It’s that time of the year again – the international teacher recruiting fairs are just around the corner. Over the next week, I will be posting about the main recruiting organizations around the world. The first that I will discuss is ISS.

International Schools Services(ISS) was founded in 1955 and has been a key player in developing the overseas community in to what it is today. In addition to holding their well-known and well-attended recruiting fairs (known as IRCs – International Recruitment Centers), ISS manages a number of small international schools and they provide a variety of services for the international community. ISS will host four IRCs this year (the first starts on January 5th in Bangkok). ISS Registration ends this week, so if you’re interested you better get a move on it.

International Recruitment Centers

The Bangkok IRC is the first and is the most convenient for teachers who are already working overseas and don’t want to make the long trip back to the States for the four days of the conference. The second IRC will be held in Boston from February 7-11. The third IRC will be held in Philadelphia and will be a joint affair with CIS. The dates for this IRC are February 15-18. The final IRC will be held in Fairfax, Virginia from June 11-13. This conference is for schools filling new positions or replacing teachers who have suddenly decided to leave their positions.

Photo by Hansjörg Grafen

Attending an IRC does not guarantee that you will land a teaching position – about 50% of those who attend accept positions – but it’s a good start. I attended one IRC many years ago in Los Angeles. It was extremely stressful, I only ended up with a few interviews, and I was not offered a position at the schools that I interviewed with at that time. ISS did offer me a position at one of their schools later in the year. That’s how I got started in the international teaching field. More about the IRCs in a few days.

The Professional File

If you intend on establishing a professional file with ISS, be aware that it is a rather lengthy process so you need to know what documents are required, when they need to be submitted, and what the process is like.

Before you being this lengthy process, you should make sure that you meet the ISS requirements to qualify as a candidate. These are:

1) Hold at least a Bachelor’s degree from an accredited university or college; 2) Have at least two years experience as a full-time teacher; 3) Hold an educational certificate from the department of education in your state or province; 4) Are planning on coming overseas alone or have a spouse that will also be looking for employment; 5) Are willing to commit to a two year contract; 6) Are willing to consider positions in at least two large continental areas.

You apply online. You may be timed out during this process if you have a slow internet connection, so you should have everything already completed and ready to cut and paste. This will save you an incredible amount of stress. Once you begin the application process online, you will have 90 days to complete it. So you can save and come back later to edit it if you need to. This is very important for those of us who take our time with these types of documents. Once you submit your application to ISS, you will no longer be able to edit it.

You will be required to write two narratives as part of your application. For teaching candidates the tropics are: 1) Please write a statement describing the personal and professional qualifications and experience you have that will enable you to be successful in an international school overseas. (200-400 words – not to exceed one page); 2) What makes you an outstanding educator? Please refer to a lesson you have taught and/or describe specific achievements of your students during the past year. (200-400 words – not to exceed one page)

Within two weeks of submitting your application, you will need to have: 1) an official transcript confirming your highest degree. This needs to be sent to ISS directly from your university conferring the degree; 2) Copies of your educational credentials – you can send copies via fax/email or regular mail; 3) References from your supervisors covering the last seven years. It is required that you send confidential references submitted directly by your supervisor on school letterhead (this may be difficult for some if you have lost track of your last supervisor.

There is an $185 fee for file establishment. You will not be charged a placement fee if you secure employment through a recruiting fair.

Once all this is done, you will be notified via email within two weeks of ISS receiving your application. Once this occurs, you can review positions for recruitment online, receive registration details for IRCs, received personal email notifications of positions listed for recruitment fairs for which you qualify, and receive complimentary copies of the ISS newspaper, NewsLinks.

Well, that’s a fair amount of information. You need to have all the required documents on time, so if you are planning on attending a fair later this year, you should get down to work right now. Good luck with job hunting! And if you want some great help in choosing a school, take a look at my new eBook – The International Teacher. You’ll find 155 international schools reviewed including most of the schools that will be attending the IRCs.