Is it just me .......

[DeDee]

Maybe you all are fairly high on the pay scale?? Just a thought. This is my first foray into international teaching and I found a job straight away in mid January. I had a couple of Skype interviews in Dec. and accepted an offer in Jan. It's not Tier 1 but a solid Tier 2. And, I'm elementary and a single parent. I'm sure I was fairly inexpensive, although I do have a masters and 9 yrs. experience.

[lemonlily]

I am definitely cheaper than you DeDee. I have a Masters and 3yrs exp, 2 of which have been international however. And a trailing spouse but he costs schools nothing if they don't want it to.

However, you bring up a good point. I think a lot of schools did a ton of hiring in Dec/early Jan this year! So a lot of openings were filled even before the fairs. A good friend of mine had the same thing happen. She applied for a school that would be at Search. Had a few Skypes and ultimately they hired her before the fair and just met at the hotel to sign papers. She was signed up for Search London but didn't need to go.

Unfortunately for me, I didn't know I would be leaving until Jan., so that wasn't a possibility.

[roamer]

It would be nice if Search (or anyone) would give us data at the end of the hiring season. I'd like to know, for example, how many people in my area were hired early in the year or at particular fairs. If we had historic data, it might help us decide on a more effective strategy for our next job hunt.

[shadowjack]

DeDee,

Public teaching back home has a pay scale. International teaching doesn't have to even consider your pay scale, which is why you have some schools maxing out at $25,000 US a year or less. Internationally, most decent schools will grant you up to 5, 7 or 9 (or somewhere in between) years on the grid. But if you have 20 years teaching experience, you don't get 20 on ANY grid. It just doesn't work that way.

However, some schools like to hire younger, less experienced teachers for various reasons. They want a mix of staff experience, they had trouble finding a person for the position, the newer teacher had outstanding experience/credentials, etc, new teachers tend to question why and how things are done less than experienced teachers, etc.

Back to the main topic, everybody leaving my school was placed - some before the fair, some at the fair and some after the fair. So who knows why some folk don't get hired?

[DCgirl]

I'm having problems this season as well. When I went to the Cambridge Fair 3 years ago with no international experience, I had lots of slips/interviews. I was offered a job during the first session, did a few interviews, accepted the offer and then cancelled the rest. Last year I went to Bangkok and had lots of slips/interviews but no offers from schools that I thought would work for my family. I stayed put. This year I went to Cambridge and had no notes in my box. I ended up with one interview, which I thought went well but never heard back from the school. Even the one school that contacted me prior to the fair, had hired by the time I came to their table to sign up for an interview. Having dependents seemed to be a huge issue this year. I've been considering taking a year off and maybe trying again next year.

[buffalofan]

Hmm, I know a handful of people who attended fairs this season, plus myself. Everyone walked away with jobs or multiple offers. Maybe it was a tough year for certain subjects?

[Rye]

A friend of mine said it is just a very weird year for some of his friends overseas to move schools, even some physics & math teachers. Maybe it is just a time where more people are staying at positions and more people are competing for those fewer spots, or that schools placed their hard to fill positions so early most people missed out?

[roamer]

I think a lot of positions went early and many of the rest went at Bangkok. In one of my interviews, we spent 5 minutes talking about how fairs would be obsolete in 5 years because it was so much more cost-effective to hire online with Skype.