Our "Ichiro" was a hit at the AASSA fair!
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Our "Ichiro" was a hit at the AASSA fair!
My husband and I just returned from the fair in Atlanta. Before we had left, we printed of copies of our resume. We also made a resume cover sheet with two columns of info (one for my hubby; one for me) that listed the following info:
-Professional Teaching Objective
-Total Years of Experience
-International Teaching Experience
-Education
-Professional Accreditation
-Professional Training/Development
-Courses Taught
We actually forgot to pack our stack of resumes, so we actually ONLY ended up handing out our cover sheet. Recruiters seemed to like it! We got a lot of comments like, "how cool!," and "this is clever," and "how convenient!" We got a job as well. Doubt it was solely due to this (the school had contacted us before the fair), but it definitely stood out in the pile of paper on recruiters' tables!
-Professional Teaching Objective
-Total Years of Experience
-International Teaching Experience
-Education
-Professional Accreditation
-Professional Training/Development
-Courses Taught
We actually forgot to pack our stack of resumes, so we actually ONLY ended up handing out our cover sheet. Recruiters seemed to like it! We got a lot of comments like, "how cool!," and "this is clever," and "how convenient!" We got a job as well. Doubt it was solely due to this (the school had contacted us before the fair), but it definitely stood out in the pile of paper on recruiters' tables!
Re: Our "Ichiro" was a hit at the AASSA fair!
where you headed? Congrats on the job!
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Re: Our "Ichiro" was a hit at the AASSA fair!
Do you have an overall review of the fair?
candidate/school ratio
were schools hiring?
candidate/school ratio
were schools hiring?
Comment
YAY, its Ichiro time. Candidates really need to be prepared FAR before the fair with interviews. If your depending entirely on interview slots during signup, you are more likely to be frustrated and disappointed. Atlanta is a dump fair, but candidates do get offers.
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Re: Our "Ichiro" was a hit at the AASSA fair!
I'm also interested in how the AASSA fair was this year!
Re: Our "Ichiro" was a hit at the AASSA fair!
My wife and I attended the ASSAA fair with my wife this year. Since we are newbies to this, we were thinking of using this as our "warm-up" to the Search fair in Cambridge that would come later. Here is a quick diary of the fair. (BTW, I want to say THANKS to Shadowjack as his detailed dairy of the Bangkok Fair a few years ago really let us know what to expect at a fair)
DAY 0: Thursday Night
Mrs. Cattalus and I flew into Atlanta, got checked at our hotel and then walked over to the fair hotel. We registered too late to get reservations at the fair hotel, ours was the economy version of the Hilton. It was nice and a quick walk over to the fair hotel, but if I had to do it again, I would stay at the fair hotel. We attended the orientation session put on the ASSAA admin. It was well done and entertaining (as much as those things can be), but much of was common sense and if someone has been to any fair before I would imagine that they skipped it. We then checked our mailbox (i.e. file folder) and found some cards from schools that we had never heard of before that wanted to meet us. It was a good way to get juices flowing for the fair and raise our excitement level as I was worried about getting zero interviews. At least now we would get some practice at interviewing for an international school.
Day 1: Friday Morning Sign-up Session
After a decent breakfast, we got to the Ballroom site way too early and just waited. After reading Shadowjack's diary I was worried there would be a huge line to get in and I wanted to be one of the first ones since I knew that our dream school had openings for both of us. The advantage of getting there super early was that we were able to walk in the ballroom, see where the school tables were set up and review the jobs they had posted behind them. I was surprised to see the number of jobs available for us. After scouting it out, we sat down and made a gameplan on what schools to go to in what order. We decided to take the ASSAA admin advice and go to these tables as a couple. We figured we would work better together. In a bigger fair, we would maybe have to split up.
Anyways, the doors open up and we race to our first school choice. We meet the admin, we spend a minute selling ourselves and he politely and professionally lets us know, that while Mrs. Cattalus is qualified, I really don't have the qualifications he is looking for. He hands back my resume and says “thanks, but no thanks.” After that disappointment we move on to our number #2 school, which has about 30 people in line for it. Thankfully we get on their interview list for the afternoon. After that, we head to other schools on our list, including one of the schools that had asked us to stop by. We ended up with interviews with five schools and struck out three times.
Day 1.5: Friday Afternoon Interviews
Our interviews start in the evening (after 5 pm). We have 3 interviews scheduled in a row, with two coming saturday morning. All interviews go well. It is a bit strange to interview in someone’s hotel room, especially the waiting out in the hall. But once the questions start, it was like your pretty standard interview. Many questions on Standards Based Grading, Learning Targets, Technology and PYP/MYP/IB experience. Mrs. Cattalus and I have zero experience with IB so it was very beneficial to read up on the lingo and methods of that type of curriculum. It was also interesting to see how the recruiters handled a dual interview. Sometimes it was straight ask one candidate for 15 minutes then ask the other times it was more integrated. I think it is important for couples to have a method to handle this. We handled it like two separate interviews and the other rarely jumped in unless they were asked to. I found it actually easier to interview with Mrs. Cattalus because sometimes the same questions were asked of each of us and I could think of my answer in my head while she answered her question. From our three interviews, we got 3 second interviews and Mrs. Cattalus got additional skype interviews with the principals of those schools as well. After all that, it was time for dinner and to rank the schools.
Day 2: Saturday - Interviews, Offers and Decisions oh my!
We start the day off by slipping a note cancelling an interview with one school. It wasn’t one that we were super interested in and we felt pretty confident from the other three interviews.
We then went to a first interview with the school that had shown interest in us. It went well and we set up a 2nd interview for right after lunch. We then headed to a 2nd interview with the school that was our number #2 choice going into the fair, (but now number #1). It seemed like a great fit. We really liked the administrators and it had good positions for both of us. They told us they would let us know after 2 pm if we would get a job offer. While Mrs. Cattalus was completing her skype interviews, I had some time to kill and I went to socialize. It is amazing how friendly people were, even though we were all competing for jobs. It was interesting to hear stories and experiences about all kinds of schools. After the skype interviews were done, we went to our 2nd interview with the school that had put the note in our mailbox. They let us know upfront that they would be offering us a contract today and that this was the time to answer any questions we had. They were extremely patient with us as we had many! Overall we felt very comfortable with them and the school and could see ourselves working there. As it was over, they told we had to let them know by the evening if we were going to accept or not. As we made our way to a 2nd interview with school from a smaller country, we got a call from the school that we had interviewed with yesterday and this morning and really wanted to go to. They wanted to meet us soon and talk again. We took this as a good sign, so we decided to cut our the upcoming interview a little short. Even though we had to rush out, we got offered a job there as well. As we raced to meet the school that seemed perfect for us, we gave thanks for the good luck to have jobs available in our fields from schools that we are interested in. Sometimes it doesn’t matter how great of teacher you are, there are just not the jobs out there for you. We got to the room of the school administrators and they offered us a contract and spent a lot of time going through it line by line and answering any questions we had.
After that, we decided to go have a late lunch and think about it. Though there wasn’t much to think about as the last school to offer us a contract was a school that we went to the fair specifically for. It also had to best package and was the best for us professionally, so in the end it wasn’t a tough choice. What was the toughest was to tell the administrators that we were going to a different school. I know they will just move on to the next candidate, but I truly felt that it would have been great working for them and in their school.
Day 3: Sunday - Reflections
As we had nothing to do until we flew out, we spent the morning reflecting on what we had learned:
We were very fortunate that many schools that interested us had positions for us and this was just in Latin America We belong to SA as well and as I looked for the last time at their database it seems that the rest of the world doesn’t have that many openings for us.
-All of the administrators/recruiters seemed very friendly and professional. They generally seemed to want to get to know you and wanted to make sure for you sake and theirs that you fit into their school
-I was struck by how many administrators were hiring at this fair, even though they themselves are leaving the school. It was a bit strange to hear how wonderful the school is, but then to hear that this was their last year.
-If you don’t teach IB, make sure you know the lingo of it and can relate how you have done the same thing in your classroom
-Our Ichiro was a brochure. It didn’t seem to be that big of deal as no administrators commented on it. They did comment on Mrs. Cattalus’s visual resume where she replaced the words with pictures of her trainings and experiences. Many administrators liked it, some were confused by it. To me the lesson is to be who you are. That is totally Mrs. Cattalus’s style. I kept the standard 2 page resume to explain me and it seemed to work fine as well.
-The ASSAA people said it and at first I didn’t believe it, but as busy candidates can be, recruiters seemed even busier. We had 4 initial interviews and 4 second interviews and talks in between, but we also had some down time. Recruiters seemed to be busy all the time.
-We were amazed at how the schools pitched themselves to teachers. Coming from USA public schools, we were unaccustomed to that. From the information sessions to the interviews they seemed to really want good teachers. In our experience, it seems to us that USA public schools just want a body in the room. Schools that we turned down seemed disappointed and the school that we choose seemed excited. In USA public schools it seems that they are doing you a favor by hiring you and if you don’t want it, there are many others who will take it .
-Lastly, ASSAA runs a good fair. It has been referred to as a “dump fair” on this board, but a lot of schools were hiring. I didn’t hear of many people being told “we will let you know in the future.” It was small (30-40 schools, about 200 people) and not that much stress. Anytime we had an issue or even needed counsel, the ASSAA people were available to help us. If you are interested in teaching in a Latin America school, I would highly recommend it.
Of course, we are newbies so these impressions might not mean anything thing and experienced ITs can and will probably laugh at some of our reflections, but to two teachers stepping into this world for the first time, the fair was an exciting time. Though I hope not to have to do it again anytime soon.
DAY 0: Thursday Night
Mrs. Cattalus and I flew into Atlanta, got checked at our hotel and then walked over to the fair hotel. We registered too late to get reservations at the fair hotel, ours was the economy version of the Hilton. It was nice and a quick walk over to the fair hotel, but if I had to do it again, I would stay at the fair hotel. We attended the orientation session put on the ASSAA admin. It was well done and entertaining (as much as those things can be), but much of was common sense and if someone has been to any fair before I would imagine that they skipped it. We then checked our mailbox (i.e. file folder) and found some cards from schools that we had never heard of before that wanted to meet us. It was a good way to get juices flowing for the fair and raise our excitement level as I was worried about getting zero interviews. At least now we would get some practice at interviewing for an international school.
Day 1: Friday Morning Sign-up Session
After a decent breakfast, we got to the Ballroom site way too early and just waited. After reading Shadowjack's diary I was worried there would be a huge line to get in and I wanted to be one of the first ones since I knew that our dream school had openings for both of us. The advantage of getting there super early was that we were able to walk in the ballroom, see where the school tables were set up and review the jobs they had posted behind them. I was surprised to see the number of jobs available for us. After scouting it out, we sat down and made a gameplan on what schools to go to in what order. We decided to take the ASSAA admin advice and go to these tables as a couple. We figured we would work better together. In a bigger fair, we would maybe have to split up.
Anyways, the doors open up and we race to our first school choice. We meet the admin, we spend a minute selling ourselves and he politely and professionally lets us know, that while Mrs. Cattalus is qualified, I really don't have the qualifications he is looking for. He hands back my resume and says “thanks, but no thanks.” After that disappointment we move on to our number #2 school, which has about 30 people in line for it. Thankfully we get on their interview list for the afternoon. After that, we head to other schools on our list, including one of the schools that had asked us to stop by. We ended up with interviews with five schools and struck out three times.
Day 1.5: Friday Afternoon Interviews
Our interviews start in the evening (after 5 pm). We have 3 interviews scheduled in a row, with two coming saturday morning. All interviews go well. It is a bit strange to interview in someone’s hotel room, especially the waiting out in the hall. But once the questions start, it was like your pretty standard interview. Many questions on Standards Based Grading, Learning Targets, Technology and PYP/MYP/IB experience. Mrs. Cattalus and I have zero experience with IB so it was very beneficial to read up on the lingo and methods of that type of curriculum. It was also interesting to see how the recruiters handled a dual interview. Sometimes it was straight ask one candidate for 15 minutes then ask the other times it was more integrated. I think it is important for couples to have a method to handle this. We handled it like two separate interviews and the other rarely jumped in unless they were asked to. I found it actually easier to interview with Mrs. Cattalus because sometimes the same questions were asked of each of us and I could think of my answer in my head while she answered her question. From our three interviews, we got 3 second interviews and Mrs. Cattalus got additional skype interviews with the principals of those schools as well. After all that, it was time for dinner and to rank the schools.
Day 2: Saturday - Interviews, Offers and Decisions oh my!
We start the day off by slipping a note cancelling an interview with one school. It wasn’t one that we were super interested in and we felt pretty confident from the other three interviews.
We then went to a first interview with the school that had shown interest in us. It went well and we set up a 2nd interview for right after lunch. We then headed to a 2nd interview with the school that was our number #2 choice going into the fair, (but now number #1). It seemed like a great fit. We really liked the administrators and it had good positions for both of us. They told us they would let us know after 2 pm if we would get a job offer. While Mrs. Cattalus was completing her skype interviews, I had some time to kill and I went to socialize. It is amazing how friendly people were, even though we were all competing for jobs. It was interesting to hear stories and experiences about all kinds of schools. After the skype interviews were done, we went to our 2nd interview with the school that had put the note in our mailbox. They let us know upfront that they would be offering us a contract today and that this was the time to answer any questions we had. They were extremely patient with us as we had many! Overall we felt very comfortable with them and the school and could see ourselves working there. As it was over, they told we had to let them know by the evening if we were going to accept or not. As we made our way to a 2nd interview with school from a smaller country, we got a call from the school that we had interviewed with yesterday and this morning and really wanted to go to. They wanted to meet us soon and talk again. We took this as a good sign, so we decided to cut our the upcoming interview a little short. Even though we had to rush out, we got offered a job there as well. As we raced to meet the school that seemed perfect for us, we gave thanks for the good luck to have jobs available in our fields from schools that we are interested in. Sometimes it doesn’t matter how great of teacher you are, there are just not the jobs out there for you. We got to the room of the school administrators and they offered us a contract and spent a lot of time going through it line by line and answering any questions we had.
After that, we decided to go have a late lunch and think about it. Though there wasn’t much to think about as the last school to offer us a contract was a school that we went to the fair specifically for. It also had to best package and was the best for us professionally, so in the end it wasn’t a tough choice. What was the toughest was to tell the administrators that we were going to a different school. I know they will just move on to the next candidate, but I truly felt that it would have been great working for them and in their school.
Day 3: Sunday - Reflections
As we had nothing to do until we flew out, we spent the morning reflecting on what we had learned:
We were very fortunate that many schools that interested us had positions for us and this was just in Latin America We belong to SA as well and as I looked for the last time at their database it seems that the rest of the world doesn’t have that many openings for us.
-All of the administrators/recruiters seemed very friendly and professional. They generally seemed to want to get to know you and wanted to make sure for you sake and theirs that you fit into their school
-I was struck by how many administrators were hiring at this fair, even though they themselves are leaving the school. It was a bit strange to hear how wonderful the school is, but then to hear that this was their last year.
-If you don’t teach IB, make sure you know the lingo of it and can relate how you have done the same thing in your classroom
-Our Ichiro was a brochure. It didn’t seem to be that big of deal as no administrators commented on it. They did comment on Mrs. Cattalus’s visual resume where she replaced the words with pictures of her trainings and experiences. Many administrators liked it, some were confused by it. To me the lesson is to be who you are. That is totally Mrs. Cattalus’s style. I kept the standard 2 page resume to explain me and it seemed to work fine as well.
-The ASSAA people said it and at first I didn’t believe it, but as busy candidates can be, recruiters seemed even busier. We had 4 initial interviews and 4 second interviews and talks in between, but we also had some down time. Recruiters seemed to be busy all the time.
-We were amazed at how the schools pitched themselves to teachers. Coming from USA public schools, we were unaccustomed to that. From the information sessions to the interviews they seemed to really want good teachers. In our experience, it seems to us that USA public schools just want a body in the room. Schools that we turned down seemed disappointed and the school that we choose seemed excited. In USA public schools it seems that they are doing you a favor by hiring you and if you don’t want it, there are many others who will take it .
-Lastly, ASSAA runs a good fair. It has been referred to as a “dump fair” on this board, but a lot of schools were hiring. I didn’t hear of many people being told “we will let you know in the future.” It was small (30-40 schools, about 200 people) and not that much stress. Anytime we had an issue or even needed counsel, the ASSAA people were available to help us. If you are interested in teaching in a Latin America school, I would highly recommend it.
Of course, we are newbies so these impressions might not mean anything thing and experienced ITs can and will probably laugh at some of our reflections, but to two teachers stepping into this world for the first time, the fair was an exciting time. Though I hope not to have to do it again anytime soon.
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Re: Our "Ichiro" was a hit at the AASSA fair!
Congrats on getting an offer from one of your top choice schools. That should always bring a sense of accomplishment (WINNING!), but especially so since this is your first fair/int'l school experience.
Thank you for taking the time to post such a detailed fair diary. I think that these types of posts are extremely useful to people as they prepare for their own fair adventures. We have been to 3 fairs with Search (1 small, 2 large) and your insights and reflections seem pretty spot on with our experiences. We left our first fair with jobs (from a school/country that was not really on our radar prior to the fair) and the other two with disappointment and generally have a bad feeling about fairs at this point. Fortunately we are now in our dream gig/location and I don't ever anticipate having to go to another one.
There are always exceptions that you may run into in the future (e.g. admin who act unprofessionally/less than human in their dealings with you, fellow candidates who seem to enjoy flaunting their multiple dream job offers and/or seem to be pumping you for information to somehow use to their advantage) but by and large the people at fairs on both sides of the table seem to be professional and fully realize that life-changing decisions/opportunities are being pursued and that everyone deserves to be treated with respect and consideration.
As for the quality/nature of the fair I can't really speak to that. We have never had even the slightest interest in South America (and even chose the ME over there for our first jobs) so none of the attending schools would have any interest for us. I did sneak a peak at the schools list just to have some point of comparison and I did see that some schools that attended have the reputation of being top tier int'l schools. If South America is your top choice of location then it would seem that this fair was certainly worthy of consideration.
Congrats again!
Thank you for taking the time to post such a detailed fair diary. I think that these types of posts are extremely useful to people as they prepare for their own fair adventures. We have been to 3 fairs with Search (1 small, 2 large) and your insights and reflections seem pretty spot on with our experiences. We left our first fair with jobs (from a school/country that was not really on our radar prior to the fair) and the other two with disappointment and generally have a bad feeling about fairs at this point. Fortunately we are now in our dream gig/location and I don't ever anticipate having to go to another one.
There are always exceptions that you may run into in the future (e.g. admin who act unprofessionally/less than human in their dealings with you, fellow candidates who seem to enjoy flaunting their multiple dream job offers and/or seem to be pumping you for information to somehow use to their advantage) but by and large the people at fairs on both sides of the table seem to be professional and fully realize that life-changing decisions/opportunities are being pursued and that everyone deserves to be treated with respect and consideration.
As for the quality/nature of the fair I can't really speak to that. We have never had even the slightest interest in South America (and even chose the ME over there for our first jobs) so none of the attending schools would have any interest for us. I did sneak a peak at the schools list just to have some point of comparison and I did see that some schools that attended have the reputation of being top tier int'l schools. If South America is your top choice of location then it would seem that this fair was certainly worthy of consideration.
Congrats again!
Discussion
I assume the IS that passed was one of those few elite ISs.
AASSA isnt a dump fair because its "bad", its a decent fair if your focus is S.A. and L.A.. Dump fairs are events in which candidates are dumped onto a floor with recruiters with the focus of filling/staffing classrooms at ISs with warm bodies, these ISs have recruiting issues either their compensation package is low or they are in hardship regions. ISs dont want to send a recruiter to fair, to stand around doing nothing, and end up conducting virtual interviews online, they can do that without the travel. This is why AASSA has their own fair, put those ISs in the same room with Asian and European ISs and their tables are empty, they dont pay well (compared to the packages Asian ISs can offer entry level ITs) or they arent ITs frst choice of where they want to go and be. Group all those like ISs together from the same regions and with similar compensation packages its a much less competitive field for recruiters, the candidates that arent interested arent going to attend and the ones that are interested will find less difference to distinguish between the different offers.
The issue with recruiters at fairs, is that socio-paths are very good at acting respectable, helpful and fair. If they couldnt there wouldnt be runners and train wrecks. You would be able to identify the miscreants and act accordingly. Anyone can put on a face and appear however they want for 30 minutes to an hour in an interview or during signup. Educators do it everyday when they put on their "face" before entering the building.
AASSA isnt a dump fair because its "bad", its a decent fair if your focus is S.A. and L.A.. Dump fairs are events in which candidates are dumped onto a floor with recruiters with the focus of filling/staffing classrooms at ISs with warm bodies, these ISs have recruiting issues either their compensation package is low or they are in hardship regions. ISs dont want to send a recruiter to fair, to stand around doing nothing, and end up conducting virtual interviews online, they can do that without the travel. This is why AASSA has their own fair, put those ISs in the same room with Asian and European ISs and their tables are empty, they dont pay well (compared to the packages Asian ISs can offer entry level ITs) or they arent ITs frst choice of where they want to go and be. Group all those like ISs together from the same regions and with similar compensation packages its a much less competitive field for recruiters, the candidates that arent interested arent going to attend and the ones that are interested will find less difference to distinguish between the different offers.
The issue with recruiters at fairs, is that socio-paths are very good at acting respectable, helpful and fair. If they couldnt there wouldnt be runners and train wrecks. You would be able to identify the miscreants and act accordingly. Anyone can put on a face and appear however they want for 30 minutes to an hour in an interview or during signup. Educators do it everyday when they put on their "face" before entering the building.
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Re: Our "Ichiro" was a hit at the AASSA fair!
Thank you for sharing, that was a nice read. And congratulations!
Which country did you accept a job in?
Which country did you accept a job in?
Re: Our "Ichiro" was a hit at the AASSA fair!
Congratulations on the successful fair! We are a semester into our first international school experience, and it has really been everything we hoped it would be. You have so much good ahead; enjoy!
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Re: Our "Ichiro" was a hit at the AASSA fair!
Congratulations on your fair and job success! I must say too, that I borrowed some of your ideas for my Ichiro. Thank you!
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Re: Our "Ichiro" was a hit at the AASSA fair!
Thank you for your thanks, cattalus! I appreciate the feedback - next fair, if there ever is one, will see me posting more of the same :-) Congratulations to you and Mrs. cattalus on your new positions!
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Re: Our "Ichiro" was a hit at the AASSA fair!
tdaley26,
the Dubai fair is for regional schools primarily. It was a fair that myself and Mrs. Shadowjack were prepared to go to if we hadn't received offers in Bangkok or London. Fortunately Bangkok panned out that year.
My recommendation for the Dubai fair is do your due diligence on schools. If you are already in the ME, look at the school list and start talking to colleagues. That way you already know where you are and where you aren't willing to go.
Good luck!
shad
the Dubai fair is for regional schools primarily. It was a fair that myself and Mrs. Shadowjack were prepared to go to if we hadn't received offers in Bangkok or London. Fortunately Bangkok panned out that year.
My recommendation for the Dubai fair is do your due diligence on schools. If you are already in the ME, look at the school list and start talking to colleagues. That way you already know where you are and where you aren't willing to go.
Good luck!
shad