How to Get a Teaching Job in an International School: From Registering with a Recruiting Agency to Attending a Job Fair

Admit it. You’d love to live and work overseas. You’re passionate about teaching and just adore that grade 5 class of yours, but you’re not inspired anymore and you often find yourself daydreaming about living in an exotic desert land, a tropical paradise or a chic European city. Perhaps you want to take a sabbatical from your current teaching job or maybe you've recently retired but aren’t quite ready to stop working. Or maybe you’re a new teacher with little or no experience, and you’d like to combine teaching with traveling. Believe it or not, it IS possible. It's not all glamour and glory and it's a lot of hard work, but it is possible. If you have teaching qualifications from the U.S., Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia or New Zealand, you could teach in an international school. If you are from another English-speaking country, such as India or South Africa, it is also possible.

I have worked in international education since 1993 and have taught high school English or been a librarian in local (Colombian, Czech), British, American and international schools overseas. There are hundreds of these and other such schools all over the world, and more open every year.

Typically, international schools prefer teachers to have at least two years teaching experience, but many schools will hire new teachers. If you have a partner and he or she is also a teacher, your chances of each of you getting a job in a good school may be even be higher as international school recruiters like to hire couples.

Below are some tips for how to go about landing a job in an international school:

Register with One or More International School Recruiting Agencies

Though it is possible to get an international school teaching position without registering with a recruiting agency and without attending one of their international recruitment fairs, it is much more common for teachers and other K-12 specialists to find international jobs this way, especially with the big name schools.

The best-known international teacher recruitment organizations include

Search Associates, International Schools Services, Council of International Schools, Queen's University Overseas Teacher Placement Service and University of Northern Iowa Overseas Placement Service. To apply you will need to send in an application form (usually online), obtain two to three professional references, and write a personal essay of 500 to 1,000 words. If you are serious about teaching overseas, it is important that try to get your application in by the end of November at the latest (I would aim for the end of October) preceding the academic year in which you hope to go overseas. Recruiting agencies run annual job fairs between January and June for the following school year, and competition for places to attend the fairs in January and February, when the bulk of the hiring for the following year takes place, is fierce.

Subscribe to The International Educator

The International Educator is both a newspaper and an interactive job-seeking web site for international school positions. An online subscription costs $39 while a print and online one is $49.

Prepare to Attend a Job Fair

So you've been accepted by a recruiting agency and you've confirmed your attendance at one of the job fairs. Now you need to get busy and prepare to attend the fair. Job fairs are both exciting and stressful events for most people, but it is hard to get an international position without attending one since most schools insist on having face-to-face interviews. Fairs typically occur over a period of 2 to 4 days and normally take place in a hotel in a major city in North America, Bangkok, Australia, the UK or Dubai. You should check the web sites of the recruiting agencies. I've included the links within the text and also at the bottom of this hub.

You should make your travel plans and book a hotel room as far in advance as possible, especially if you plan to stay at the hotel where the fair is taking place, something I highly recommend. Plan to devote at least 2 or 3 hours a week searching the job postings on the recruitment agency web sites and researching the schools with positions in your area of expertise. You may want to email the schools with positions in your teaching area to start a dialogue before a job fair. Also, study the salary and benefits packages offered by the different schools (not all the recruiting agencies provide this information prior to a fair). Be aware that the salary may seem ridiculously low, but if the cost of living in that country is also relatively low, you may be able to do a lot of traveling and/or save good money. In Egypt I was not paid very well, but I was also not being taxed, so I was able to send money home for payments I had in Canada and I was also able to do quite a bit of travelling. The reverse is also true of schools in more prosperous countries where the salary may seem good, even high, but if the cost of living is prohibitively high, as in the Bahamas, you may well be paying to work there.

Another important thing you may want to do is invest in an online subscription to International Schools Review to read school and director reviews posted by teachers. A point, or site, of contention among some international school administrators, ISR, unlike the recruiting agencies, makes its money from teachers, not schools, so it does not have an interest in protecting a school’s or an administrator’s reputation. You can read reviews of schools posted by teachers based on criteria ranging from academic integrity of the school to academic and disciplinary support provided to teachers, and from availability of activities outside the school to quality of health care and security and personal safety.

For other things you can do to prepare for a job fair and what you should bring with you see How to Get a Job in an International School-Preparing for and Attending a Recruiting Fair

Attend the Recruiting Fair

So, you’re at the fair at last! It’s normal to be nervous; even veterans at this game get anxious, but it’s important to use that nervous energy to your advantage. Recruiting fairs mean long days for both recruiters and candidates and can be very intense. Some people get several job offers within a day or two while others get none or only one. It’s a bit of a lottery. One year I went to two job fairs and got no offers and came back miserable and the following year I went to only one and was the “belle of the ball”, so to speak. It seemed everyone wanted to hire me to run their school library. It’s much easier said than done, but try to stay positive and keep your options open. If you’re young and just beginning your career or have recently retired, try to keep a sense of adventure about you. Competition is rather vigorous, to say the least, and the job fair can be quite intimidating to newcomers to the international circuit. When you’re just starting out as a teacher and/or just breaking into international teaching it’s best not to pin your hopes on a particular school, country or even continent. Most of the more established schools of high repute in western Europe and parts of Asia have few openings, as teachers end up growing roots in the school’s foundation, it seems. This is especially so in Europe where the pay is low but the countries are highly livable.

So, try to relax and be flexible. Job fairs can actually be fun and can be great places to network and meet interesting people, many of who have years of international teaching experience under their belt. Many people become good friends with other candidates, staying in touch long after the dust has settled and sometimes travel together during school breaks. Even if you don’t get a job offer at a big fair in January or February, you may get one or more from a job interview you had at the fair a week or a month later. Also, there are other good fairs in May and June, so don’t give up just yet.