It does seem that in recent years that the international teaching market is getting more and more competitive. We keep hearing about that while seeing the numbers being churned out regarding how many new schools there are out there in the market, with seemingly more money than your school can offer to candidates. Human Resource Directors, Heads of Schools and Principals must wonder to themselves, “is there any way to get ahead of the game.” I think the answer is yes…at least for now…because once more people catch onto this missed opportunity, it will probably become the norm as well.
“Today, according to data from ISC Research, 5.6 million children aged between 3 and 18 are attending English-medium international schools around the world. 19 years ago (in the year 2000), there were just 969,000 children learning in these schools. The number of international schools has increased more than fourfold in that time from 2,584 to 10,937.” (1)
So, I will admit that I have been trying to run this program through my company for the past 3 or 4 years, and while I get a couple of takers, I am always surprised that more people don’t jump on board for this. I call it the “Early Bird Program.”
I have been following the ebb and flow of international teaching since my first posting outside of the US 18 years ago. For many reasons, I was very lucky to land in Venezuela and work for none other than the illustrious Bambi Betts who has gone on to be the queen of the PTC. I cannot tell you how lucky that was for me and I am sure to thank her every time I run into her at a conference. She is always very gracious. However, one of the things I should also thank her for is the copy of TIE magazine that we got in the staff room. I got in the habit of checking TIE every so often just to see how international education worked and I have kept up with that throughout my career, even when I was not looking for a job. Then again, we learn in international education that you are always looking for your next job if you are playing the game strategically. When I got into recruiting, this information became very important to me because I learned when was the ripe time of the season to be looking for candidates and when was the right time to be looking for clients and when were things cooling off. Interestingly enough, that same pattern, through all of these years, has stuck. Many things in international education have changed over the last 20 years but this seems like one of the things that has not, at least in significant numbers. A large majority of recruiting to this day still happens after January for northern hemisphere schools, especially in Latin America, where nothing happens quickly. I would be willing to say easily, 75% of the recruitment doesn’t happen until the second semester.
However, something else that I have noticed since I have been in recruiting is that really well-organized schools always know at least some of their recruiting in September, October or November. Well you know what else happens at that time? These really well organized, overachiever type educators also who are already thinking ahead to next year, are also registering for employment for next year as well. These are probably the same kids that sat at the front of the classroom and did all their homework and made those of us in the back look bad. My question was, then why don’t these really well-organized schools get together with these really well-organized teachers and get a good head start on their next year’s hiring. I think the obvious fear is that if you commit to something too early, be it a school or a candidate, that something or someone else "more suitable" might come along and that one of these will quit the other. However, from what I can tell, teachers hate late hiring as much as schools hate late recruiting. Also, these are the overachievers we are talking about here. Honestly, I trust that if they sign a contract, they will stick to it and guess what, out of the Early Birds I have placed, I have not seen one back out yet. The benefit to many of them and a common complaint that I hear from educators about late hiring is that they have to give up their job before they know if they have the next job. Guess what? The Early Bird Program takes the stress out of that situation.
I just looked in our profile network, and please keep in mind that we are a small, boutique recruitment and placement company, only serving top Latin American schools, so we are not casting a net over the whole world. I can look in our profiles right now and see that subject areas like English Language Arts, Humanities, Primary, Sciences already each have over 20 eligible, qualified, certified candidates already registered and waiting to be interviewed for 2020 and we have not even finished August of 2019 yet.
So it is my unscientific, but informed opinion, that there is yet one more way out there to gain the advantage in recruitment that has not been saturated yet. If any of you Directors, Principals or Human Resource Directors would like to talk to me about our boutique Early Bird Program, please e-mail me at markwebber@webbersed.com or contact me on Skype at markjosephwebber or call me in Colombia at +57 310 366 0681 or Whatsapp me at +52 555 0670527. I’m just sittin’ on the dock of the bay, watching the tide roll away! You know the tune… I hope to hear from you.
My compliments to you if you already do this! Also, candidates, there is no reason you should miss out on the fun. Make sure to sign up with us EARLY on this very website! Our services for educators are free!
ISC NEWS “More parents want an international education for their child” Aug 22, 2019
https://www.iscresearch.com/news-and-events/isc-news/isc-news-details/~post/more-parents-want-an-international-education-for-their-child-20190822
