Best Job Fair to Land a Tier 1 School

GrumblesMcGee
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Re: Best Job Fair to Land a Tier 1 School

Post by GrumblesMcGee »

How about you present your data on the number of hires from the fair? Seems pretty straightforward.
PsyGuy
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Post by PsyGuy »

@Heliotrope

@Heliotrope claiming definitions dont matter, doesnt mean they dont matter. They do matter, and youve been supporting a position that their difference does matter until now.

We dont agree after all. Leadership attend some fairs to recruit and hire ITs, and other fairs they attend for other rationals including socializing, networking, and holiday.

How do you know the board actually cared?
Heliotrope
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Re: Reply

Post by Heliotrope »

PsyGuy wrote:
> @Heliotrope
>
> @Heliotrope claiming definitions dont matter, doesnt mean they dont matter.
> They do matter, and youve been supporting a position that their difference
> does matter until now.

The first time I addressed this, I said: "There's only an actual need for food, water, sleep, etc. (the bottom of Maslow's pyramid). So no, they don't need the fairs, but there's still a need for them, because recruiters want fairs. They think it's an efficient way to hire teachers."
So not sure what your point is.


> We dont agree after all. Leadership attend some fairs to recruit and hire
> ITs, and other fairs they attend for other rationals including socializing,
> networking, and holiday.

Yes, there we disagree.
But if a few actual recruiters on this forum can tell us if they go to fairs to have a break from it all or do some shopping, and primarily to hire, I'll happily concede.


> How do you know the board actually cared?

Board meetings aren't exactly Bilderberg Conferences. And we've been friends with Board members at a number of schools, including my current school.
You've never known a board member?
GrumblesMcGee
Posts: 72
Joined: Wed Apr 17, 2019 7:53 pm

Re: Best Job Fair to Land a Tier 1 School

Post by GrumblesMcGee »

Still waiting on that data. Is it that hard to find? I mean, you obviously just reviewed it in order to arrive at your reasoned position, and then told us that the data supported said position.
Nomads
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Re: Best Job Fair to Land a Tier 1 School

Post by Nomads »

Psyguy,

The point is I want to get to know them better before I hire them. I want to know if they are the teachers I want working with our students and be a part of our community. At a fair, I can see them in a variety of settings including interviews, conversations during the day, the reception at night, and spend far more time than one hour. I can get to know them much better than a couple of Skype conversations.

@Nomads

What about getting to know them, when you know they start working for you, because if they arent going to work for you why does getting to know them matter.
Further, how do you get to know them better? Your spending an hour having a conversation either way. You seem to be one of those leadership that BELIEVE they have some finely honed sixth sense of being able to profile ITs and candidates.
GrumblesMcGee
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Re: Best Job Fair to Land a Tier 1 School

Post by GrumblesMcGee »

Nomads wrote:
> The point is I want to get to know them better before I hire them. I want
> to know if they are the teachers I want working with our students and be a
> part of our community. At a fair, I can see them in a variety of settings
> including interviews, conversations during the day, the reception at night,
> and spend far more time than one hour. I can get to know them much better
> than a couple of Skype conversations.

Plenty of people can fake their way through a fair (or conference, etc.) and project a professional, congenial image. Some of the weirdest people I know can come off smelling like roses if they just have to be on for a day or so. And many of the most stable, reliable, talented people I know don't shine when dealing with the concentrated high-stakes performance right after hopping off a plane. That speaks very little to their skills in the workplace.

I'm not saying there's no value to those fair interactions, but I think you're overvaluing it. A person's accomplishments (CV), training, and reputation over the long haul (evaluations from your admin peers who spent months/years working with the candidate, not a few hours posturing in a hotel) are far more germane.

Plus the value you're assigning comes at a high cost--mostly assessed to the teacher in terms of fees, travel expenses, lost time, and seeing a slice of their future income transferred to those facilitating the match.
Walter
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Re: Best Job Fair to Land a Tier 1 School

Post by Walter »

Some of you seem to have very different ideas of fun to my own. Schlepping through airports, sitting on a long flight next to someone I’ve never met and never wanted to meet and being in a box in a hotel for 12 hours a day are all painful to me. I’d much rather be with my family than spend time at recruitment conferences. So why do I go? There are two reasons:
1) Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t like online dating. I firmly believe that I gain much more insight into what people are really like when I am the same space as they. And I believe that the candidates I interview get a much better sense of who I am because of that proximity. Of necessity, international school educators uproot and relocate many thousands of miles from where they originate. Work, the school, their colleagues are much more important to their lives than if they stay at home, close to family and friends. So when you interview for a job – in Bali or Bombay or Brussels – the potential impact on the teacher is much more significant than if the plan is to move from one district in NYC to another. That’s why the “fit” is so essential for the teacher and similarly so for the school where it is important that the community of educators gets along. This is more important in Bali and Bombay than it is in Brussels, because expats in those places are invariably thrown together more. Interviews in person give both sides a better opportunity to see if a future working relationship has a good chance of making it through the contract. Those of you who find your lifetime partners through Skype and don’t meet them until the wedding ceremony will disagree. Good luck to you.
2) Schools in some locations will get thousands of applications every year: AS London, AS Paris, UWC/SAS Singapore, IS/NIST/Patana Bangkok have it made. They have oceans to fish in. Not because the schools are necessarily exceptional, but because people want to live in those places. Other schools in other locations aren’t so lucky. It makes no sense for me to limit myself only to those people who actually apply to the school I work in. Meanwhile, in every Fair I’ve been to, the advice that candidates get at the very beginning is “keep your eyes open”, “don’t rule anything out”, “be prepared to be surprised”. The saddest of the Fair candidates are the ones (usually first-timers) who mark as their regional preference “Western Europe” and cross out everything else. The Fair construct allows teachers with a sense of adventure to go places they’d never dreamed of – and relying only on the direct application and Skype interview runs completely counter to that.

There is another reason why the Fairs can work for teachers. Go to the candidate lounge and you’re one handshake from someone who knows something about the school(s) you’re interested in. You can get direct feedback from someone, or someone who knows someone. In other postings, Dave has warned about the dog-eat-dog atmosphere at the Fairs with teachers stealing other teachers’ resumes from folders and giving false information. From my experience, which is much more extensive than Dave’s, that’s bo11ocks. Of course a Fair is a nerve-wracking experience, but, approached in the right way, it can also be fun and exciting and instructive.
Every year, we hear stories about how the Fairs are dying off: that they are an anachronism; that the world of recruiting has moved on. And every year, yet another Fair opens its doors.
Nexttrip
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Re: Best Job Fair to Land a Tier 1 School

Post by Nexttrip »

As an international teacher for almost 20 years, I agree with Walter. Even with the added expense, it's a great way to get to know an Admin a bit and hear about the school culture to judge if the school is a good fit (and vice versa). I find that face-to-face interviews give me far more information than Skype interviews. I also believe I come across better in person. So while I hate "internet dating" thing, the "speed dating" concept at fairs is well worth it for me.
fine dude
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Re: Best Job Fair to Land a Tier 1 School

Post by fine dude »

Agree with many of the points Walter raised, but with increased cost of living, pressure cooker-like work conditions, and reduced potential for savings, the so called dream schools are no longer the favorites of veteran teachers. I'd rather live in Budapest or Prague than in Paris or Bangkok.
PsyGuy
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Post by PsyGuy »

@Heliotrope

There isnt a need for fairs, leadership and recruiters wanting fairs doesnt create a need because of a claim that its a need. Putting words in proximity to one another dosnt let you change their meanings. Saying they dont need them but theres a need for them because they want them, doesnt make them a need.

Thinking something is efficient doesnt make it efficient.

@GrumblesMcGee

Keep waiting, apparently data and love have in common that if you wait long enough it will fall in your lap. Yes the data supports my position.

@Nomads

No you cant, those are all just interviews in slightly different settings with different backdrops. While there is a trend now to see the peak recruiting fairs as less discreet events and more as a continuous recruiting activity over a longer period of time. All of those events are still interviews:
Interview = Interview
Conversation During the Day = Interview
Night Reception (social) = Interview
This assumes you can even make attendance at those mandatory without tipping off the candidate such that they dont put on their game face. Your different environment only works at the social for example if the candidate chooses to attend and you can observe without arousing suspicions and the candidate isnt savvy enough to realize that ANYTHING outside of their room and at the hotel means game face on and your in an interview. Otherwise if you make an invitation mandatory to social/reception than its as above an interview.

As I briefly discussed above, you seem to be one of those leadership that thinks your extremely limited HR experience (and recruiters and leadership tend to do HR very badly) allows you so profiler level insight into the quality of an IT. Ive met a leader who actually has that kind of training and experience as an intelligence operator, but thats the exception. I concur with @GrumblesMcGee that ITs and candidates for fairs and interviews can fake being the perfect IT both online and F2F. The same goes for recruiters and leadership, thats why so much of the problems chronicled on this website exist, because recruiters can fake being great for an interview and in recruiting interactions.

@Walter

Yes you do you like all those travel things because if you didnt you wouldnt do them.

Youre old fashioned. Not liking online dating doesnt mean theres any validity that the speed dating of recruiting fairs is any better, and its not. As above your one of those recruiters that thinks you have honed some ability or perception to profile ITs and their real personalities and intentions.
They dont get a better idea of who you are because again, as above, as candidates can fake being professional recruiters and leadership can fake benevolence and professionalism.

The advice of "keeping your eyes open" is just more of the fear mongering peddling because thats exactly why one of the reason that recruiters and leaders like fairs, and want fairs, because the pressure of the fair environment is to the recruiters/leaders advantage. Those ITs that only want Western Europe, thats what they ant. The other issue that they DONT want is to be losers, and after spending all the time and all the coin to come to this fair, they dont want to leave with nothing because thats a common definition of losing and being a loser. They dont want to be on that plane home having left with nothing because that means no one wants them, thy arent good enough and a whole bunch of self defeating psychology. Recruiters/leaders such as @Walter prey on that psychology and the environment that fairs promulgate and its a greater disservice to those ITs who dont shine or thrive in high stress and high pressure environments.


@Walters experience is far LESS extensive on fairs and the vast majority of it is fear mongering and smoke and mirrors. You might get direct feedback and it only maybe honest and trusted. This is a fair, there are a significant number of ITs whose participation and success at fairs is pushed/forced by leaders and recruiters who demand and require that ITs only say positive things and if they dont their reference tanks.
Its also all entirely true, candidates remove resumes from folders, and they do falsify information (including the my former HOS is a great person) they are competitive and while its not a den of thieves, you cant tell sociopaths from everyone else, thats what sociopaths do, they look and can act like everyone else.

@Nexttrip

Good to hear from who, leaders and recruiters about how awesome their IS is and thats the "insight". Thats marketing, and the slideshow is just advertising. Its not a great way to get to know leadership its a great way to know what leadership want candidates to see.

@fine dude

Yes they are, the dream ISs are still dream ISs, thats why they are dream ISs. Budapest, Prague, Paris and Bangkok are places not ISs. There are less stressful ISs aside from "dream" ISs in all of those locations. Youre preferences arent anyone elses.
yoplay
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Re: Best Job Fair to Land a Tier 1 School

Post by yoplay »

Pretty much agree with everything @walter mentioned. A couple of the most extraordinary and exciting moments I can remember have been walking into a fair and knowing that I could be going almost anywhere in the world in the next few days time.

I'm sure there are admin out there that see the fairs purely as a boondoggle and are the sinister beings psyguy describes. But in top tier schools, that hasn't been my experience. The admin I've worked for have had the utmost levels of integrity. Even if I didn't agree with their decisions, or even aspects of their vision at times, they were in education for the right reasons and there was a mutual respect that framed our relationship. I've met admin during interviews that don't match that description, and those are schools I've chosen not to work for.
PsyGuy
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Post by PsyGuy »

@yoplay

Those are top tier ISs though a very, very, very small portion of ISs. Those ISs dont need fairs the most. They recruit through the premium agencies because the premium agencies make their membership and attendance worthwhile, going so far as waiving invoice fees and attendance penalties. These ISs give the premium agencies prestige.
Heliotrope
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Re: Reply

Post by Heliotrope »

PsyGuy wrote:
> There isnt a need for fairs, leadership and recruiters wanting fairs doesnt
> create a need because of a claim that its a need. Putting words in
> proximity to one another dosnt let you change their meanings. Saying they
> dont need them but theres a need for them because they want them, doesnt
> make them a need.

Personally I use the Merriam Webster's definition of 'need' as 'a lack of something requisite, desirable, or useful'. That's why I used 'need'.
The Cambridge dictionary defines 'a need for' as 'a lack of; a requirement for ("There is an urgent need for teachers in this city")'
But as I've said before, you're welcome to use 'want' if you prefer. It's really not important to me.

The point is that recruiters (and a fair amount of teachers) think fairs are a good thing, and therefore I think they will continue to exist for at least a decade longer. They might think this because they believe actual face-to-face interviews give them a better sense of the candidates, as recruiters here have claimed.


> Thinking something is efficient doesnt make it efficient.

I don't claim that thinking something is efficient makes it efficient, that's why I wrote it like that.
They think it's efficient, that's what matters. They base their decision on whether to attend on what they think.
PsyGuy
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Post by PsyGuy »

@Heliotrope

The difference between want and need is important they arent synonyms or interchangeable with one another.

Fairs will exist longer than a decade.

Recruiters and leadership thinking or claiming that F2F interaction such at fairs giving them better insight doesnt mean they do. I can think that woman are enraptured by my amazing personality, that doesnt mean thats why they like or that I have an amazing personality.

Yes you did you wrote "They think it's an efficient way to hire teachers. So not sure what your point is.". You wrote that, I know that because theres a little text box with your forum name attached to that box. You typed that text, you @Heliotrope, its yours, because you wrote it. If it will make you happy though, "They" thinking that fairs are efficient doesnt make them actually efficient.
Heliotrope
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Re: Reply

Post by Heliotrope »

PsyGuy wrote:
> @Heliotrope
>
> The difference between want and need is important they arent synonyms or
> interchangeable with one another.

In the context where I used 'need for', given the definitions I included above, I feel comfortable using it they way I did.
It is 'something they desire'.


> Fairs will exist longer than a decade.

We agree on that then.


> Recruiters and leadership thinking or claiming that F2F interaction such at
> fairs giving them better insight doesnt mean they do.

It also doesn't mean it doesn't.
But if it does or doesn't is not the point. They believe it does, hence it's a reason to attend fairs.


> Yes you did you wrote "They think it's an efficient way to hire
> teachers. So not sure what your point is.". You wrote that, I know
> that because theres a little text box with your forum name attached to that
> box. You typed that text, you @Heliotrope, its yours, because you wrote it.

No, I don't claim that thinking something is efficient makes it efficient.
I say that recruiters THINK it's efficient. And they act on what they believe.
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