Teaching Jobs Abroad: Where Should I Teach?

When teachers look for work at home jobs, it’s relatively simple: You usually know when schools are hiring, where they’re advertising, and what they’re looking for. You can drive around the school and get an idea of ​​the neighborhood and the trip. You might even meet someone who is at the school so you get to know the culture and spirit.

But when teaching abroad, it is practically impossible to know all this.

You probably have little idea of ​​the visa requirements for various foreign countries, if your education and training will allow you to get approval from the Ministry of Education, what each school is looking for in terms of teaching experience and often does not. I don’t even know the salary and conditions. It’s a minefield!

Below are some tips and advice, collected over my many years of placing teachers in international schools:

1. Rank these three things in order of importance to you: location, career, or savings potential. The fact is you probably can’t have it all and it’s helpful to think about where you’ll compromise if you need to. If location is the most important thing, limit your search to the area and learn as much as you can about the requirements and types of schools. If the race is the most important thing, then don’t limit your placement too much or you might end up with nothing. If saving matters most, find out which countries have the highest after-tax pay combined with the lowest cost of living. And don’t forget the second part of the equation because you could be in for a nasty surprise.

2. Do your research! Try to find out as much as possible about your destination school/region. I’ve seen too many teachers decide that the only place they want to teach is Dubai, only to find after months of rejected applications that they don’t have the right education and training to get hired. (And remember that rules change, so make sure you have up-to-date information!) visa restrictions for things like age, nationality, and medical conditions; and average salary and package deals. Our online Learning Portal was developed to give teachers a starting point.

3. Have a thoughtful action plan. When you apply for too many jobs at once, unless you’re desperate, your last choice is likely to react first and your first choice is likely to react last. Then you’ll find yourself with a job offer that you’re not sure you want…yet. So I recommend applying in a phased process: first apply to your first choice schools, then if you don’t get a response within a couple of weeks, apply to the next few choices, and so on. successively. If things drag on and nothing happens, go back to your investigation. You may be applying to the wrong schools or regions.

Due to the complicated nature of deciding where and when to teach abroad, I recommend working with an accredited agency that specializes in international teaching. A good, knowledgeable and ethical agency, like this one, won’t push you to get a job, but will give you feedback and up-to-date information to help you decide what’s best for you and why.

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