teacher tan wrote:
> An utter waste of money, time, and effort.
I agree in principle that recruitment fairs are ridiculous and antiquated. There's something rather ironic about a bunch of educators who say we need to teach kids about sustainability and then hold an event with a giant carbon footprint. But recruiters for various reasons seem to prefer these fairs to other methods of hiring, so as a teacher you're kind of limited in your options (unless the school you like does online recruiting).

shadylane wrote:
> Out of interest, is it a fair that you'd recommend to others with similar
> levels of experience?
It was useful for us because we have very little experience of international schools and how they recruit. We've been at the same school for years and we're quite isolated where we are (no other international schools). So we did learn a lot in that regard, and I think we also made a few useful connections. But we attended the fair with very low expectations (and we were luckier than most because our current school is desperate for us to stay, so we knew we had a fallback option). We don't regret attending the fair, but it certainly is a stressful and expensive experience.

Day 3
Our second interview with our top pick went okay. We didn’t get as good a vibe from it as we did from the first interview, and of course the school was a reach anyway for us. Also one of us was not physically 100% so that didn’t help. The second interview questions were more about methodology and classroom management, whereas the first interview was more getting to know us and our values. Second interview was definitely tougher.

We got an email in the afternoon saying the conventional “you guys are great but unfortunately not the fit we’re looking for this year, please keep in touch in the future” etc etc. We were expecting it but of course it was still disappointing. I emailed them back to say thank you and to ask for any advice on improving our application for next year. They were kind enough to get back to me with feedback, which was basically that we had aced our interviews but that the HoD was looking for someone with more IB experience for one of the positions we were applying for. They implied that they’d just hired another teacher for that department who was also a newbie, so they didn’t want two newbies in one year. (This is definitely the downside to being a couple - you either accepted together or rejected together.) So even though the result wasn’t what we were looking for, it was encouraging to know that a very decent school thought we were hireable. We found it very interesting that a lot of lower tier schools (schools with a lot of mixed reviews and less pay) did not even want to interview us because we didn’t have any IB experience, but that this school had given us a chance at least. After this exchange, in their final email school asked for us to keep in touch and let them know where we ended up.

We are still waiting for a few schools to get back to us, but they indicated that they wouldn’t make any decisions until after the fair (one school said they’d contact us after the London fair) so that’s pretty much the end of our Bangkok job fair journey.

Was it a total waste of time? For us, no. This is our first time really putting ourselves out there on the job market (our previous jobs were the results of professional connections) so we did learn a lot and gain some confidence despite our lack of concrete offers. And in a different year I think we’ll have a better chance with some of the schools we interviewed with. (Also I suppose it’s still possible we will get a positive answer from some of them in a few days, who knows?)

Some thoughts:

Putting resumes in folders ahead of the sign up seems like a waste of time. You’re better off just handing them to the recruiters during sign up as you introduce yourself.

The SA people are not very helpful. They are rather wishy washy when it comes to concrete advice.

The questions concerning classroom management, curriculum planning, etc were pretty detailed and they do ask a lot of follow ups, so these are the questions we would prepare more for next time.

It is really worth paying extra to stay in the hotel if at all possible. The candidate lounge is super crowded and many people had to seek out other spaces to set up camp. We avoided it altogether.

It is impossible to know what positions are available until sign up begins. Even the morning of the same day, some schools hadn’t posted their positions on the wall. The online postings often did not match the wall postings.

Sometimes upper tier schools are more open minded about inexperienced candidates than lower tier schools, so don’t be afraid to reach. The worst that can happen is they’ll say no.

There doesn’t seem to be a lot of point in preparing a full portfolio. The school we had our second interview with did read the unit plans we gave them at the first interview and wanted to talk about them, so I think something like that could be useful.

Some candidates brought their kids! I don’t know how that works. That being said, the hotel has a kid’s play area and there’s a department store nearby with a few play areas as well. Also a nice park next door. If you hire a local baby sitter I could see it being doable.

Wear light suits. The hotel has a/c, obviously, but you will still sweat. Paying extra for a summer weight suit is worth it. Women got away with business casual so in terms of sartorial choices they will probably have an easier time of it.

Don’t be an arse. We didn’t see any overt displays of people being jerks, but there definitely seemed to be a vein of passive aggressiveness running through some interactions. You never know who you’re going to cross paths again with and in what context.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got. I hope someone finds this useful!

Day 2
Two interviews today. The official schedule was full of school presentations. The whole thing seems weird to us because what is the incentive to go to a school presentation if the sign ups are already finished? Apparently there are so many schools this year that they couldn’t schedule the presentations before the sign up, otherwise the schools wouldn’t have had enough time to interview everyone. Anyway, we didn’t really have time to get to any of the presentations.

The first interview was with a school that is in the process of becoming an IB World School. The interview seemed to go well, but the recruiter told us at the end that because the school was a candidate school, the higher ups were pushing for teachers that actually had IB experience. Not sure why they gave us an interview in the first place, though we certainly appreciated the opportunity. The recruiter also said they wouldn’t make a decision until after the fair.

The second interview was with our reach school. Again, to us it seemed to go well, and we were in there a full hour. But it’s such a good school that we knew we would be very lucky to get a second interview. They promised to get in touch with us regardless, which was nice of them.

I forgot to mention that at the end of each interview, we asked if they’d be interested in looking at a sample unit plan from each of us. We’d each created one using the IB template, just with the intention of wanting to show that we had at least a general idea of how unit planning goes in the IB curriculum. I don’t know if it did any good, but I suppose it doesn’t hurt. We decided to do this in lieu of a full portfolio, because we figured no one has time to read through fifty pages of lesson plans.

As a couple, we definitely had fewer interviews than many - I overhead some people talking about having seven interviews just that day. I know couples are viewed as more marketable (in the elevator, one teacher was talking to another who revealed she was part of a couple, and the first teacher looked them over and said “How lucky for you” in a markedly snarky tone) but it definitely seems to limit your options.

We also overhead a guy interviewing in the hallway over Skype. He said something that made me physically cringe to the interviewer’s wrap up question about the rest of his time at the fair - “I teach science, so I think it’s pretty easy for me to get a job, but I do a lot of interviews anyway to be efficient. It’s not like I’m an English teacher or anything. Ha ha!” I could hear the interviewer’s laughter of disbelief in response (I wasn’t deliberately eavesdropping - we were waiting outside a door for our next interview and the dude was talking on Skype right next to the elevators with no headphones). It just seemed a really unprofessional thing to say, but maybe the guy was just nervous.

By the end of the day we’d heard from our reach school asking us for a second interview for the following day. We were pleasantly surprised of course did not want to get too excited about anything just yet.

Day 1
We dropped our resumes with a cover note on them into the school folders we wanted to target just after breakfast. You can see which folders are already bursting with resumes. (We did not use the generic cover slip provided by SA; as a couple, we printed a cover the size of half an A4 paper with a couple photo and some bullet points about our life and shared teaching philosophy. At the bottom I hand wrote a few lines about why we wanted to work at that particular school. I think this paid off because most schools who had looked at their resume stack before sign up remembered our resumes. The resumes themselves were very plain with no fancy formatting or colors. No ichiros - I’m sure that might work for some, but it felt very gimmicky to us.)

After dropping our resumes off, we walked around the candidate lounge to see the jobs posted and noticed some relevant updates (new positions not on the portal; previous positions already gone). Based on these changes we dropped a few extra resumes into a few more folders.

The candidate orientation was 45 minutes and was scheduled to end 15 minutes before the sign up started. The orientation was mostly fluff but they did give some practical information about getting to different rooms in the hotel etc (the hotel had two towers so the layout was a bit confusing). My partner left a little early to stand outside the sign up doors. I don’t know how necessary that is because we managed to talk to every school on our list well before sign up ended.

Sign up is nuts, by the way. You only have a minute to talk to the recruiters and more often than not they will say “leave us your resume and we’ll get back to you.” Leaving the resumes in school folders beforehand seems like a bit of a waste of time because quite a few schools don’t have time to look at their stack before sign up. Even if they do, sometimes they ask for another copy! We stopped by ten schools and most of them said they’d get back to us later.

That minute is a precious opportunity to make an impression. No point in banging on about your credentials because that’s all in your resume. Focus on why you like that school specifically and just one or two of your key strengths. The recruiters noticeably had positive reactions when we mentioned things that made it clear we researched their school and had a personal reason for wanting to work with them.

We had one recruiter that seemed a bit flustered and spoke on and on about the position, which was a little stressful because we wanted to meet with as many schools as possible during sign up (though like I said, in the end we ended up having more than enough time). We eventually had to politely interrupt and ask if we could continue the conversation at an interview later in the day, at which point we got put down for later that afternoon.

The school that had contacted us previously ended up being a bust. The guy that had emailed us must not have properly communicated anything to the recruiters who were actually going to be at the fair, and the positions they had posted were not a very good fit for us. We just thanked them for their time and cut our losses quickly.

One of the schools we were interested in had already filled the position my partner wanted to apply for, but I decided trying to talk to them anyway. I was honest and said only one of us matched their current list of vacancies, but that we liked their school a lot and wanted the chance to talk further about possible opportunities. They scheduled us for an interview on the spot.

After lunch, we got an email from a “reach” school (established IB with good reputation) that asked for an interview the next day. So in total, five interviews. Only one other school emailed us with a “thanks but no thanks.” Radio silence from the rest, but unfortunately that’s not unusual, from what we hear.

We had three interviews that day. As a couple, a great advantage is that you can take turns with questions, especially if one of you suddenly blanks on an answer. Sometimes the interviewer is happy for one of you to answer but often they waited for both of us to answer separately. We didn’t get any questions that were completely out of left field; most of them were ones we’d prepared for. The school that only had a position for one of us said they had a dorm position available for the other if they were interested. They seemed pretty keen to find a way to make it work.

One interview ended with them saying they would email us an offer soon. Another told us a decision wouldn’t be made until after the fair was over. The last school said we’d be contacted by the head of school in a day or so. All the interviews seemed to go well, but it’s always hard to tell. Honestly it’s almost impossible to know if you’ll get an offer until you actually get one.

Interview tip - the elevators get extremely crowded and busy. Leave plenty of time to get where you’re going. One poor guy ended up sprinting up eight flights of stairs. You do not want to do that in a suit.

After dinner, we checked our folders but they were empty. I’m not sure how much the folders are actually used - all our communication with the schools was through email. Even so, we left short thank you notes for the schools we’d interviewed with that day.

Random observation - women seem more casually dressed than men at the fair. Lots of dresses with cardigans, some with blouses and slacks, almost no full suits. A lot of guys wearing full suits but also some wearing business casual. We saw a guy in flip flops and shorts, another wearing a blazer with a skull pattern.

Day 0
We arrived a day before the fair with no interviews lined up and having made contact with only one school, as I stated above. We searched on the SA portal for schools with positions that matched our subjects and made a list of schools we wanted to target (basically any school with openings for us!) but we kept in mind that the openings could change between then and tomorrow. SA encourages candidates to drop their resumes with an interview request slip into school folders, but after checking out the situation on the 7th floor (where all the folders are) we decided we could drop them in the next morning. The 7th floor was full of recruiters all preparing for the next day at this point, so we felt pretty out of place and left after a few minutes.

So this was our first fair and because we found shadowjack's post from a few years ago so helpful, we wanted to pay it forward by providing a similar summary of our own experiences. I hope other newbies will find it useful in the future. I'll separate each day into different posts to make it easier to read.

Background
Certified teaching couple (non-STEM subjects) with subject MAs
Between 2-5 years experience at a lower-tier international school (no IB)
First fair

Pre-fair
We created a document with possible interview questions and wrote down notes for how we would answer. We also went through the list of schools and did some very preliminary research, crossing out the ones we thought were absolutely not going to be a good fit for us regardless of positions or salary.

We tried to research available positions, but SA kept telling us that positions wouldn't even be posted until right before the fair, so we gave up on that.

We made an attempt to contact a few schools before the fair, but no one bothered replying to us, due to our lack of experience, I assume. We did get one school contacting us asking for an interview, and we agreed to stop by their table at the fair during sign up.

Even though the hotel was a pricey one, we decided to bite the bullet and book our stay there.

In my experience, science and math are in more demand simply because they are core subjects but fewer teachers are qualified to teach them. Especially if the school is looking to fill something like an AP Physics position. English is commonly thought to be the most difficult to get hired in because there are so many English teachers, but there are also more positions available. At the fair it seems like almost every school has at least one English opening. EAL teachers seem to be more in demand than ELA or lit teachers these days.

Another subject that seems to be on the rise is Mandarin, judging by the job postings.

I think the question is not only of demand, but also of supply. Elementary openings abound but so do elementary school teachers. In general, math/science seem to have the most favorable supply/demand ratio (favorable to teachers looking for a job). English probably has the lowest, but it depends. There are lots of EAL teachers. Schools that are looking for experienced English teachers with subject MAs are probably looking at a smaller pool.

Thanks for the replies everyone!

My partner and I are attending a fair for the first time next month. We're curious about couple interviews and how they work. Do they usually expect you to answer each question separately? Or can a couple take turns answering some of the questions? How does it differ from a regular one-on-one interview? Any advice would be appreciated.

Good luck. I will say that Chinese immigration is frustrating to deal with at the best of times. If it makes you feel any better, my partner, who is from the UK and graduated from a UK university, applied for a Chinese Z visa in a different country (a country that my partner held a residency permit for, having lived there for the past ten years) with documents notarized by UK authorities and the application was processed without a problem. So it IS possible.

As far as I know, degrees have to be apostilled/notarized in their country of origin. But I’m pretty sure there are agencies that help you with that by mail, so you wouldn’t have to travel to Canada just for a piece of paper.

Has your school offered you no advice on this issue?

I agree with a lot of what PsyGuy said. We live in China and for the most part our quality of life is great. The things that bother us are:

If something were ever to go wrong, it would be very difficult to deal with. The language barrier, for one, but also because to get anything done in China requires the infamous guanxi (knowing the right people). We do our best to stay out of trouble, but we know of a few cases where foreigners got sucked into a crappy situation and had to deal with the police, who in general don't really like foreigners.

The general chaos. The way people drive and park here drives me crazy even though we don't have a car. There is absolutely no regard for anyone's safety. No one cares about privacy or Western manners (like people hawking up loogies in the street is something I still haven't gotten used to). We have a kid and Chinese people think nothing of pinching cheeks or taking photos without even asking.

The lack of "culture" (exhibitions, events, etc). There's not much to see or do here (I'm sure in bigger cities this would be less of an issue).

The lack of certain kinds of food. Again, in bigger cities expats have a lot more to choose from. One example is cheese. Getting good cheese here that doesn't cost an arm and a leg is impossible. It's silly, but little things like that tend up build up.

The work culture. No one here really cares about work-life balance or understands why it's important. This may depend on your school though.

All these things individually seem tolerable, but if you have to deal with them all the time it can be wearing, especially if you live here for more than a year. And if you have kids, a whole different set of issues crop up.

I've never worked in Abu Dhabi but I have worked in for-profit schools. My personal experience is that if you are willing to keep your head down and disconnect from caring about the school in general you can get by okay. Any time you try to make things better on a policy level you will meet a brick wall. If you don't mind just doing your thing and going with the flow, it's tolerable (assuming there are other reasons to work at that school or live in that region).

I got hired for my first job super last minute - the AP teacher at the school had quit over the summer in a fit of rage, and the college counselor was a former co-worker of mine who got in touch. So it definitely helps to have contacts.

My current job is at an IS in China that's only been open four years. We were here from the very start. Working at a brand new school is certainly an experience, with everyone flying by the seat of their pants. It's definitely a bit of a gamble, applying to teach at a school with no reviews. We learned a lot but definitely ready to move on at this point.