Recruiting Season as an International School Teacher

Photo Credit: Travel by Moyan Brenn via FlickrCC

Most of our family and close friends know that we are leaving Japan at the end of the school year. This is our seventh year at Canadian Academy and it's been a good run:
Our family of babies has transformed into a family of funny, independent elementary schoolers...

John and I both changed our jobs within teaching with more courses, certifications and determination.

We have enjoyed our time in Japan... but it is time.

We got into international teaching to travel and see the world as we got to work at some of the best schools in the world. We are ready for new adventures, new jobs, a new culture, a new home.

The international recruiting thing is quite a process.  Let me share our past few months with you... and where we are now.

First, it takes a LONG time to revise a resume, get recommendations, writing a bio and/or education philosophy statement. It's really hard to sell yourself on one piece of paper for one database. This is what John and I both worked on over the summer.

Next, we paid for SEARCH Associates to represent us in our recruiting and add us to their database. We also signed up for the Bangkok job fair in January, but we hope that we will already have a job by January and not have to go. *fingers crossed*

Third, we contacted administrators that we know and want to work with again and are at schools that we want to work at. We have some criteria and have narrowed down our "top" schools... I'll share that in another post.

And now, we wait.

The crazy thing about recruiting as an international teacher is you pretty much have to give up your job to get a new one.  We have sent in our resignation letters for June 2016! [I still feel like this is so crazy] It actually felt really REAL when we saw our own jobs posted on the database... there's no turning back now.

Every morning we get an email from the database of new jobs posted that day and the database allows us to search schools and jobs.  It also allows us to see the profile/packages of the schools which varies immensely.  Most schools have early decisions bonuses in October, so more will be posted then, but many schools have to receive contracts by December, so that is more the definite date.  This date is even later in Europe.

So now, we dream ...  We are enjoying the daily job notifications over our morning coffee.  John and I have gotten really specialized over the past few years (Librarian and Tech Coordinator/Coach), so it's tricky to find a perfect match.

But even with this, our conversations have ebbed from Africa to South America to Asia to Europe... It's fun to imagine ourselves somewhere new next year. It's fun to research more about the school and living in that country. Hopefully we'll have a contract in the next two months. For now, it's fun to dream and think about how lucky we are to have the opportunity to be somewhere else in the world in 10 months.  But for now we wait...

Image Credit: Travel Journal by Kasaa via FlickrCC