Each January, in Hong
Kong Search Associates organise one of their job fairs. The vast majority of
the international schools attending come from mainland China, followed by a
number of schools from Hong Kong. This was my second fair but this time I was going
as a recruiter.
The point of this post is to give teachers and school leaders insights into the recruiter experience. Preparation for the fair is very important. My school sent a team of four, two recruiting for primary and two for secondary. Within each pair were a teacher and administrator, one with classroom knowledge and one with administration knowledge. This worked very well for us.
The point of this post is to give teachers and school leaders insights into the recruiter experience. Preparation for the fair is very important. My school sent a team of four, two recruiting for primary and two for secondary. Within each pair were a teacher and administrator, one with classroom knowledge and one with administration knowledge. This worked very well for us.
Our Team at the Fair
The week before the
fair we met to decide upon our roles at the fair and the kind of teachers we
were after. We decided we wanted qualified teachers who came with very good
references. We decided on two interviews, one on Saturday with two interviewers
and then a second on Sunday with the full team. We lost some candidates due to
this as other schools were making offers immediately on Saturday, however, all the teachers
we hired had their references thoroughly checked, Masters degrees and
experience with the PYP.
I would like to stress to teachers the importance of their references. If you have a profile on Search Associates it is easy for the recruiter to scan down through your references and as they are in checklist format, low scores stick out. One of the questions that we particularly honed in on was, “What influence does this person have on school morale and “climate”?” This is on a scale from one to ten and when triangulated with the other references says a lot.
So teachers:
I would like to stress to teachers the importance of their references. If you have a profile on Search Associates it is easy for the recruiter to scan down through your references and as they are in checklist format, low scores stick out. One of the questions that we particularly honed in on was, “What influence does this person have on school morale and “climate”?” This is on a scale from one to ten and when triangulated with the other references says a lot.
So teachers:
- Make sure you ask an administrator who is very happy with your work to write your reference
- Stay positive through difficult situations.
- If you are looking for work in China this is a great fair. The organisers are extremely helpful, Barry Drake - bdrake@searchassociates.com and Ray Sparks - rsparks@searchassociates.com. Contact them if you you would like information on attending.
