How the Heck Did I Get to China in the First Place? The Interview

The Interview for SSIS was weird to say the least, but everyone was incredibly friendly and helpful. I don't think I talked more than two minutes the whole time. They asked me a few questions about salary requirements, what Brent would be doing in Shanghai, and then mostly talked about living in Shanghai. The recruiters talked about shopping, the weather, and what there was to do in Shanghai.

I only asked a few questions. I was being interviewed as a teacher counselor so I asked what that meant. The recruiter told me I would teach 10 hours a week and that I would never work more than 20 hours at the job. Holy cow, I thought. Sign me up! I never liked teaching large groups though, so I had one really important question: how many kids would I be teaching when I wasn't counseling? Drum Roll please . . . . . The answer is 7! Yes, I was told that the student to teacher ratio was 7. Geez, this was like a dream scenario. I love working in small groups.

Well as part of being recruited to work internationally, I was offered a housing package, a tax free salary, and a plane ticket. Now the salary was a bit lower than other International schools, and Brent wasn't getting his ticket or any health insurance. I didn't know any of this at the time though, so it didn't matter as much. I signed up to move to Shanghai, China in the fall and tried not to think about drastic changes while I was enjoying the last few months in the states. . .

Here is a pretty normal package for teachers coming to China:

Housing allowance: 5,000 rmb (low end) - 12,000 rmb (high end)

Health Insurance: It is pretty normal for the whole family to be covered, SSIS is on the low end for teacher benefits

Salary: 28,000 USD tax free (low end) - 70,000 USD + 15% taxes (high end) depending on experience

Travel Allowance: most schools offer you and your spouse a free trip to and from China and anywhere from $500 - $2000 USD in moving costs, $500 being the extreme low-end.

Leave: Leave is harder to come by at International Schools, being that substitutes are even harder to come by here, so most places will give you a couple personal days and 5 - 10 sick days.

Now keep in mind that International packages are highly personalized and negotiable. Ask for what you want, because you never know what you are signing up for until you are there. You want to know for certain you are signing up for the right thing.

How the Heck Did I Get to China in the First Place? Part 2

Once I signed up with the Philadelphia fair for International School Services (ISS), Brent and I looked up some International Schools Online to see what they were like. We didn't get much information.

Before I knew it, we were in Philadelphia at the first day of the fair. I was thinking of the fair as more of a vacation. I wasn't really planning on signing up with any schools. I just wanted to see what it was like and what type of package they were offering (hmmm, in hindsight a lot of my first ideas are usually good ones)!

The first day of the fair was all formalities, like talking about how to interview ect. I didn't find it helped the school search at all, but we both went. We met a few people at the fair who said they had no trouble getting jobs abroad. They had posted their information last minute and were hired in July just before the August school year, so Brent and I were getting excited.

The next day was the main part of the fair. All the schools were doing booths to represent their school/country and then a mini presentation you could sign up for. Well Brent and I showed up for the last half hour of the 2 hour booth session and everyone had already left! I couldn't believe it. We laughed about it for a while, then went to the individual school sessions.

I had this little mailbox where school recruiters could drop me letters and I found that Shanghai Singapore International School was interested in an interview.

When I read that, I laughed. China? No way! For all I had heard, China was still in the dark ages. . . . . who in there right mind would go work abroad in China? I didn't think they could pay me enough to do that.

Long story short, the recruiter really sold us in the presentation. He talked about what a great place China was to work. Massages were $10 for an hour, the city was Westernized and the job was very relaxing. Who could say no to that?

I still had my doubts going into the interview, but now I was a little more open to China. Mandarin is an incredibly hard, but important language to learn because such a large percentage of the world speaks it. I kept thinking to myself . . .. China? What is that like?

How the Heck Did I Get to China in the First Place?

While I was walking around downtown Shanghai this morning, now that the new cold weather is jarring my memory, I realized I hadn't posted much about how you can get paid to move abroad.

I've been skipping around a little and haven't told everyone how I got to China in the first place. Well here is the first part of the story:

I had been thinking of going to a Spanish speaking country for a while to learn a second language. Brent already knows quite a bit of Spanish, and was excited for a move too. I have been dreaming of learning new languages for the past few years. I didn't know what I would do for work, and wasn't super excited about spending my savings (I'm sure everyone can relate)! So I took my skills to the internet.

I first started my internet escapades looking at language programs and travel abroad opportunities. Most of them consisted of you paying someone a ton of money to work for them for free-blech, and get some language training on the side. So I kept looking . . .

Through no shortage of hours spent on the internet, I found out about some recruiting fairs that hired educators, administrators, coaches, and other personnel to work at schools abroad.

Here are the top places to go when looking for educator or school personnel jobs abroad:

International School Services

http://www.iss.edu/index.asp

Counsil of International Schools

http://www.cois.org/

Search Associates

http://www.searchassociates.com/main.html

University of Northern Iowa

http://www.uni.edu/placement/overseas/

Department of Defense Abroad (DOD)

http://www.eu.dodea.edu/hr/

I chose to sign up with International School Services (ISS). I paid a sign up fee to put my information in with ISS so I could be considered by International Schools for recruitment. Then, I paid another $400 to sign up for a recruitment fair in Philadelphia in February (I posted a picture of Brent in downtown Philadelphia from our trip. It looks cold, but it was a huge break from the freezing Alaska weather at that time. We had a blast. Thank you Priceline for the crazy good deal on the Marriot).

To sign up with ISS, I needed to show two years of experience and proof of my school certificate, which for me is a Type C special services. After arriving in Shanghai, I see that many teachers work with just a TEOFL or TESOL certificate. One of these can be obtained in a matter of weeks and the teachers with these certificates are paid similarly to me. Hey, its my first time getting hired abroad. I didn't know how much $ to ask for then, but now I do!