Why don’t you work in ________ (fancy country everyone wants to visit)?

Why would you live in______ ? (random country where we were offered a job)

Do you just send one application and then schools pick you? 

We get these and many other questions when talking to our family and friends in the US about living and working abroad.

Our parents are beginning to grasp the complexity and intensity of changing schools and countries because they serve as psychologists and babysitters during the crazy process. But to others, it is a mysterious part of our lives. The long story short is that we do not really get to choose to work in a specific country. We try to balance multiple factors regarding the school, community, and country. And ultimately, there are a lot more teachers than schools, so the scales are not tipped in our favor in any hiring situation.

Going through this lengthy and stressful search two years in a row is not an experience we would wish for anyone. To clarify a popular FAQ, we do NOT send our applications to a type of clearinghouse and wait to see which schools are interested. That would save us months of work. There are not international school districts (well, there are some companies that own multiple schools, but that’s a different thing). Anyone can call themselves an international school. It is up to us to find out which ones provide aligning pedagogies, solid packages, a supportive community, and a location that meets our family’s needs. This detective work requires a broad international network, access to recruitment databases, participation on Facebook groups, and some luck. 

Schools hire as independent entities, and they do not post openings all at the same time. The window is between October and March, and we can be at different stages of recruitment with different schools throughout that time. There are several recruitment platforms that we pay to belong to, but often positions are tentative or do not correspond with what is listed on a school’s website. So we sometimes spend hours meticulously revising a cover letter and applying to non-existent jobs. Additionally, schools are combing through thousands of applications for each open position. They are so overwhelmed that once positions are filled, updates on the databases and post-interview follow-ups are not always timely. It would be great if there was some way that international schools could set up something like National Signing Day when high school athletes declare their intent to play sports at a university. Maybe there could be a world posting day when all available jobs are announced at once, which might be overwhelming but would level the field. One organization is attempting something like this, but there are a lot of competing agencies and complicated factors.

To stand out, we have a professional website and attend job fairs hosted by the recruiting agencies. They are expensive and stressful, but often prove effective because face time is so valuable. However, they are a huge financial risk and logistical commitment for educators – especially when we are unemployed. While participating in the fair doesn’t cost too much, the flights and hotel to London, Bangkok, Singapore or Dubai sure do. Not to mention taking time off work and arranging childcare.  Because we weren’t working this year, we opted to attend two fairs – Bangkok in November and London in January. However, Brian did accept a maternity cover and ended up missing two weeks of his four month gig for us to attend both fairs. The detour to Phoenix to bring our toddlers to their grandparents was also costly but necessary. The pace at fairs is so intense that bringing the kids is not an option (unless we brought a caregiver, but it would still prove a huge distraction). Last year, we had 14 interviews in two days with nine schools. While severely jet-lagged.

The hardest parts of selling ourselves as a package has been that we are two elementary teachers with two dependents. Rightfully so, schools look to hire the hard to fill positions first, such as high school physics or calculus. Once they find the right person, her/his partner typically fills another open position…which often happens to be elementary classroom. So the positions we are recruiting for are frequently reserved for spousal hires, which leaves us waiting to see how schools’ “puzzles” are coming together later in the hiring season. Additionally, many schools allot a certain number of spaces for dependent students because these kids will attend for free. Most allow two kids, although some accept three. Either way, those spaces are often held for that physics teacher who might have three kids. One school told us that their board would not allow hires with dependents until after January. If we had a penny for every rejection email that talked about the “puzzle.”

Unfortunately, we were not lucky at the November fair. Perhaps our self-presentation was off or schools were just not ready to commit to two elementary teachers so early in the recruitment season. Who knows. Analyzing the experience of a job fair is a complete mindf%&#. We did reconnect with wonderful friends and network with recruiters at excellent schools. Plus, we ate a lot of Thai food, saw the Pope (his motorcade drove by our hotel!), and had an amazing 12 hour layover in Hong Kong. So it wasn’t a total miss. But it sure was expensive.

After the fair, online recruitment took over. While Brian was working and commuting two and half hours a day, Lena was holding the household together and spearheading applications. The only common time to interview with schools around the world was in middle of the night. We would get the kids to sleep, take a nap, and wake up at midnight to put on our suit jackets (pajama pants stayed on). Or we would wake up at 3:30am for a 4:30am interview and then Brian would go off to work. We were exhausted. Thank goodness for the world clock function on our iPhones to keep track of all the time differences. We even had one night with 3 interviews in three different countries. We only made one scheduling error which was apparently forgiven because the school did hired us.

However, that school hadn’t hired us by early December. After months of pouring our hearts into applications, waiting weeks to hear back (and often not), and sinking into self-doubt when offers were not made – we were losing steam. Underlying this whole experience was the sadness that Russia would not materialize this year either (there had been a slight possibility). Losing our dream school made it hard to get excited about other opportunities. As Christmas neared, many international teaching friends were posting on social media about their exciting plans for next year while we were still in the trenches, so we decided to try the London fair again since we scored our (since lost) jobs there last year. We bought all the plane tickets, booked the nonrefundable hotel, and located the only two winter(-ish) jackets for sale in all of tropical Puerto Vallarta.

Naturally, two days after we tossed a ton of money into attending the January fair, we finally landed an offer at a school that we were genuinely excited about. Since the money had been spent, we decided to travel to London for a kid-free mini-holiday. Although we did not attend the actual fair, we did support dear friends and further build our professional network. And see a West End show. And visit incredible museums.

Now that the huge pressure of finding jobs has lifted, we have entered the transitioning stage. Schools know they have elementary openings, but current teachers can opt to switch grade levels for the following year, so new hires need to wait to find out their actual grade assignment. Also, we are receiving mountains of information about obtaining visas, work permits, health insurance, finding housing, and sending an international shipment of goods – which involves all kinds of paperwork, official stamps, trips to embassies, and communication across timezones – and simply fills the space once reserved for finding the job.

At this time, we are excited to announce that The Wandering Thomspers will be moving to Uzbekistan – a travel destination currently receiving tons of positive media attention. Lena will teach Kindergarten and Brian will teach Grade 4 at Tashkent International School. Given the current state of the pandemic, we have no idea if we will be teaching in person or remotely starting in August. At least this #YearOnNotOff has hammered home the need for flexibility and open-mindedness about all the possible life trajectories we might find ourselves on. We are just grateful for the opportunity to join a special community and grow in a new experience.

Anyone interested in more details about moving into international education can leave a message below or contact us via this website. We are happy to share what we have learned!