💻 Back in December 2024 I wrote a blog about how online interviewing wasn’t getting any easier. After changing jobs 12 times during the past 27 as a teacher, one would hope that some part of the job process would get easier. Luckily for me, the part that seems to be improving is the quality of my interviews and the connections I am making during those interviews. A few things stand out when I reflect upon why my most current interviews have gone so well and have led to more job offers than ever before.

👩‍🏫 The most important factor appears to be the relaxed conversation-style approach I have been utilizing. Rather than concentrating on regurgitating a bunch of pre-planned facts or experiences that might best answer the question being asked, I have chosen to take a moment to pause before answering, and then I utilize the most recent lesson or scenario I have just experienced that day or week to respond to my interviewer. This approach ensures that the details are fresh, I don’t waste time trying to recollect any distant memories, and my current teaching appears more relevant for the job for which I am applying. With the presence of AI 🤖, plenty of canned responses exist, but nothing can replace the authenticity of in-classroom experience and student-teacher rapport. In addition, this strategy even works with new teachers, including student teachers, who have limited experience, but who can still showcase their skill and flexibility by reflecting upon their current practice using examples from their current lives.

🤼 Another helpful factor is what I call my post-pandemic approach to socializing. I no longer have the desire, or the brain capacity, to waste my time on meaningless chatter. Therefore, I have gone into my interviews with the purpose of making a new acquaintance (or more depending on who is on the interview panel) and learning about a new school in another country with a unique student body. With this in mind, I never struggle to find useful questions to ask the interviewers to prove my worthiness as a candidate because I am genuinely interested in finding out more about a school, a country, and a school community. By being unafraid to ask recruiters what they like best about their school, or why do teachers stay, I have learned the most valuable facts about a place that can complement the information I have already gathered about a location. The only disadvantage of this approach is that I have honestly connected so well with some of the recruiters and their programs, that I am saddened when I am unable to take their job offer; I don’t want the connection we have created via emails and multiple interviews to end. Unfortunately, not every offer can pay the bills or meet some other critical criteria.

🙂 Finally, I believe what truly has been showing through during my conversations with various recruiters is my absolute love of the job. Perhaps the fact that I am in a very happy place in my career – one in which I am able to teach the subjects I am most passionate about (social studies, reading and writing, robotics, UNSDGs), get training in areas that fascinate me, work with dedicated colleagues, and teach motivated learners – enables me to give off a positive and passionate vibe. I imagine we all have ideas on how our current job place could be improved, but when interviewing it is quite useful to focus on the effective parts and explaining your value in building up that community rather than tearing down a community because even a condemned building 🏢 is loved by its inhabitants.

🌈 In saying all this, I don’t want to make it sound like interviewing was all rainbows and unicorns (don’t I wish). In fact, most interviews happened at 5 or 6am in the morning (and I am not a morning person) or they happened long after the school day wrapped up meaning hunger and fatigue were competing concerns. There were technical glitches, a few star performances by cat 🐈‍⬛ (literally falling on my head at one point), and numerous interruptions by the school custodians 🧹 who must be convinced by now that I live in the classroom. Even with all of these hiccups, I remained positive because I knew that the interviewers were going through their own sets of challenges – such a loss of a colleague, jet lag, Lunar New Year Celebrations, family emergencies, and various school obligations (like staff needing a quick minute that leads to 20). Yet, after two months of solid interviewing, I feel very fortunate to have met so many new people I genuinely wanted to know more about and to have discovered many more teaching locations that could offer the travel 🌍 while teaching experience I am seeking after. In a world that doesn’t always place value on its teachers, I feel proud to be a member of such a dedicated group of do-gooders who are both beautiful inside and out.