After sleep and a pretty good breakfast, we headed back to the conference center for more interviews. Upon our arrival, we found a rather terse note from Athens telling us that tomorrow's interview was canceled, and we honestly felt relieved. We met first with a school in the southern part of Korea (Taejon Christian), which had only music positions, so Joe would have to go back to HS band (no marching). This school was a partner school with another Christian school in Suwon (remember that name for later), and when we arrived we were told that the interview would be with Dr. Penlund, the headmaster, rather than Mr. Moimoi, the middle school principal, so not only did we miss out on saying "Moimoi" (very fun) nor did we get to hear his beautiful voice. Dr. Penlund, a lovely man in his own right, laid out five areas that needed leadership and asked us how we would divide them between ourselves. I was pretty interested in the brand new auditorium in which my HS choir and orchestra would perform, but it wasn't as attractive for Joe, whose heart is firmly planted in the counseling world. We accepted a flash drive with the school's application form and hurried to our next interview, checking our empty mail folder for any word from Seoul Foreign on the way.
Next we visited with our friends from Honduras in a school in the second largest city, San Pedro Sula. Some of you will chuckle when I say that I was interviewing for an 8th grade language arts and social studies position! I liked the middle school principal very much, and she felt sure that I could handle the job, and Joe made an excellent impression on the elementary principal. Because we had done some reading about the security issues in Honduras, we asked specifically about that aspect of the job. I even asked if staff members ever carried weapons, which really shocked our interviewers (well, I didn't mean on school grounds). While we gave the Hondurans high marks for direct and forthright communication, we left the interview (which lasted 90 minutes) with little expectations.
When that interview was over (about 11:00 a.m.), the nice fellows from Shanghai waved us down for a quick confab. They had been keeping an eye on us during the Honduras interview (which was conducted in the large convention room), and I had even given Jeff a quick wave. They presented us with a job offer! We were floored (I thought I might hurl) and spent a little time talking details, including a discussion of whether Jack could come (Larry was discouraging on that point), then we asked for a deadline, which was agreed for 6:00 p.m. We went up to the room for the Switzerland interview and found a note saying that all positions had been filled and all remaining interviews were canceled, except for someone named Barbara, so I hope she found success.
The fellows from Seoul had asked us to let them know if we received any offers, so we went over and camped out by their interview room, and that's when the real fun began. We weren't hearing from anyone, other than a very kindly worded decline from the Hondurans, so we cracked open the laptop, and lo and behold, Joe had a request for a Skype interview with his potential principal from Seoul, who was at a different recruiting fair in Boston. We hung out for an hour or so, talking over the various pros/cons with our new recruiting fair friends (all of whom thought we were insane to not accept the Shanghai offer IMMEDIATELY), then cracked open the laptop again for the interview. While Joe was waiting to get that going, I talked some more with Jeff from Shanghai, who assured me that Jack would be welcome (but that's not the same as making it a good idea - he was just trying to build up his case). Joe spoke for over an hour with the Seoul principal, but they were frustrated by the fact that I had not had the chance to interview with my principal (same overall school, but I would be working for the British part of the school, so slightly different curriculum). The principal in Boston said to me, "Would you be able to go for a year with only Joe working?" and I replied, "That depends on how much you're going to pay him."
We went back over to the Seoul interview room and camped out again to get some action on my position, and I did a Skype interview at 5:15 p.m. with the poor principal in Seoul, who had to wake up way too early on a Sunday to talk to me. He was very charming and British and said my accent wouldn't be a problem unless I talked too fast, which only my Southern friends seem to think I do. He liked my ideas, but had some concern about my lack of a music endorsement (my own district has been lecturing me about that for some time now) and my lack of experience in the British system, which is evidently quite different from ours. He had one other candidate to interview, and would be doing that later that day for him, which would be early tomorrow morning for us. The Seoul interviewer promised us a call by 9:30 on Sunday morning.
Sooooo, in the meantime, our Shanghai deadline came, and I went to their room to ......... decline. Yup, turned 'em down, we were really hanging our hats on Seoul. Jeff was very gracious and we talked about his interviewing strategies which worked well for him except for Joe and me. The school reviewed all credential files well before the fair and determined exactly the candidates they wanted to hire, then they issued only ten interview invitations and never interviewed anyone else. Of the ten interviews, only Joe and I declined the offer, but that meant they did not interview anyone else for the position. He asked us to keep his card and let him know how everything worked out (or didn't) with Seoul. He could not have been nicer, and I apologized for putting him in a bad position, but he assured me that his school will be fine and we hugged and everything was good. Rabbit chase: the Hondurans also hugged me when we parted ways - this is just a bunch of really nice people.
And that's where we ended the day, still kind of on the fence, which is uncomfortable, but also not committed to anything that wouldn't work. This is absolutely the biggest roller coaster I have ever ridden, but it was still a lot of fun. (Of course, I like roller coasters.) People were getting jobs left and right (including Ms. Venezuela, who will be teaching in Saudi Arabia because she is a steely eyed missile woman and will make a bucket of money). Joe's friend Rick had been offered positions in Abuja Nigeria and Tampico Mexico, but he was holding out for an offer from that school in Suwon (remember the partner school to Taejon Christian?). After a 6:45 p.m. second interview with Suwon, he got the job! We were thrilled for him and went to a place called Rudy's to celebrate. Now, if you ever find yourself in Waterloo, Iowa, you MUST go to Rudy's, which not only had great Mexican food (no lie!) but also an impressive display of marionette folk art hanging from the ceiling. I wished I had my camera. While we were there I fielded a call from Taejon and told Dr. Penland that we were waiting to hear from Seoul. I wasn't exactly in a good place to have a long conversation, so I think I cut him off perhaps sooner than he would have liked. We went back to our hotel happy for our friend and hoping for our own prospects. Thus ended the second day.
Showing posts with label Shanghai. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Shanghai. Show all posts
Monday, February 15, 2010
Job Fair, Day One
I had an email group created before I left for Iowa just to keep people (mostly family and friends who had already been sucked into the drama) informed. I opened with this email: This is a little email group I have for news of the coming weekend. For those who don't know, Joe and I are at the University of Northern Iowa this Fri/Sat/Sun for a job fair for private international schools. We are hoping to find a placement for next school year and have already been in discussion with a few schools in places like Athens, Seoul and Shanghai. Most of you already know this, but I thought I would put together this email list so I can send updates if we get any news this weekend. So far all I can tell you is that we made it to Waterloo, Iowa (via plane to Chicago and Kia Forte from there), the hotel is nice, and the weather is a blunt reminder of why I hated midwestern winters. This particular email is just a test of my list to make sure I have good email addresses. However, if you are already sick to death about hearing about our little adventure and just haven't found a nice way to say so, here is your chance! Nobody asked to be removed from the list.
When you arrive at the conference center for the job fair, the first thing you check is your mail folder where interested schools can leave invitations for you to interview with the school. Joe and I had already had quite a bit of contact with schools in Athens Greece and Seoul South Korea and a district of three schools in China. We had also sent emails and completed applications for many schools prior to the fair, so we were hoping for many interview invitations. We were figuring that the real decision would come between Athens, with whom we had already had a phone interview, and Seoul Foreign School, a vibrant Christian school that seemed to have many positions for us. I was leaning toward Athens, while Joe couldn't stop talking about Seoul. We found only five invitations in our mail folder: Seoul Foreign, Taejon Christian (also in Korea), Quality Schools International (a worldwide system of 35 schools), Universal American School in Kuwait and Shanghai Community International Schools.
The first order of the day was a panel session with three administrators and three veteran foreign teachers. We sat with a couple we had met at breakfast and compared interview invitations; they were extremely excited about our Shanghai invitation because the woman is Chinese and wanted to spend some time in Asia to be closer to family and the man had already lived a year in Shanghai while working on his master's thesis. Joe also looked across the room and saw Rick, a counselor friend of his from Mesa, so it was nice to see a familiar face. The veteran teachers were very helpful because two were a married couple who had taught in China (so they immediately became "the Chinese couple" despite being snow-white people from Maine) and the other was a single girl teaching in Venezuela (a tall redhead who became "the Venezuelan teacher"). They opened it up for questions, and I think we could have gone a very long time if we weren't all on limited time.
Next was the round robin, when all 650 of us went into the large convention hall, where the schools each had tables for talking to us and, if interested, signing us up for interviews. Joe and I went first to the schools that had already put interview requests in our mail folder, then we went to other tables for schools that had some interesting openings, where we got a few other interview appointments, and just had some nice conversations with other places (maybe for future prospects). We turned down the Kuwaiti school, especially after reading the reviews on the website "International Schools Review." We talked to schools in Mexico, Israel, Germany, Korea, China, Brazil and Honduras. The funniest encounter was with a school in Switzerland, where we didn't think we had a chance, but then the representative started talking about how they were looking for someone who had come to education from another profession. I asked if accounting would work, and we got an interview! The strangest moment was talking to the two principals from Athens, who went to all the trouble to do a phone interview, and then not only didn't issue an interview request, but acted almost like they'd never heard of us. They condescended to give us an interview with them on Sunday morning, but we already knew that such a late time usually is reserved for desperation interviews.
Our first interview on Friday afternoon was with the Shanghai Community International School, which is a nice for-profit school in Shanghai and has about 1800 students. Joe would be counseling and I would be elementary general music, which is a required elective. Joe had received an email from Larry, one of the board of directors, asking if Joe would be interested in teaching HS music and drama at the Hangzhou campus. After much thought, Joe replied that although his music credentials were strong, his only drama experiences were playing in pit orchestras and starring as a rabbit in his third grade play. Larry responded that he had a pretty good chuckle over that and would look for something for us in the Shanghai schools (two campuses). Jeff, the Shanghai director of schools, is pretty amusing, because he keeps following us around at group events to tell us nice things about his school, even standing in line with us while we were waiting to get our interview with Athens. He said they were "courting" us, and that's exactly how it felt; I was waiting for a bouquet of roses! It's nice to be liked.
After an early dinner, we talked to the Seoul Foreign School, which is a very impressive Christian school. Again, Joe would be counseling and I would be teaching music in the British curriculum part of the school, which was not a position I had been able to research. Positions available at the fair were sometimes quite different from what the school had listed on the job fair website, just due to last minute shuffles, we thought. We liked both of the interviewers and feel good about our impression on them as well. Jack could not go with us to Seoul, and that was a difficult idea, although I knew that was likely no matter where we go. They said they would get back to us tomorrow about the next step - they are interviewing 35 people over the weekend, and that has to be exhausting! They also asked if we had received any offers yet and asked us to accept nothing without talking to them first. I was very worried about what sort of pressure we would get, assuming anyone wanted to hire us in the first place, and it was nice to have a school give us a reason for not accepting right away.
Our last interview was with a group of 35 schools called Quality Schools International, which has different schools literally across the globe, but they have positions for us in two schools in China (Chengdu or Dongghou). They really liked us and asked us to continue the process by applying online, so we'll see what develops tomorrow and whether we want to pursue those jobs. The advantage of QSI is that if we wanted to move someplace else after our initial contract, it would be easier to find something with such a large network of schools.
The last event of the evening was a mixer at the convention hall where we could meet with other attendees and administrators, and we said hi to a few friends. We have met some great people here, and many of the teaching couples have already found jobs, so that's encouraging to us. The interesting social part of this fair is that nobody is a stranger; you walk right up to someone and start asking about whether they have found jobs, who is interviewing and pretty much any question that seems relevant to the conversation, no matter how personal. I have asked a complete stranger how strong she is in her Christian faith! Everyone was very excited for our interviews with Shanghai and Seoul, as these are both much sought-after schools. We greeted our Honduran interviewers and said how excited we were to talk to them the next day, and of course, we had another chat with Jeff from Shanghai. We were pretty pooped, so we cut out a bit early and tried to get some sleep in our very nice room, and thus ended the first day.
When you arrive at the conference center for the job fair, the first thing you check is your mail folder where interested schools can leave invitations for you to interview with the school. Joe and I had already had quite a bit of contact with schools in Athens Greece and Seoul South Korea and a district of three schools in China. We had also sent emails and completed applications for many schools prior to the fair, so we were hoping for many interview invitations. We were figuring that the real decision would come between Athens, with whom we had already had a phone interview, and Seoul Foreign School, a vibrant Christian school that seemed to have many positions for us. I was leaning toward Athens, while Joe couldn't stop talking about Seoul. We found only five invitations in our mail folder: Seoul Foreign, Taejon Christian (also in Korea), Quality Schools International (a worldwide system of 35 schools), Universal American School in Kuwait and Shanghai Community International Schools.
The first order of the day was a panel session with three administrators and three veteran foreign teachers. We sat with a couple we had met at breakfast and compared interview invitations; they were extremely excited about our Shanghai invitation because the woman is Chinese and wanted to spend some time in Asia to be closer to family and the man had already lived a year in Shanghai while working on his master's thesis. Joe also looked across the room and saw Rick, a counselor friend of his from Mesa, so it was nice to see a familiar face. The veteran teachers were very helpful because two were a married couple who had taught in China (so they immediately became "the Chinese couple" despite being snow-white people from Maine) and the other was a single girl teaching in Venezuela (a tall redhead who became "the Venezuelan teacher"). They opened it up for questions, and I think we could have gone a very long time if we weren't all on limited time.
Next was the round robin, when all 650 of us went into the large convention hall, where the schools each had tables for talking to us and, if interested, signing us up for interviews. Joe and I went first to the schools that had already put interview requests in our mail folder, then we went to other tables for schools that had some interesting openings, where we got a few other interview appointments, and just had some nice conversations with other places (maybe for future prospects). We turned down the Kuwaiti school, especially after reading the reviews on the website "International Schools Review." We talked to schools in Mexico, Israel, Germany, Korea, China, Brazil and Honduras. The funniest encounter was with a school in Switzerland, where we didn't think we had a chance, but then the representative started talking about how they were looking for someone who had come to education from another profession. I asked if accounting would work, and we got an interview! The strangest moment was talking to the two principals from Athens, who went to all the trouble to do a phone interview, and then not only didn't issue an interview request, but acted almost like they'd never heard of us. They condescended to give us an interview with them on Sunday morning, but we already knew that such a late time usually is reserved for desperation interviews.
Our first interview on Friday afternoon was with the Shanghai Community International School, which is a nice for-profit school in Shanghai and has about 1800 students. Joe would be counseling and I would be elementary general music, which is a required elective. Joe had received an email from Larry, one of the board of directors, asking if Joe would be interested in teaching HS music and drama at the Hangzhou campus. After much thought, Joe replied that although his music credentials were strong, his only drama experiences were playing in pit orchestras and starring as a rabbit in his third grade play. Larry responded that he had a pretty good chuckle over that and would look for something for us in the Shanghai schools (two campuses). Jeff, the Shanghai director of schools, is pretty amusing, because he keeps following us around at group events to tell us nice things about his school, even standing in line with us while we were waiting to get our interview with Athens. He said they were "courting" us, and that's exactly how it felt; I was waiting for a bouquet of roses! It's nice to be liked.
After an early dinner, we talked to the Seoul Foreign School, which is a very impressive Christian school. Again, Joe would be counseling and I would be teaching music in the British curriculum part of the school, which was not a position I had been able to research. Positions available at the fair were sometimes quite different from what the school had listed on the job fair website, just due to last minute shuffles, we thought. We liked both of the interviewers and feel good about our impression on them as well. Jack could not go with us to Seoul, and that was a difficult idea, although I knew that was likely no matter where we go. They said they would get back to us tomorrow about the next step - they are interviewing 35 people over the weekend, and that has to be exhausting! They also asked if we had received any offers yet and asked us to accept nothing without talking to them first. I was very worried about what sort of pressure we would get, assuming anyone wanted to hire us in the first place, and it was nice to have a school give us a reason for not accepting right away.
Our last interview was with a group of 35 schools called Quality Schools International, which has different schools literally across the globe, but they have positions for us in two schools in China (Chengdu or Dongghou). They really liked us and asked us to continue the process by applying online, so we'll see what develops tomorrow and whether we want to pursue those jobs. The advantage of QSI is that if we wanted to move someplace else after our initial contract, it would be easier to find something with such a large network of schools.
The last event of the evening was a mixer at the convention hall where we could meet with other attendees and administrators, and we said hi to a few friends. We have met some great people here, and many of the teaching couples have already found jobs, so that's encouraging to us. The interesting social part of this fair is that nobody is a stranger; you walk right up to someone and start asking about whether they have found jobs, who is interviewing and pretty much any question that seems relevant to the conversation, no matter how personal. I have asked a complete stranger how strong she is in her Christian faith! Everyone was very excited for our interviews with Shanghai and Seoul, as these are both much sought-after schools. We greeted our Honduran interviewers and said how excited we were to talk to them the next day, and of course, we had another chat with Jeff from Shanghai. We were pretty pooped, so we cut out a bit early and tried to get some sleep in our very nice room, and thus ended the first day.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
