by Kelly Blackwell

The internet has one purpose, to share information with people, and it's a very powerful tool. I'm going to focus on how you can use the information that is available on the internet to secure a teaching position abroad.

Searching for Vacancies
Firstly you need to identify where you would like to work, and the kind of school in which you want to work. For example, I teach economics and would like to teach in Europe.

Once you've thought about the geographical area in which you want to work and have made a decision about that, you'll need to go to a search engine and conduct a search. You are going to be looking for schools with relevant vacancies. Personally I find Google returns the most relevant search results.

In order to teach in Europe I'm probably going to have to teach in an international school, so one search term I might use is "international school Europe". The reason I wouldn't try the search term "economic teacher vacancy international school Europe" is that while it might be a more specific search term, in using it I am assuming that the schools' webmaster has optimized the page for that search term.

For example, when I used the first search term "international school Europe" the first page of results has only two schools listed whose sites I can then visit and look for relevant vacancies. But the other results were directories of international schools in Europe which I could use to jump into my research with around 15 schools listed per directory.

When I use the second search term "economic teacher vacancy international school Europe" the first page of results has no relevant web sites listed. The sites were either economics news stories or job placement services recruiting teachers for schools in the United Kingdom.

Finding Information about the School
Once you've found a likely looking vacancy that you think you'd like to apply for, you can use the internet to gather more information about the school. This is an essential process, and should be carried out before you submit your application. As all teachers know, there are schools in which you want to work and then there are schools in which you wouldn't work even if you were desperate for a job, so it's important to do your research.

You will need to set out some criteria against which you can assess the school. If you are looking to teach in an international school, then there are industry specific criteria you should be looking at, and I've included them in a chapter in my book The Complete Guide to Securing a Job at an International School.

You can find information about schools in many places. You could search the schools' website for information. Look at:

* pictures they have on the site. I was keen on getting a job at one of the schools in the Bahamas when I saw that all the staff were all wearing shorts in the staff photo on the website!

* students' work published on the website. One of my colleagues is currently looking for a new job teaching Information Technology at an international school and one of her strategies is to check out what students are doing at the school.

* whether the school has included information about living in the local area, either for parents or for teachers.

You could find out whether there is there a national (or international) education quality assurance organization, such as Ofsted in the UK, ERO in NZ, or ECIS for international schools, and see whether there are any reports available in the public domain about the school that interests you.

You could find and join a forum and ask the members for information about the school. For example the Times Education Supplement (TES) website has several teachers' forums. You can find the forum concerned with teaching overseas here:

TES Teaching Overseas Forum

Submit Your Application via Email
When you've established that the school is one in which you'd like to work, you can use email to submit your application pack, find a web hosting service and have elements of your application pack available online for the recruiter to visit and, you can send the recruiter to the website of your current school if there is material displayed there for which you can take some credit.


Kelly's international teaching career spans nearly a decade and began before the internet became the information super-highway it is today. She's adapted her job-hunting techniques to take advantage of the power of the internet. Visit her site if you'd like more information on landing a desirable international teaching contract.