What do you teach? Did you sign up with Search? Did you ask your Associate for an invite to say, Bangkok, which is for teachers deemed to be strong candidates?

I had never been to a job fair, have 20+ years experience and a trailing spouse...and in the end, I applied and was accepted for Bangkok...

Don't let admin tell YOU what you are or are not - that is why you pay Search, so your associate can advise you honestly.

Redvaldo, I brought three suits to wear. Bangkok is sticky, and I didn't want to be known as "that guy in the same suit three days in a row". Others wore dress trousers and dress shirt with or without tie. I wear trousers and jacket. Nobody wears a 3 piece anymore LOL.

For evenings, you can switch to casual wear, but during the days, I dressed professionally. In fact, I dressed the same way I dress for school, even though nobody ever asked about it.

I also brought extra dress shirts and ties, because if I accidentally slopped on some, I wanted to be able to change right away.

I brought one pair of dress shoes - my most comfortable ones - but extra dress socks in case of emergencies (who knows when a hole will appear or threads unravel? LOL).

Hope that helps!

andyleblanc - first off, you only apply to schools with openings for you at the level you teach at. For instance, if you are an MS math teacher, many schools who have HS math openings won't touch you (the top and high 2nd tier schools mainly) because you have no experience at that level, or no recent experience. Second, if you are married, you need to target your spouse's position too - you come as a package.

You do this in October/November/December.

January comes the fair. You go to the fair with quick facts sheets, CVs and Thank You notes. I made our notes on our computer - simple slips of paper, but they do the job. You could also go with an Ichiro (search in this forum for the explanation).

Then...the first day, you get to register, grab your package, start checking out school openings (we interviewed for openings that weren't even on Search yet - they showed up a day later!), filling in your requests on the yellow slips and putting them in the file folders (not boxes) of the schools that interest you.

If they want you to interview, they will put a note in your box. Of, if there has been previous contact and they want to interview you, there will be a note right at the start of the fair or shortly afterwards.

Then you begin the interview rounds the next day, and during day 1 and 2 attend school presentations, ask questions, and get your name known.


Then at the sign up, you hope to get an interview and make a connection that leads to a job offer.

That's the fair in a nutshell.

Redvaldo,

never heard of it. The big Dubai schools are well-known. It is take your chances with the unknown ones...

If you have a strong teaching area, my advice is go to the London Fair. It is like the Bangkok Fair, but perhaps a bit less focused on SE Asia/Asia.

You should already be targeting your schools and customizing your CV to match their openings. You want them to want you!

Don't just accept anything in Dubai to be in Dubai - there are a lot nicer places in the world...not that it isn't nice. But there are a ton of crap schools there, sad to say.

Thank you both. I am writing the posts so that people like me (who have never been to a fair) can get a sense of what it is like and what to consider.

After today's posting (which might be late as we fly today), I will do a recap and - to see what I might have done differently.

Off to wake up Mrs. Shadowjack and get ready for breakfast!

Whew! Today is definitely the roller coaster ride day for everybody! By the end of the day, some people will have a sense that the fair was a waste of time; others will have multiple job offers to choose from, and others will still be waiting for that elusive offer to appear and make it all worth while.

Once again, Mrs. Shadowjack and I got up early (the middle two days are early rising days due to interviews), showered and headed down to breakfast. Some great news - teaching colleagues of ours accepted an offer to a lovely school in a great location. I am so happy for them! By the way, the buffet breakfast which is included in your room at the Royal Orchid is superb. We eat breakfast and then don't eat again until dinner.

Once that was done, it was off to our first interview at 8:30. This was for a smaller school in a nice location, but definitely not our first choice. However, the community was interesting and we liked the director and his assistant. Again it went well. However, and this is the frustrating part for so many of the candidates, no immediate offers were forthcoming. At the same time, nothing was said about "thanks, no thanks," so we know we are doing SOMETHING right.

After that it was a rush to our next interview at 9:00 with a fantastic-looking school in an unexpectedly great location. Wow! The director was very honest about the school and employment for Mrs. Shadowjack and I think we again had a good interview. Thanks were given, out the door we went, and then it was an hour until our second-to-last interview of the day. This was the 'dream job' for me and a good opportunity for Mrs. Shadowjack. The interview went really well, so we will see what happens. A mention was made of checking with references, so that sounds promising...but again, nothing concrete. It can get soooo frustrating when you know the recruiters WANT to see you, the interview goes well, and then...nothing. Be strong! Nothing might ever come of any of the interviews we did, but each one was a learning experience.

Finally, later, we met with the school I mentioned where going to the presentation made a big difference in gaining an interview. Again, we had a good interview, but it was explained to us that the school needed to put other pieces of hiring together before it would be in a position to make a decision on us. So... we were told to keep in touch and that they should know more after the next fair in London.

The rest of the day was spent waiting to see if anybody dropped a note into our file and hoping for a phone call or email. LOL - this IS the reality for a lot of teachers at this stage of the day. Expect it. Periodically we went to check our file and walked around the candidate room. What we saw was a mix of happy candidates, candidates filling out yet more interview requests (likely because they were in our boat, not having a firm offer, and starting to expand their search), candidates skyping, chatting, and more.

This was it. The reality check. This period of the fair if you have no job offers will test you. Again, understand that the fair is NOT a guarantee of a job. If you know that coming in, you will understand that you should perhaps have a fall-back fair. Another fair with a different mix (sort of like American Idol where people go back the next year, or to another city the same year of auditions) can yield different results, as I illustrated with my friends' story.

After 2 1/2 hour of sitting, it was time to head down to the candidates/recruiters reception. You have paid for this - keep the drink ticket from your fair package, wear your name tag and chat with everybody. Don't actively go searching out recruiters, but don't shy away. It is another chance to connect.

We met some really nice people and reconnected with others we had talked with at the fair. It was pretty low-key. We found out more colleagues had received job offers at a school that I know through other former colleagues is stellar. Again, I was really happy for them. Other colleagues did not fare so well and are in the same boat we are - the waiting boat.

On the way back, we checked our file folder again - and this time were rewarded by a message from one of the schools we had interviewed with that they were going to continue looking, but they wanted me to keep in touch. At this point I am getting the feeling of ever the bridesmaid and never the bride. But, with a follow-up interview tomorrow and another interview later tomorrow, we are still staying positive. It sounds like SOMETHING will happen for us in terms of job offers - just not at the fair itself. Definitely, though, if we do get an offer after the fair, it will be the fair that is the catalyst for it.

With that, it is off to bed, up early for a big breakfast and another interview, and then later another interview. We are hoping we will also wake up and find requests for contact from some of our other schools. Honestly, we are blessed to have so much interest and no matter which offer we get and accept, we will be going there gladly, with no second thoughts.

Good luck to all my fellow candidates still waiting to hear!

Split up as you hit your top choice schools, then reunite for the rest.

Seems to be lots of goodwill and interest, but no offers yet. Hoping for something tomorrow...but if not, it is not the end of the world!

Thanks :-)

Autumn, slips = interviews invitation largely due to pre-contact with the schools. If you are interested, contact schools well before the fair and then contact them again closer to the fair.

However, sometimes your CV might not be enough to get a look, or there are other considerations (as with me and Mrs. Shadowjack). In that case, making those connections at the job fair are crucial.

With us, we had two pre-contacts and that was it.

Never heard of it, which means it is not one of the big, good ones.

Also, if it is not really a school you would go to, why the heck are you signing a contract in the first place?????

Directors also talk to one another, so you might jeopardize your chances down the road.

Young_Teach.

You have a job. You are teaching.

GET CERTIFIED before you go anywhere. Understand that for any of the really good schools and most of the average schools, you MUST have a teaching certificate. You can go to Mallorca Spain for two summers through the College of New Jersey and get your teaching certification.

Certification is your golden ticket and don't let anybody tell you differently.

Buffalofan - we were talking with a single teacher from a small school in a small country. His director was there and had been talking him up. He went to his first choice school and was hired on the spot.

I also was in line to arrange interviews behind candidates with more than 2 kids and a trailing spouse. At that particular school, they were basically told, "Thanks, but not thanks."

Mrs. Shadowjack is a bit of a trailing spouse at the moment, but we are getting interviews. I think in the case of a trailing spouse, the teaching spouse's experience is one of the keys. The other is the relationship between the spouses. If Mrs. Shadowjack was a total trailing spouse, I would still want her included in the interviews, mainly because she is STILL part of my package and needs to have a grasp of where we are going and to WANT to go there.