ITP - 147: Job Fairs, Hidden Gems, and Getting Hired Overseas

Greg:
It’s totally easy. So many people come on the show and say, “Oh my God, I’m so scared. It’s my first podcast.” And I’m like, dude, we’re just sitting in your lounge or something, talking about different places you’ve taught.
Colin:
Yeah, and this is actually my second podcast ever. It’s the second one in the last month and a half. Steve Barkley had me on.
Greg:
Ooh, what was the first one?
Colin:
Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud. He’s an instructional coach.
Greg:
Oh, not Charles Barkley. That’s all the sports I know. Thank you very much.
Hannah:
I thought I recognized that name from somewhere. I was like, “Barkley, Barkley, what’s that again?” Yeah, Charles Barkley.
Greg:
Well good. I hope you had a good time on that show. We’re going to have more fun on this show.
All right, let me get us started. Of course, anytime you need to take a break or cut something, or say, “My God, Greg, this sucks,” or “Hannah, I can’t believe you said that,” just stop us. We can always restart.
Without further ado, this is Greg. Welcome to another episode of the International—
I’ve got to start over.
This is Greg, the single guy, reporting with the International Teacher Podcast. Welcome to another episode. I have Hannah with me today, just the two of us. How are you doing, Hannah?
Hannah:
I’m pretty good, Greg. How are you?
Greg:
I missed the last one, so I’m not too good. You and JP were together without me. JP is in Mexico right now. I don’t think she’s feeling well though. I’m not sure if you heard from her.
Hannah:
Yeah.
Greg:
She was up all night or something. She can’t make it. Some kind of excuse.
We also have a family guy with us, but Darian can’t be here. He’s actually in Amsterdam this weekend, away from his family and having fun. And our buddy Kent is in Seattle, teaching, subbing for eight days a week or something like that. It’s crazy.
That’s enough with our co-hosts.
Hannah, we have a special guest that neither of us knows. This is Colin, and you are coming to us from Tunisia. Am I correct?
Colin:
Yeah, I’m coming from Tunisia. I’ve been working at the American Cooperative School of Tunis here. I’ve been here about four years now.
Greg:
Four years. Wow. I can’t wait to get into this. Where are you originally from, Colin?
Colin:
Born and raised in Toronto, southern Ontario. I spent most of my life there. Around my late twenties or early thirties, I started getting into teaching, found out about international teaching, and left Canada pretty quickly.
I spent four years in Medellín, Colombia before coming here to Tunisia. I was saying to JP before this that I’m off to Leipzig, Germany in August for my next space.
Greg:
What? All right, let’s dial into this. You’re Canadian, you’ve already been to Colombia, you’re in Tunisia right now, and you’re on your way to Germany. Is that the nutshell version?
Colin:
Yeah, that’s it. Third international gig, and I’m on to my fourth continent to live on.
Greg:
That’s exciting. Both Hannah and I, and her husband Jake — not together, mind you — have been in different countries quite a bit.
Wow, that’s fantastic. Where do we start? How about the elevator pitch? How did you get into education and international education? You don’t have to go back to the dinosaur age.
Colin:
Out of high school, like every one of our senior students knows, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I was dead set on being a commercial pilot. I went to school for that, graduated, got my license, started working in the industry, and realized really quickly that I love flying, but I hate working for airlines.
So I had to take a bit of a pivot there.
The piece that came out of all of that was that I had a really good working relationship with a lot of my instructors. One of them pointed out, “You’re pretty good at this thing, so maybe you should go into teaching.”
And there we go. I ended up teaching.
I had to go back to university to do my undergrad and teaching certification. After that, like most people my age, major events like graduation coincided with the economic downturn and people no longer hiring or retiring.
I struggled in Ontario to get a full-time job for a couple of years and jumped from contract to contract, mostly in the independent school system. That’s where I started hearing a bit more about international teaching.
My last school in Canada was a boarding school for international students. When I realized I wasn’t going to get anything full-time for a while, one of my bosses and friends said, “Hey, have you heard about Search Associates?”
Greg:
Yeah, we know that word.
Colin:
And the rest is history from that point on.
Greg:
Well, after you filled out all the paperwork, right?
Listeners, of course, if you’ve heard from us before, Search Associates is one of the big recruiting companies. You pay into it, and they help you find jobs. It’s sort of like a regional headhunter. They might have you working with a certain person who has a couple thousand candidates, but they work with you to get through to schools and connect you like a matchmaker.
Am I right about that, Colin?
Colin:
Yeah, and I’d say for a first-timer looking to go abroad, they’re pretty good at handling all the details. You usually feel pretty confident in what they’re sharing with you. You don’t have to second-guess everything you’re being told.
Hannah:
Yeah. I believe out of all the recruiting agencies for international teachers, they have one of the biggest databases on international schools everywhere. Am I correct?
Colin:
Yeah. We can talk a lot about that with the recruiting season this year. I think that was a big thing JP and I were going to talk about. I used five different recruiting platforms this year for the job hunt, and by far, the database on Search was the best. Hands down.
Greg:
Okay, give us the five, man. Don’t just gloss over it. This is great information.
Colin:
This year I used Search Associates, TES-Schrole, GRC, ISS, and LinkedIn as my fifth platform.
Greg:
I didn’t think about LinkedIn as a platform. And I don’t know about the second one. Did you call it Monster Troll?
Colin:
So TES-Schrole. TES is a UK-based one, and Schrole is the database. They partnered up. I think GRC used to be with Schrole, and now Schrole is working with a different group.
Greg:
Oh, Schrole. I thought you said troll, like T-R-O-L-L. No, we know Schrole pretty well.
That’s four of the big ones. Wow. What did you like the best? Get into it.
Colin:
Because I already had an account with Search Associates, that was the easiest. It was just a short update and, “Here’s my fee.”
I do love that Search has changed from their three-year payment model down to only paying for one year. So it’s much cheaper than it used to be. It became a little more accessible that way.
They all had their strengths, and all had some overlap. They also had different areas they were looking at. I think ISS is going to grow into something powerful, but it’s not there yet. I didn’t see any jobs posted there that I was interested in that weren’t posted in one of the other bigger ones.
Greg:
That’s fair enough. For listeners just starting out, you pay in or send up your resume and set everything up through these different platforms. Colin had already done Search, so he just had to update some things.
I did the same thing with ISS and UNI. ISS is International School Services. I’m having a brain fart. But I did ISS and UNI at the same time. They both have job fairs, and I told both of them I was going to the job fairs. They were close back-to-back, so I paid into their databases.
As soon as you pay, you get the database. That changes every year. Some platforms give you a database without paying. Some don’t. Some schools don’t show up that year.
ISS was really lean this year. I heard they had maybe 150 schools, and usually they have around 600. Each platform gives you an opportunity to find out information about the schools attending that platform.
And GRC is an exciting one. Hannah, you did that. I don’t know if you knew about GRC.
Hannah:
Yeah, we did GRC last year. In fact, we attended their Bangkok fair last year.
Greg:
And that’s Global Recruitment Collaborative.
Hannah:
Yeah.
Greg:
That’s the new big dog on the scene, if you ask me.
Colin:
Yeah. I was actually supposed to go to their first European fair this year. They had one in Amsterdam. But I signed a contract at the London fair for Search Associates the weekend before.
Greg:
Therefore, if you have a contract before you go, you don’t even have to go to the job fair. That’s the way it works.
I think that’s a great strategy, and I haven’t met many people who use the multiple-platform strategy. They might be on TIE Online, JoyJobs, or a couple online platforms, but as far as search fairs, job fairs, and the platforms connected to them, usually they only pick one. But I love that.
Hannah:
Last year when we were recruiting, we did that too. We did a Search fair and a GRC fair.
Greg:
And it worked out?
Hannah:
Yeah. We ended up getting hired. We got a job offer right at the Search fair, so it worked out.
Greg:
Here’s a couple more questions. We could talk for hours, but I have a few missing pieces here, Colin, because we just met you and so did our listeners.
Are you single? Are you a teaching couple? Are you with dependents? What does your glimpse look like?
Colin:
I’m married. My wife is a non-teacher, so a trailing spouse. But we’re pretty fortunate that she has been a student online for the last four years, so that hasn’t been an issue. She is a translator by trade, so she’s pretty workplace independent.
And as I said, we’re going to Germany. German is one of the languages she has been working in and developing, so we’re moving into an area where she’ll have some ability to find work as well.
No kids, but three dogs. All of them rescues I picked up abroad.
Greg:
We heard one.
Colin:
Yeah. They try to get them outside and keep them a little quieter, but they’re three fairly big dogs, so they make a lot of noise.
Greg:
We’re dog-friendly here on the ITP. We’re cat-friendly, as you know. I love dogs. I’ve never had one overseas, and we’ve had lots of episodes about having pets overseas.
Three dogs. Wow, dude. How many languages does your wife translate?
Colin:
My wife is a native Spanish speaker. I met her in Colombia when I was working there. English and French are fluent working languages for her, and German is in development.
Hannah:
Wow.
Greg:
Ausgezeichnet. That means awesome.
Colin:
I know enough German that my courses started last week. I’m trying to get as much A1-level German done as I can before I show up and embarrass myself.
Greg:
Are you and your wife those people who say, “Okay, I’m going to this country, so I’m going to start learning before we leave our current country”? I started learning Arabic when I was in a Spanish-speaking country, and it felt weird. Are you that kind of person too?
Colin:
I try to be. I don’t know if I succeed as much as I’d like.
Greg:
I didn’t say succeed. I just said try. I failed horribly with Arabic.
Colin:
Spanish was a lot easier for me to learn once I was in Colombia. Medellín is ranked as one of the top three places in the world to learn Spanish because of the clarity of speech. So I was really lucky there.
Greg:
I don’t care about the language. I just want to go for the women.
I’m sorry, Hannah. I have to say it out loud. I am the single guy. I love Latina women, and I love South America. I was in Venezuela. Shout out to my friends in Venezuela.
My dad is actually dating a Colombian right now, which is very interesting. He just got back from Colombia at Christmas time. Hats off to Colombia.
You were there four years, correct?
Colin:
Yeah, I was in Medellín for four years. I met my wife at the beginning of my second year, right before COVID hit.
We always joke around that they were going to do a lockdown for just the long weekend, so I invited her to stay at my place because she had a smaller apartment a couple of blocks away, and I had a nicer space.
She came to stay, and 300-plus days of lockdown later, she was still there. Somewhere along the way, we closed down her apartment, moved all her stuff in, and it went from there. Before we actually got out of COVID, we had gotten married.
Hannah:
Wow.
Greg:
You got married during COVID lockdown? Like with a virtual priest?
Colin:
Yeah. It was fantastic. We were limited to 25 people at the venue. That was the maximum we were allowed to have. I was able to have the small wedding of my dreams without pissing off the entire Colombian family because we couldn’t have everybody there.
Greg:
Whoa. That is astronomically crazy. You got married during COVID lockdown.
Colin:
Life goes on, right? You do what you can.
Hannah:
During COVID, I had a baby, so I understand that life changed.
Colin:
I think Hannah wins on that one.
Greg:
I’ve got no dog in this fight, man. All I was doing was making empanadas, listening to reggaeton, and taking videos from my Venezuelan buddies. But wow. Hats off to both of you.
Hannah:
Speaking of which, my COVID baby just turned six. Can you believe it’s been six years?
Greg:
Happy birthday.
Let’s go with some more questions. Colin, what do you teach? You’re obviously not teaching kids how to fly airplanes.
Colin:
No. I’m a secondary science teacher. I’m currently teaching Diploma Programme physics and chemistry. Those are my main wheelhouse. I’ve taught some math in the past as well.
I guess as soon as you see physics on my resume, I get shoehorned into a physics position because it’s a shortage spot.
Greg:
You can write your own ticket. No wonder you have a trailing spouse and three dogs and no problem. You just say, “Hi, I’m Colin,” and they’re like, “You’re hired.”
Hannah:
Immediately.
Colin:
I’ve got to say, going back to what I was talking about with the job hunt this year, it was hard even for shortage positions.
My first application was sent out at the end of August 2025 as a direct application to a school. By the time I hit the London job fair in mid-January, I had applied to 48 schools, had maybe a half dozen interviews, two really weak job offers, and a whole lot of silence.
Greg:
When did it pick up?
Colin:
When I went to the job fair, I got a few more opportunities. One of the school recruiters told me there were only two people with physics qualifications at the entire job fair, and I was one of them.
Greg:
And how many schools were looking?
Colin:
For physics, maybe five or six positions. I was a little bit harder on it because I was looking specifically to be in Europe.
Also, I avoid for-profit schools, so I wasn’t really looking at those. Among the not-for-profit schools, there were maybe five positions. I was being picky about being in a region of Europe because I wanted to get my wife into an area where she can start working with her languages and career.
But I applied to schools all over the world, probably what would be called tier two and tier one schools. I wasn’t only looking at the best options. I was barely getting acknowledgement that my application had been received, let alone offers of interviews.
Greg:
I would figure part of that has to do with timing. If you started in August, that’s slow. They start early, but they really get warmed up around November and December, leading into the fairs.
My other point would be that it goes in cycles. Schools are putting puzzles together. They always talk about finding the right fit. So it’s not just the teacher. It’s the personality and how they fit into the puzzle, not just the position. Your position is extremely important because there are very few physics teachers out there.
I’m an elementary teacher. I’m a dime a dozen. There are hundreds of us at every job fair.
Colin:
Yeah. The big part of this is that everybody always says, “You’re a physics teacher. You’ll have no problem finding jobs.” This year was tough even for shortage positions.
In fact, I think chemistry had a larger need this year and was more of a shortage position than physics traditionally is.
Greg:
That sounds like a cycle issue. Some schools are hanging onto positions. This year, you had a smaller pool to choose from, plus you were being picky about Europe and nonprofits.
As you’re looking at jobs, you have to know what’s important to you. That’s personal. Even if you opened it up to all schools, it sounds like it was a smaller pool this year for chemistry and physics.
Colin:
Yeah. And I went with JP’s philosophy. I had done some coaching work with her before the job hunt: apply to everything. You don’t know what you’re going to find.
Even though not-for-profit was my preference, I was applying to for-profit schools as well.
I had an interview with BASIS. It’s a very interesting organization with a very interesting package, but there were limits on how many dogs I could import into the country, so I ruled that one out.
Greg:
That’s BASIS China, right? I looked at them too.
I’m mentally writing down notes because next year I’m recruiting for another school. I’ll be leaving my school this year, living at home for a year, and during the next year when I live with my dad, I’m doing a dad-tirement. I don’t know how much I’ve mentioned this on the show.
I’m staying at home with my dad for a whole year. I’m going to go to a couple of different job fairs, which is going to be exciting.
I have a slightly different style than you do. I don’t do the shotgun effect. I don’t apply everywhere that interests me. I write out the timing at the beginning, like November and October. I’ll send out my resume or search specific schools that interest me.
But when it comes to the job fair, that’s when I open myself up. I don’t say no to this or no to that. For the most part, I agree with you. For me, it’s probably not going to be for-profit schools. I don’t think I can do that again.
That being said, I still interview a lot and get to see what the fit is like. The people are important. The people who interview me are so important in the beginning. I’m a first-impression person. Hannah, you too?
Hannah:
Yeah, definitely.
Colin:
There were a couple jobs this year that I didn’t go further with after the interview just because of that feel afterwards. You have to know who you’re working with. If you’re not feeling comfortable at the beginning, we’re experienced educators. We understand what that gut reaction is being fed by.
Greg:
What I like about that is that you’re not just selling yourself. You’re also listening to them sell themselves to you. It’s a dance. It’s a dating game for a two-year contract. A two-year date that you’re signing up for with multiple possibilities.
Hannah:
I don’t know about you guys, but a lot of people are really good with recruiting, CVs, and maybe online interviews. I really prefer the job fairs because when you’re sitting behind the screen, the person can be different from who they are in real life.
At job fairs, you get to see who they are. I sit back and observe. How is this person acting toward others? What’s their demeanor like? What kind of people are attracted to them or trying to get a job from them? I just watch and people-watch that way.
Colin:
Yeah. The London fair this year was my first job fair ever. I had been teaching internationally almost eight years before going to my first in-person fair.
It was exactly that. You’re standing in the line for that dating phase. Everybody is signing up for interviews, and you’re watching everyone hand in resumes. Watching how each person was interacted with said a lot about the school’s priorities and how they treated people.
There were schools that didn’t have jobs posted for me, but after seeing how they were talking to people, I went over and said, “Hey, you don’t have anything for me right now, but I do want to talk to you because this looks great. Here’s my resume just in case.”
I made some great contacts that way with principals at schools I wanted to be at. I do pick those top schools I’m aiming for. I went over and talked to them and said, “I really like what I’m seeing here. This isn’t going to work out for us this year because you don’t have anything, but I wanted to come by and say hi. This is who I am, and I really like what you do as a school. I like how you’re treating everyone here.”
That’s where LinkedIn comes in. I connected with all of those people who had LinkedIn afterwards so I could build those connections for the future.
Hannah:
I did a similar thing last year with LinkedIn and Instagram. Before we went to the Search Associates Dubai fair at the end of November 2024, I looked up heads of schools. I researched them, found them on LinkedIn, found out if they had Instagram, followed them, and spent a month or two watching what they were posting and talking about.
I went back through their history to see what they talked about. At the fair, I fangirled with a couple of them. I said, “I follow you on Instagram. I know you’re not hiring for my position right now, but I just wanted to say hi because I love what you posted about this.”
Colin:
I had one of those moments as well. It was someone who had led a workshop I had been part of online. I was using those as networking connections too.
I said, “I don’t know if you remember, but when you were doing this, I got really interested. I took that message home. I actually have my why. It’s right here on the top of my resume now, and that’s there because of you. Thank you so much. It really helped me narrow down what I wanted to say in my interviews.”
He checked in with me later and said, “Tell me where you end up. I want to know your successes.”
Greg:
That is the magic of LinkedIn and the entire small community we have worldwide as international teachers. Great directors are always looking to build up their team, and they never forget gems that come out of the woodwork.
I remember walking around after signup at a job fair. I’d pretty much filled my bill. I didn’t have any dances left. I saw this guy talking to 15 people in a row. The next day, he was sitting there with no one, and I walked up and started talking to him.
He asked, “What are you looking for?”
I said, “Nothing. I don’t need a job. I’ve already signed. I just wanted to come over and talk to you because you sound like a great guy. Tell me about your school.”
He was like, “Really?”
I treat job fairs as an amazing weekend where you get a glimpse of all these different schools around the world. Not just the hiring people, but their real stories. I wish I could get each of them on the ITP. Next time I go to a job fair, I’ll be handing out cards like, “Come on, be a guest. You sound awesome.”
Hannah:
It’s funny because I was hired for my current school at the Search Associates Dubai fair. This year at my new school, I’m working with onboarding. I was helping a little bit with recruiting because I’m good at networking.
My superintendent ended up taking me and the assistant principal to the Dubai Search Associates fair again. Getting to see recruiting from a different point of view was interesting.
At the same time, I got to network. I was telling my boss, “Okay, this is this person, and this is this person. I know this person. Let me introduce you.”
Building that network of teachers and admin is huge because it’s such a small world. Everybody knows everybody.
Greg:
Colin, question for you. The one you went to was in London. Do they still get a big hotel and use rooms for interviews as well as some of the conference spaces underneath? How did it work this year?
Colin:
It was definitely that, but very few schools were still in hotel rooms. There was a big push to avoid hotel rooms. The rule right up front was that anything happening in a hotel room had the door wide open. There was a firm rule on that.
They are trying to move away from it. There were just enough schools that showed up that there wasn’t enough room in the four ballrooms they had set up.
Greg:
I’ve been wondering when this would hit, when they would finally say you can’t be in a closed space where the guy or woman just woke up and had the room cleaned while they were at breakfast.
I’ve been in so many closed rooms for interviews over the years. We’re talking 25 years and multiple job fairs. It doesn’t bother me, but I can see the push going that direction.
I’ve always told people, if they end up in a hotel room for a short interview, even the first interview, just ask them to leave the door open if they don’t. Usually, even 20 years ago, they would say, “Of course,” and leave it ajar.
That was just a good question because I’m always trying to update the listeners and myself on what job fairs are like and how they’re changing.
This was Search Associates in London. How many days was it?
Colin:
Friday morning registration, and things wrapped up about two o’clock on Sunday. I got in Thursday evening and got settled. It was two and a half full days.
On Friday, there was an orientation for all teachers. If you’ve never been to a fair, they go through all the pieces you need. Anybody listening who is curious about going, they do give you a heads up about what to expect.
Then there were presentations from the schools all day Friday. At the end of the day were the signup sessions.
One thing I noticed was that a lot of schools were trying to game the system and start having interviews scheduled beforehand. I had a number of schools, for various reasons maybe because packages were not competitive or locations were a bit challenging, reaching out and inviting me to interviews before the signup fair happened.
That was fine. But there were also a number of schools where I got an invitation in their internal calendar system saying, “You have an interview at this time,” and the school had never even reached out to me with a “Hi, how are you? Are you interested in meeting with us?”
I responded, “This is a relationship piece, and the fact that you’re just scheduling me in right away has already turned me off. Thank you, but no thanks.”
There’s a level of presumption that turned me away from the school right there.
I knew in my mind that if I walked away from that fair without a job, I was still going to find something. I wasn’t in desperation mode, and that gave me more clarity. I was there to make connections.
A lot of schools seem to be doing interviews and then second rounds later. There are also all the child safeguarding pieces that happen. I would say more than half of the jobs posted there were not signed until probably the week afterwards.
I think that is becoming a trend. There were not a lot of contracts handed out over that weekend because we’re updating to the new reality that schools have to check all references. If references are not available that weekend to confirm that this person is safe around kids, they’re not going to start offering jobs.
Greg:
I always tell people — and I wrote a book on this, Finding the Right Fit — when you go to these in-person job fairs, you have to make sure your references know ahead of time that you are recruiting and they may be contacted.
You need a cell phone number for where they are. At least give them a window. Say, “Hey, I know you’re in Islamabad. How about from 9 to 3? Is that possible?” You figure out a window for those references to be checked.
A lot of schools do that leading up to it. Colin, you’re talking about some schools trying to start the process the minute you arrive. Thursday night, they’re like, “Can we take you out for dinner? We’d like to talk with you.” Those are the headhunting schools.
That’s within the rules of the job fair, and it’s part of the way they work. They find their top pick for the position and for the puzzle they’re building. They might invite them out for dinner the night before. It’s interesting how directors do all this stuff.
Hannah, you look like you want to say something.
Hannah:
When we went to the Search Associates fair and got hired here, that’s how it happened for us. Our superintendent said, “Let’s meet the night before the fair.” Then he offered us the job on the spot because we had already been talking to him. We had that same experience.
Greg:
Did they put it on social media right away? The job fairs like to talk about their successes.
I had this embarrassing moment when I got hired for my current school in Atlanta a hundred years ago. I signed Friday night. Saturday morning was when teachers started recruiting — the moo-moo festival, where you do signup and stand around like cows and sheep.
As I was going down the escalator the next morning, a former head of school said, “Hey Greg, congratulations.”
I said, “What?”
He said, “It’s all over social media. You were the first one hired at this job fair.”
I was thinking, “What social media? What is going on?”
But it’s in the job fair’s best interest to celebrate how fast and how many signings they get, because that’s their promotion. They want to be matchmakers.
Colin, I hope it happens to you because it sounds like you’re one of those guys people are after at a job fair. You treat the job fair as an event. It’s not just go and get a job. It’s go there and meet as many people as possible, and keep track of that for the next job fair.
Colin:
Yeah. What surprises me is the number of people who were there who weren’t on the whole time.
For me, from when I got off the plane to when I got on the plane, knowing that no one was going from London to Tunisia on the direct flight I was on, I was on.
You never know when you’re going to run into somebody. If you’re taking a connecting flight to a big place like London, you’re probably on the same flight with somebody who is either applying for a job or recruiting for a job.
When you’re sitting in the lounge, you’re not hunched over your phone on social media. You have to be on like you are in your classroom, because every little piece matters.
I saw people doing things that would have been massive red flags within a school just around the corner from where the job fair was taking place. I went to the nearest coffee shop outside the job fair to take a break, get away from the noise, refuel, and go. There was somebody with the lanyard, and I won’t say what they were doing, but I looked at it and thought, “I would not hire a teacher like that.”
Greg:
Don’t spout your mouth. Everybody’s listening, and everyone’s on stage. Even in the elevator at the hotel. Even two blocks away.
Short story. At one job fair, I decided to get away from things. I went to the Apple Store a couple of subway stops away. There was this elderly woman looking at a phone, kind of confused. Everybody else was being helped except me and her. I started a conversation with her to see if she had any questions about the new model. That’s just me. I’m a techie guy and love Apple stuff.
She asked, “Do you work here?”
I said, “No, I’m at some teacher convention.”
She said, “You’re at ISS?”
I said, “Yes.”
She laughed and said, “My husband and I are here too.”
I said, “Really? Are you looking for a job?”
She said, “No, my husband’s on the board. You’ll see him later tonight at the get-together. We’ll buy you a drink.”
What are the odds that in Atlanta, in that big store, I’d run into the one person involved in the fair? It’s such a small world.
Colin:
I think the odds are actually pretty high. It might not have been that person. It might have been the director of a school you were looking at. It might have been the person you were going up against for the job.
I try to remember that every moment I’m there, I’m on. This is a performance. I’m on display. I also want to be the person I want other people to be: friendly, kind, starting up conversations with people around me. Anything I could do to be who I am as authentically as possible and be open made it better.
There are so many opportunities: “I’ve never been to that country. You’ve been there three years. Tell me about it.”
Greg:
I need to find a dating convention where I’m as good at reading people as I am at international job fairs. I swear, man, I love these job fairs for the strategy. Maybe I should start thinking about that with meeting somebody. That’s a whole different podcast: Greg’s Lonely Life.
Hannah:
Also, be careful what you do and say in any language. I was at a job fair, and this couple was speaking in Portuguese. I grew up in Brazil and speak Portuguese. They didn’t say anything too bad. They were just saying, “We’re so stressed out. This is overwhelming.”
I thought, “I don’t know if this is the place to say it,” because you never know who speaks what language.
Greg:
Classic mistake.
You’re on your A game all the time. Like Colin is saying, you are always on stage. You step onto the airplane and think, “Somebody could be around here.” Especially in that hotel.
Colin:
It’s protecting your investment. You’re putting a lot of money down on flights and hotels. Your next two years can be made or broken based on saying the right or wrong thing.
Greg:
Your career, not just your next two years. If you burn some bridges, they may come back later and burn you much later in life. You’re there as an investment. It’s an investment in your career and your family. You need to find the right place as best you can.
Even after you do everything right, it might not be the right fit. I definitely left a place after one year, but that’s another story. Most of the time, you find a great fit.
Colin:
And you have to be open. I was closed on a few things because I was trying to do stuff for my family, but you still have to be open to a lot of things.
I would never have ended up here in Tunisia otherwise. I had to look up where in North Africa it was. I knew it was on the coast and on the Mediterranean, but I had to look up which countries it was between when I was getting ready to interview.
This school and location have provided me with so many amazing opportunities over four years. That never would have happened otherwise.
Greg:
It’s the hidden gem effect. You’d never know if you only had your eyes on Europe.
Colin:
Yeah. And I might have just ruined it. The hidden gem might not be so hidden now that I’m on the podcast talking about it.
Greg:
Now you’re world famous.
You’re confirming several things. Number one, when you go to a job fair, it is a relationship-building opportunity. Don’t burn bridges. You’re on stage. Be cognizant of everybody.
Like Hannah said, you watch people and think, “I would love to work with that person,” or, “I don’t want to work with that person if I don’t have to.” They rub you the wrong way, even if you’re just watching them, or they’re speaking loudly in a coffee shop surrounded by other people.
Then you bring up the hidden gem schools around the world that nobody would ever think of. I never thought I’d go to Cambodia. Hannah never thought she’d go to Pakistan. It wasn’t blinking red neon lights: go to Pakistan.
And now you’re going to Leipzig, Colin.
Colin:
Yes, I’m heading to Leipzig, East Germany. I knew where that was before the interview, but that had more to do with my personal travel history.
I didn’t know about a lot of these schools in Europe when I started looking. The more you talk to people — again, it’s that relationship piece. I met the team at the fair and I was sold.
The best part from my side is that I went in prepared the way I needed to be. I knew what I brought to the table. I knew my strengths. I knew what my next areas of development and growth were going to be.
You always get that question: “What’s something you’re not great at?” So I was able to say, “I’m working on this piece, and here’s the evidence to show I’m doing it.”
Greg:
Another question I was thinking of: for people who are married but have a non-teaching spouse, when they go to a job fair, did your wife go with you? And do you have advice about that?
Colin:
We made the decision for my wife to stay home. She’s Colombian and needs a visa to get into the UK. The added expense and headache of getting that figured out made it too complicated.
Beyond that, I knew I needed to be on 100% of the time I was out of the hotel room. Having her with me would have added other pressures: going out for a nice dinner, taking advantage of being in London, doing things together.
We made the decision that I was going on my own. But the week leading up to it, we looked through all the schools attending the fair and did an initial yes/no. If these five or six schools offer me a job, I can say yes right away without calling her.
Greg:
Otherwise you’re on the phone like, “Oh my God, Leipzig. Oh my God, Colombia. Another Colombia school.”
Colin:
Yeah. She was my partner through the entire application process because it’s her life as well. Even though I’m the one teaching and working at the school, where we end up and how the role works for me is a big part of that for her too.
If I end up at a boarding school again, she needs to know my evenings and weekends are going to get pulled into different parts. She had as much say in this as I did.
Greg:
That’s great to hear, and it sounds like it worked well for you. There are times when couples think, “Should we both go?” Do you regret not having her there? If you could have gotten her there, would you have done it?
Colin:
No, I think we were both happy with the decision and how it worked out.
The part I would say to anybody trying to make that decision is, if your partner is not going to be there with you, you need to be clear on what they expect to do in that location. Schools want to know that if they hire somebody with a trailing spouse, that spouse is not going to be the reason they leave at the end of the contract.
An unhappy spouse at home who is not fulfilled in their career and not finding next steps is a big concern.
I was able to say, “No, my wife is a translator. She’s doing some work online. These are the languages she speaks.” Since we were targeting schools in places where those languages were used, it worked out really well.
They saw, “Okay, this is not a concern. This is a check-off.” Especially for Europe, where packages may not be as strong financially, knowing that she would have a source of income made it an easier decision for a lot of schools.
Greg:
Transparency. That’s one of my big hints for people. You can’t go into job fairs or international school interviews with secrets because those secrets come out.
Colin:
Yeah. I don’t know how you think you could hide something over two or four years of working at the school.
Greg:
People do. People hide medical problems. They hide a spouse or the fact they have a steady girlfriend but aren’t married and plan on getting married. There can be problems getting someone into the country. I’ve heard lots through the grapevine over the years and seen some of these things happen. Hannah, do you agree?
Hannah:
Absolutely. I’ve seen quite a lot, not in as long a time as you, but still in a good length of time. It’s incredible what people hide sometimes.
Greg:
So transparency and letting them know you have a plan. That was stellar. I’m sure schools really appreciate that you were armed with those answers ahead of time. You had something planned for your wife, and it paints the whole picture for the school before they hire you.
Colin:
They want to hire someone who is forward-seeking in terms of planning in the classroom. These are other ways of showing the skills that make you a phenomenal teacher applied to other aspects of life.
Out of everything I learned this year, I was using all my strengths as a teacher in the job hunt. I was being really critical in how I applied. None of us are experts in every field of teaching. When we have a question about a new IEP, we go to the specialist. How do I deal with an EAL student issue? Go to a specialist. How do I help with discipline? Go to a specialist.
When in doubt, I found the people I needed to support me.
This probably sounds like a commercial pitch, but I had JP helping me with my resume at the beginning because I don’t know what the best resume looks like. It had been four or five years since I had applied for a job, and I knew my resume wasn’t great then.
So I found somebody who was an expert. I pulled in my references, who are admins and in hiring positions, and said, “Give me a practice interview. Give me a critique. You know me. You worked with me for four years. What are my strengths that I didn’t nail in those interview questions? What am I leaving off the table?”
Hannah:
That’s a great idea. I would have never thought to ask for a practice interview with your reference. I bet that was very helpful.
Colin:
Yeah, and you want them to talk about your strengths as well. It’s a great way of reminding them what they are.
Greg:
I never thought of that either, and I’m old. I like the fact that you were trying to learn more about yourself and get more prepared for those interviews.
This episode — I don’t know what we’re going to call it. Small World, Great Interviewing? This Guy Is Hired, Sorry You Can’t Have Him, He’s Going to Leipzig? I don’t know.
We have two major questions, Colin. You’ve probably heard these before. I’ll ask the first one and let Hannah ask the next one. Or Hannah, you have your choice. Do you want the police one or the three things?
Hannah:
I can do the police one.
Colin, do you have a police, customs, or border crossing story for us from your many years of travel?
Colin:
Oh yeah.
First year here in Tunisia, with my wife’s passport, she needed a visa to enter the country, and they only give one-time entry visas.
We got into the country and started processing local paperwork. We got the residency document, the carte de séjour, or proof that it was in process.
We checked with the school and said, “Okay, we want to travel for October break. We don’t have our permanent card yet. Is this still good?”
They said, “Yeah, yeah, no problem. You just show that when you come back in and no problem whatsoever.”
We left the country with no issue, went to Barcelona, and ended up meeting my mom. She was coming back to visit us over the end of October break.
We got back to Tunisia. I went through. My mom went through. Then my wife got stopped at customs because she didn’t have the appropriate paperwork. That paper was good enough to convince Air France to let her on the plane, but it wasn’t enough to get through the border.
She was held up for over two hours in customs and border patrol entry. It was only because of one of the most beautiful human beings I’ve met here, Mufid — if you ever listen to this, thank you — that it got solved.
He was one of our top IT guys and also a top member of the Lions Club here. They were having a weekend in Tunisia for Lions Club Africa, so he had been working with the border patrol and customs people to help with any issues that popped up.
I just happened to have an issue when he was there running around with all his documentation. He was able to say, “Here’s the problem. Here’s this. Okay, we’ve got it solved.” He fixed the problem before the school security manager was able to call the right people.
We ended up paying for a one-time entry visa on the spot. They put it in her passport, immediately cancelled it, and we went in.
Greg:
No more processing. Process done.
Colin:
Since then, October break has always been a staycation because we don’t always have our permanent residency card in time.
Greg:
Sometimes it takes three months for the school to get residence paperwork through, depending on the school and country.
Colin:
Each country is different too, and depending on the political climate, working for an American school right now can take a little bit longer to get paperwork through.
Greg:
Wait until you get to Germany.
Question number two: what are three things you take with you to make you feel at home when you go to a new country? Without a heartbeat.
Colin:
I have a few pieces of comfort food. I always have a large bottle of Canadian maple syrup in my fridge, ready to go.
Greg:
You Canuckies. You’re all like that.
Colin:
I have a fairly boutique bottle of gin that I try to keep around at all times because it has a lot of good associations. It’s not one I drink often, but when I do, it’s for a good celebration.
I can never find it outside the distiller themselves. It’s actually just down the road from where I’m going in Germany, so I’m going closer to it.
Greg:
What’s it called?
Colin:
It’s from an abbey in southern Germany. It’s a number, the year the recipe was created. It’s from this monastery and how long they’ve been making that particular gin.
I’d have to go back and double-check because I don’t drink it enough to know exactly. But I have a Google pin on that monastery, and when anybody is going there, they get me a bottle.
Then I guess the third thing is a Toronto Maple Leafs jersey, just in case they win the cup.
Greg:
You’re so Canadian. I knew it. I love that. Great ideas. You’ve got to bring your Canadian roots with you: something hockey, something maple syrup, and something German. That’s awesome.
Colin:
It’s those little comforts, right? You can usually find clothing, furniture, and all that. But there are tastes you just can’t get in different places in the world.
Greg:
Fair enough. That’s why we ask this question on almost every episode. We can all relate to having some problem with customs or some kind of police story. They’re usually funny and harmless, not all the time. And then having something you take with you. Bonus. I love that.
The reason we say you can’t have a heartbeat is because otherwise someone says their wife, two children, or three dogs.
They’ve been very quiet during this episode, by the way. Just a couple of interruptions.
Colin:
I’ve got one sitting over here staring at me, waiting for me to finish. They’re used to this area being quieter because this is where my wife does most of her work.
Greg:
Do you want to bring the dog on camera for us?
Colin:
No, I’ll leave them where they are right now. Let sleeping dogs lie.
Greg:
Got it.
Well listen, how about we go around and say some final thoughts. Colin, we’ll start with you, then Hannah, and I’ll wrap it up.
Colin:
If you’ve stuck through this episode long enough to get to the end, and you’re going into the job hunt, prepare early and use all your resources. Ask your friends and references for advice and help.
The more prepared you are before, the easier it is to be in the moment.
If you know it’s going to be your last year, get your resume done before the summer or during summer break. Don’t wait for the school year to start when you’re already busy teaching.
Hannah:
Definitely.
Recruiting is not as scary as it seems. Once you get in there, you get on a roll with those recruitment fairs, interviews, and getting your CV out there. It’s not as scary as you may think.
Greg:
I agree.
I’m the single guy, and I keep saying that because our episodes revolve around different co-hosts. Hannah is a mother and part of a teaching couple. Colin has a non-teaching spouse with no kids but three dogs. We’ve got Kent, Darian, and everyone. We have all different points of view.
If you’re listening to this, remember that recruiting is different for everybody, but we see a lot of common threads. What you heard from Colin today is perfect. Go to an event. Go to a job fair.
Colin, are you glad you finally went to a job fair? You’ve been teaching internationally for years, and this was your first one.
Colin:
I loved it. There were definitely moments where there was so much noise that I needed to step out. I can tell you where in Kensington I found a quiet bench in a park to sit and recollect for 15 minutes.
It’s chaos. It’s draining. I’m more introverted than extroverted, so it was a lot. But it did so much for me in terms of confidence in what I bring to the table and what I want to do in the future.
I hope I’m not recruiting again for many years. I hope I found a place where I’ll be happy to stay for a long time. But if I have to do it again, I’m more confident now than I was at the beginning of this process.
Greg:
From the mouth of babes, I want to say, but he’s been teaching for years and went to his first job fair successfully. Job fairs are an emotional roller coaster.
If you want to learn more, you can buy my book — I’m not going to say anything more about that. There are several books out there, by the way.
We’ve come to the end of this show, and it’s fantastic that we talked so much about recruiting. I’m sorry if you’re listening and you’re an admin. Colin is taken. He’s going to Leipzig.
Colin, come back. We didn’t just sit through this episode. I have a thousand more questions, and I know Hannah has another thousand questions, but we ran a little over an hour. Would you come back, especially after you’ve been in Germany for a little bit, and check in with us again? Do another episode and let us know what it’s like to teach physics or chemistry or whatever you end up teaching. Probably all of them if it’s a smaller school.
Would you do that for us?
Colin:
Definitely. Maybe this time next year, after I’ve had boots on the ground for a year, we can talk about how the transition went.
Greg:
Excellent.
This is Greg, the single guy, signing off from the Middle East. You’ve got Hannah in Pakistan. Colin joined us from Tunisia. Shout out to Colombia, and we will see you on the next episode.