…Our 2016 Recruiting Survey revealed that just 13% teachers who took our Survey were successful in securing a teaching position through a Recruiting Fair. Of the total respondents, 9% attended a Fair but were unsuccessful in landing a position. We’ll leave it to you to draw your own conclusion.
…On a positive note, 44% of Survey respondents reported finding an International Teaching position without attending a Recruiting Fair. Of the remaining respondents, 20% did not recruit this season and the rest were unable to find a position on their own. These results are similar to those found in our 2015 Survey in which 46% of respondents reported finding a job without attending a Fair.
…Comparing the 2015/2016 results to our 2013 Survey, we see a significant difference. In 2013, just 30% of participants reported finding a job outside of a Recruiting Fair. Based on the current increase of 50% in this category for both 2015/2016, is it safe to say there has been a trend away from Recruiting Fairs and a growing reliance on tech-type venues by both schools and educators?
The following Comments were posted to our 2016 Recruiting Survey:
We have been recruiting for 5 primary posts and 2 secondary posts at a central Asian international school. We do our advertising via free ESL boards and by word of mouth.
Since the advent of Skype we’ve found Job Fairs to be a complete waste of our time and money.
This year we received a very large number of on line teacher qualified applications from the UK, far more applications than experienced in previous years. We were able to complete our recruiting in a campaign of some 5 weeks this year…as opposed to an 8-week campaign last year.
…Of course tech venues will never take the place of the huge social extravaganza that underlies Recruiting Fairs. For school directors, Recruiting Fairs are an opportunity to travel to far off lands, stay in first-class hotels and hob-knob with other school directors at their school’s expense. It’s not exactly an all-expense-paid vacation, but very close, in our estimation. However, for teachers who must bear the brunt of their own recruiting expenses and possibly take unpaid time away from their current employment, Recruiting Fairs are….well, not quite the same as they are for school Directors.
…As veterans of the Fairs, your colleagues at International Schools Review are encouraged to see an increasing reliance on technology in regards to the recruiting process. After all, with so many schools professing to offer their students the latest in technology, it should follow that they would opt to take advantage of it themselves. Will Recruiting Fairs go the way of snail mail? That still remains to be seen.
If you are one of the many educators who avoided the Fairs and used technology to find an International Teaching position, please scroll down and share with your colleagues what you learned from the experience. What venue did you use? How did you initially find and contact schools? What preparations and tips do you have for an online interview?
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