to leave.

[platingirl]

Thanks for all your feedback.

This is indeed tricky. On normal circumstances, one would not want to announce that they have an intention to leave, but in this case, its seems difficult as we need a reference from the head of school and by right, we would request for "permission" to list him/her down as reference, which ultimately means giving that reference a heads up, in case a potential employer comes knocking and requests for a formal written reference. Hmmm..

[shadowjack]

Platingirl - as long as your head understands that "looking" is NOT "leaving" and you are kicking tires - and as long as you or spouse has done a quality job, you are likely OK. But you also have to be comfortable with coming back if you don't find another position before your school's final deadline.

[PsyGuy]

@platingirl

There is nothing tricky, you have to decide if your going to use your current experience. If you are than you have to talk to your leadership.