After 3 days at The Langham Hotel in Melbourne we are back home. The best way to describe our experience at the fair is that it felt like cramming 6 months worth of emotions into 3 days. Literally having to get our heads around the possibilities of living in approximately 20 different countries and how each would impact on our kids, then finding out where the goalposts truly sat and finally investing enough of ourselves emotionally to potentially commit to 3 different cities.
Registration
Upon arriving at the hotel (at about 12.30pm) we checked in but our room on the 20th floor was not yet ready. Registration had commenced from 12pm, but the presentations started at 2pm because that initial time included a seminar for the PYP program, of which we were familiar. I should point out that the majority of schools preferred candidates with IBO experience and as BPS had just received accreditatation we thought we had that box ticked. At registration you picked up a schedule, nametag, interview timetable for you to fill in and other bits and pieces. 
The balance of Day 1 and the morning of Day 2 was filled up with schools making presentations ie selling their wares to entice us teachers. Upon scrutinising the schedule, we noted that there were clashes and so we would have to divide and conquer. Prior to the job fair we had our eye on GEMS in Singapore and China, because Nick from the agency had said they were possibilities (and one school in China had already contacted us). Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia had also sent emails prior so we were going to check them out. Then there were the other countries stated in the previous post, so we had a busy time trying to figure out the logistics of attending sessions. We went to our room – made sure that we had our game face on, and went our separate ways.
The most compelling part of each presentation was the feel we got from the presenter ie not the movie, photos or the benefits etc, but the sense of humanity conveyed by the director, or principal, or deputy head from each school. And I guess each of us candidates felt that there were “kindred spirits” with whom we would like to work and some not so much. They were all impressive though, some intimidating and ultra professional, some you wanted to go to the pub with and some who reminded you of a close friend or relative.
Dhaka
Beijing
Lausanne
In between sessions, when we had a spare 5 minutes, Kate and I would compare notes. Our ranking of preferred schools was in a constant state of flux and it was influenced by factors other than the presentations. eg. Nick from Search Associates introduced us to Kyle, the principal from KAUST in Saudi Arabia, as soon as we entered the lounge. Each candidate had a file in the registration/lounge area, and so did each school. These were to be used for communication, so you would be constantly checking your file to see if any school had expressed interest. You can imagine the feeling of standing around as another candidate pulls out 3 interview requests (or ‘fast passes’ – I will come to that later – based upon online applications which we had all completed through the agency) and you finding the cupboard bare! Fortunately we got a few, so between sessions we found requests which in turn impacted on our need to go to presentations. Some were not on our radar and the presentation time had elapsed! We also received emails asking for us from Switzerland and Beijing. The actual jobs on offer were constantly being updated and could be found via a dropbox link that had been emailed by Search Ass. At any one time the Safari tabs on my ipad included the dropbox link, any number of school websites and the Search Ass. site (which had extensive bio’s for each school including salaries, student population, benefits, staff numbers etc.) Additionally, I often had a note up, as well as constantly checking emails from contacts in other countries. How did people do this before the advent of personal devices? Kate also had Candy Crush. Any time in our room was spent researching (soooo many) potential destinations. Other sessions in this time included a candidate briefing ie what to expect, as well as a session from the sponsors (financial planning).
Sign up Sessions
The next phase was the signing on session ie trying to arrange interviews. We had already slotted in one interview with The Qatar Academy in Doha. This was because the 2 (professional, warm and pubworthy!) recruiters had included a time on their note in our file. It was good to at least have one chance of a job. Imagine a big room with tables spread symmetrically. Behind each table sits the recruiter/s, with a pinboard behind them. On the board is the name of the school, the jobs they have going, and their room number. There were actually 2 rooms in different locations, and the countries were spread alphabetically. A map of the arrangement had been placed on a door so I had taken the obligatory photos to be referred to on my ipad. At 2.00 the ‘speed dating’ began, so we went for (what we thought) was our #1 preference, GEMS in Singapore. This was mainly beacuse we thought we had a chance. It was a new school so they had a lot of spots. The presentation had been more on the “professional’ side and the queue was about 5 deep. If you had received a note in your file, you were entitled to queue jump! This was because you did not need to talk to them at that point, you just need to arrange a time. The guy behind us queue jumped so we started thinking – where was our note (or “fast pass”) for GEMS??
Fast passes and Friday interview schedule
At the same time one of the schools we did have a note for had a lot of people going through so we are thinking, we need to get over there! Not to mention that most of the schools we needed to see were in the other room!! Kate and I could have split up, and we did eventually. We agreed that the more interviews we lined up, the more opportunities we would have. I am not sure if we would do it that way again, because in the end, we probably overextended ourselves. We finally arrive at the GEMS table and within 1 minute were informed (very pleasantly) that we did not have enough PYP experience for a start up school. Immediately we had a sense of the lie of the land and realised that Singapore was out of the question. Our next stop was Discovery College in Hong Kong – which seemed pretty remote now. This opinion was reinforced when we saw the size of the queue – at least 50 deep! This size remained for nearly 1.5 hours, so we chose not to waste our time and spoke to several recruiters. Twelve in fact, because we ended up with thirteen interviews in total. We did get flustered at one stage because we actually signed up to interview for a school that was not one we had wanted (due to tuition not being entirely free for our kids).
Rejection
Interviews
The interview slots were 1/2 hour sessions spread over roughly 1.5 days. We had several back to back. On Day 3, we went for breakfast at 7.30am, (I had woken up at 4am) and by the time we sat down to eat it was 10pm. In between, we had 12 live interviews, 2 Skype sessions and 2 follow up interviews to review contracts and a cocktail reception for all recruiters and candidates. 
The red wine on and empty stomach was not conducive to good decision making, but it was wonderful, finally relaxing, sharing with other teachers and being schmoozed by/schmoozing the recruiters. We had 3 serious offers that we wanted to consider.
Contracts
There were 4 other possible offers as well, but we ruled them out because they were either high rise living or in places that were not developed enough for our delicate sensibilities (yes, we deemed ourselves too soft!) – those 4 were in China, Indonesia, Laos and Bangladesh and were all amazing schools. It had come down to Myanmar, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. I must point out that representatives from Search Ass were always on hand, and one lady in particular was incredible in keeping us grounded. Dierdre Fischer, a principal in Bali who was there to assist Search, helped us determine and rank our criteria over a glass of wine. By the way, she fell into that criteria of pubworthy/family member – in fact, she did say that she wished she had vacancies so she could employ us, but that may have been the wine talking! She was firm, clear and profoundly influential – she said one thing that probably made the decision for us. That was to consider the cultural diversity of the student population at our 3 choices. We needed to sleep.
With Nick and Dierdre
Destination
On Day 4 we had to let everyone know of our decision – we were tired and very emotional. We wanted to see our kids and frankly, were over it. In fact, at 4am that morning, I had convinced myself that we were going to stay. We loved life in Melbourne; our family was here; we worked at a great school ; we had great friends; I was getting more gigs in more bands; Kate was enjoying working at the dance school; our families were here and for the first time in many years we had saved a bit of money – perhaps as much as we would overseas. As the sun came up though, we realised that this was an opportunity we had to grab – base ourselves in another country, learn more about the world and our place in it, plant the seed of adventure in the hearts of our kids. Firstly, I wrote a note to Stephen from Yangon International School in Myanmar. Here was an American we would have worked for in a heartbeat, who was arguably the most impressive individual we met throughout the experience. He had told us that it may be difficult to catch him so I slipped a note in his file. Very mixed emotions thinking about that one. This was his response – 
Secondly we knocked on the door of Sandy and Joneen from Qatar Academy. They had signed up some great people whom we had met and these two ladies were vivacious, friendly and made you want to smile. Kate nearly teared up when we told them of our decision not to go. We have signed up with KAUST international school near Jeddah in Saudi Arabia and to be honest, that first friendly chat we had with Kyle Brewerton when we arrived at the hotel may have played a part. 
Curiously, this is a community that we feel may be the closest match to where we are coming from, and yet it is on the shores of the Red Sea, in the heart of an Islamic country! 
Russel from Xiamen International School in China gave us some great advice,
“There is no bad choice, so go for the best match”
It looks like that adventure is coming.
