Teacher Contracts Overseas and Pre Job fair

This Journey starts a year ago at a professional development conference in Kelowna BC. A good friend had just landed a job in Dubai. The opportunity sounded fascinating, teaching in an exotic location, in a new culture, opportunities to travel abroad, too good to be true?
I joined Search Associates for a couple hundred bucks to explore this landscape a little further. The listings of schools features the contract for each school and a profile detailing staff and student body composition. The scope the packages is complete but some of the details can vary from the reality. Salaries posted may not be what you will start at. Regardless the profiles were very useful in getting a flavor for the school. Most schools have a website that provide additional information.

I sent out dozens of emails regularly to promote myself directly to the schools. Many schools responded, some totally ignored me. However, the job I landed was with a school that I communicated with multiple times before the job fair. The emails were very much a feeling out process on both sides. There were many times that I was sure I was going to get a job and then things changed and the opportunity "appeared to have vanished. The pre job fair "courting" is exciting and a little nerve racking. I had 3, 1-2 hour interviews with a school over the phone before the job fairs and never got an offer. My motto during this time was "the squeaky wheel gets the grease." It got me noticed.

I also learn that having dependents, who don't teach, make it difficult to secure employment. But there are schools out there who truly will hire the best teacher available even if you are bringing multiple dependents. If you are single or have a spouse who also teaches, that's the best situation.