{"id":15,"date":"2011-12-08T13:11:08","date_gmt":"2011-12-08T13:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.teacherhorizons.com\/advice\/?p=15"},"modified":"2023-01-31T11:53:43","modified_gmt":"2023-01-31T11:53:43","slug":"all-the-fun-of-the-fair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.teacherhorizons.com\/advice\/all-the-fun-of-the-fair","title":{"rendered":"All the fun of the fair? Recruitment fairs in international teaching"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recruitment Fairs have long been a way of finding a job in an international school. Clearly, it\u2019s not practical to visit every school spread across the globe on the chance of an appointment, so the fairs held in main centres like London and Beijing offer a short-cut.\u00a0 But like many short-cuts, they offer a bumpy ride and a good chance of getting lost or ending up where you didn\u2019t really want to go. My experience of a Recruitment Fair in London was literally a long shot. I fancied a position in South America, and I was working in Mozambique at the time, but I was told the London fair was worth trying.<\/h4>\n

So, having paid my own fare from Mozambique, I checked in at the soulless three-star hotel where the fair was held \u2013 and found 500 teachers milling around nervously, all like me on a mission to get their ideal job. With a minimum of knowledge about potential schools, I hit the hallway. We had just two hours to grab as many interviews as we could. Go, go, go\u2026<\/h4>\n

I ended up with 6 interviews, only three of which sounded seriously promising.\u00a0 The next day I found my way to a tiny room \u2013 which turned out not only to be the interview room but also the principal\u2019s own bedroom \u2013 a bizarre setting for the first one-to-one with your prospective head. The allocated half-hour was too short: neither party really had time to get enough information.<\/p>\n

Some of the schools insisted on a second round of interviews the following day.\u00a0 Was an International School in Baranquilla really the place I wanted to not only commit to a two year, contract but also live in?<\/p>\n

By day four, I had cabin fever and felt I was going crazy.\u00a0 The job fair did yield two jobs offers but the experience had put me off.\u00a0 I had another offer (in London bizarrely) and took it. \u00a0Everybody at the Fair wanted an instant response, so I felt I had to decide there and then. \u00a0I had already spent over \u00a31000, going away empty-handed seemed wrong.\u00a0 Speaking to other teachers at the fair, many felt a similar way.<\/p>\n

There had to be another way.<\/p>\n

Recruitment fairs \u2013 the cost to both parties<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Teacher cost<\/strong><\/td>\nSchool cost (based on recruiting a single teacher)<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Fair registration = approx. \u00a3120<\/p>\n

Return flights (from Mozambique) =\u00a0 approx. \u00a3500<\/p>\n

Accommodation = 4 x \u00a380 per night = \u00a3320<\/p>\n

Food and drinks = 4 x \u00a340 per day = \u00a3160<\/td>\n

School registration = approx. \u00a31200<\/p>\n

Fair registration = approx. \u00a3300<\/p>\n

Return flights = approx. \u00a3500 x 2 = \u00a31000<\/p>\n

Accommodation = 4 x \u00a380 x 2 = \u00a3640<\/p>\n

Food and drinks = 4 x \u00a340 x 2 = \u00a3320<\/p>\n

Placement fee = approx. \u00a31000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

Total cost = \u00a31100 (approx. $1700)<\/strong><\/td>\nTotal cost = \u00a34460 (approx. $7000)<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

If you have an experience of the fairs, what did you think?\u00a0 What do you think are the best alternatives?<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll share what we think they are in next week\u2019s blog post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recruitment Fairs have long been a way of finding a job in an international school. Clearly, it\u2019s not practical to visit every school spread across the globe on the chance of an appointment, so the fairs held in main centres like London and Beijing offer a short-cut. But like many short-cuts, they offer a bumpy ride and a good chance of getting lost or ending up where you didn\u2019t really want to go. My experience of a Recruitment Fair in London was literally a long shot. I fancied a position in South America, and I was working in Mozambique at the time, but I was told the London fair was worth trying.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":9079,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[857],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.teacherhorizons.com\/advice\/wp-content\/uploads\/antenna-cw-cj_nFa14-unsplash.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Krhd-f","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.teacherhorizons.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.teacherhorizons.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.teacherhorizons.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.teacherhorizons.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.teacherhorizons.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.teacherhorizons.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12433,"href":"https:\/\/www.teacherhorizons.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15\/revisions\/12433"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.teacherhorizons.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.teacherhorizons.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.teacherhorizons.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.teacherhorizons.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}