The International Schools Review Forum

What's the take on this hiring season? It seems to be moving really slowly vs previous years(pre-Covid). People I know have been hot commodities in the past and are barely getting responses. What's the deal?

People fleeing China and a host of other countries are making the search process quite competitive. Good schools are taking their sweet time to find the right fit. Math/physics/comp sci teachers I know of have already signed their new contracts.

First,COVID is still having a significant global impact or the after effects of COVID have drastically changed the IE field. Many expats facing troubling quarantine and lock-down and an absence of vaccine motivated a lot of expats to leave, and when they do they take their kids with them. This means that lower tier ISs have to pivot towards host national students or scale back their operations as rolls fall.

Second, everything is moving so much more slowly or not at all in recruiting. Many ISs appear content or at least not panicked about waiting. The stress of losing a a really strong IT doesnt seem to be nearly as great this year for recruiters/leadership. Many of them still have parents that are ecstatically happy and grateful for onsite learning that they dont seem as focused on the quality of an ISs ITs, thus increasing the range of suitable ITs for an IS to recruit from. Leaders/recruiters just dont feel like they are missing out by waiting.

Third, theres a lot of unemployed ITs as a result of COVID shutdowns still looking for appointments making the applicant and labor pool larger than usual, though some of this is compensated for by ITs who would have been job searching who decided to renew contracts as last AY it was still rather bleak.

Fourth, coin has dropped. ISs arent offering as attractive salary and OSH packages

I managed to get a couple of offers through contacts and feel very lucky to land a decent position at a tier 2 position in Bangkok.

Aside from those, I applied heavily to many jobs in my field on Search. Absolutely nothing in response, and in the past I would have schools contact me without even applying.

Psyguy isn't kidding when he says packages are in decline. I've always felt IE packages have always either been stagnant or in a slow decline for a while, but Covid really has hastened the deterioration of conditions. Some schools are in genuine need of tightening their belts and others are just taking advantage of the situation to save a few shekels.