Things useful to have in a job search

Since I've been looking for a job recently for 2011-2012, I thought I'd throw out there what I think is useful to have in a job search, at least if you are looking for job through cold email contacts. Some of this might be super common sense.

1. A nice cover letter with a photo. Everyone likes photos, and a compact, nicely written cover letter can immediately set you up as a purposeful applicant.

2. A CV instead of a resume. Why? To me, a CV is more comprehensive. My CV starts off with a one-paragraph summary of myself, to be followed up by my list of experiences and academic achievements underneath. Now that I am on my third job, I think a one-page resume isn't really sufficient to highlight my accomplishments, once you take away the space for my name and contact info. Besides, if a school can't even take the time to look through the second page of an already condensed CV, they're not likely going to make a great employer, right?

3. Open reference letters (with contact details). Nothing replaces confidential references, but open letters are nice to have, because if a school is not sure whether you are a viable candidate, these could tip the scale without them having to jump through the hoops of contacting each reference. Open letters are also nice to have because you get to keep and re-use them for later. So, if you get a couple of letters from each school you've worked at, you could easily have a bunch of letters on file after a while. Your reference letters should include some supervisor letters, obviously, but you may also include those of former professors, co-planning colleagues, and student parents. My portfolio contains all of the above, because they each highlight a very different strength.

4. A website. Mine is very simple (sorry, no links here because I don't want to mess up the stats I am tracking), but I think it's pretty straight-forward and effective. You link to your CV, provide an email link, provide a summary of yourself, a picture, and a list of "testimonials." It sounds mad cheesy, but it works. The point of a website is so that when you send unsolicited emails, the school heads aren't annoyed when you send unsolicited attachments as well. And the testimonials, as cheesy as they are, are supposed to make you sound more attractive at first glance.

Anyway, I've contacted a good number of schools, just sort of on a first-round basis. I've heard back from some of them, but few definitely-interested ones at this point. I'm not worried; I am going to that fair in London in January and I'm sure things will sort themselves out at the fair. But, my goal before that is to contact ~50 schools. (It seems like a very obtainable number, considering that I have amazingly already contacted about 30 schools.) So, here we go! :)

By the way, recruitment fairs are totally the way to go, if you ever want to go for an international teaching job. It's quite a bit of a hassle to collect all of the necessary confidential references by ~November, but you get invaluable face time with each school, and those schools can follow up on your file before and after the fair (if you choose the right recruitment agency to go with). A lot of schools won't even consider cold-email candidates, since it saves them a lot of work to go through a recruitment agency.

For me, I do the international teaching thing because I love to travel. And I love new languages. It doesn't preclude me from the possibility of settling down in the States in the future and/or working at a public school again, although these days there is definitely less tying me down to the States...