With the market for school staff tightening, recruiting teachers from abroad offers a great way to bring in new talent.

Indeed, it’s something we did recently at REAch2. We appointed a new headteacher to one of our primary schools who had previously been working at an international school in Prague and also has experience of working in Belgrade, Moscow and Warsaw.

This does not mean it is easy though, with the recruitment process of candidates from abroad - whether working in an international school or in that nation’s education system - filled with hurdles to overcome to make the process work.

But with so many skilled teachers in the international sphere, and the race for staff as competitive as ever, it is an area schools in the UK would do well to consider within their hiring processes.

Here are four considerations to make it work for both the school and candidates.

1. Cast your net wide

To make sure as many potential applicants as possible know about your role, it can be a good idea to use agencies with offices outside the UK to identify potential candidates for the position.

Take time to build up a relationship with the agency to be sure they know what you are looking for and that they understand your culture.

Agencies can also be very useful to make sure a potential applicant understands the reality of a role being advertised, not just in terms of the job itself but the location and the school - it can be a culture shock moving from one country to another and engaging in a different education system.

2. Have an open mind

If you are seeking to appoint candidates from overseas, you may need to look at CVs differently.

It’s not uncommon for teachers working in international schools to move roles more frequently to gain experience of working in different countries, but frequent moves can be perceived negatively.

However, looked at another way, it can show someone who is flexible and adaptable - skills that never go amiss in schools wherever you are in the world.

A strong candidate should easily be able to explain their career path and sell the experiences it has provided them.

What’s more, there are lots of benefits to recruiting a candidate who has worked in different countries - from being well-versed to working with a mix of cultures and customs in the school community to bringing new teaching ideas and insights to school life.

3. Rethink interview processes

Perhaps the biggest hurdle for recruiting from overseas is that candidates are unlikely to be able to come into school for an interview, which means those little moments that are valuable to the candidate - chatting with the receptionist or interacting with pupils during a school tour - are lost.

However, you can get around this by building in some extra time ahead of any formal interview for remote chats with members of the team, or video tours of the school that not only give a candidate a sense of the school they might be joining but can also provide an opportunity to answer questions they may have.

You can set this up as a separate call and walk the candidate through the process, so they know how it will all work or you can all join the call a few minutes ahead of the formal interview for introductions - to have an informal chat and ask how their day is going or about their routine, or something interesting about where their school is located - and to ensure the technology is behaving!

Check out the time zones too - even if it’s just a few hours’ difference, ask the candidate what works best. 

This can also help a candidate relax so that the interview does not “start cold” and you are more likely to get a true reflection of who they are - and hopefully see them at their best.

Lastly, although you cannot see them teach a lesson as part of the interview, we often extend our interviews by up to fifteen minutes to explore with the candidate their teaching style by giving them different scenarios and real-life examples of different situations to find out how a teacher responds.

All of this can clearly work. Paul Wade, when reflecting on two days of online interviews as part of our hiring processes, notes: “As with online teaching, this was challenging for all parties, but I managed to complete the bulk of a normal interview effectively and without the added stress of long-distance travel.”

4. Help new staff settle in

Bringing in a new candidate from abroad can feel like a bold move - and it is tempting to want the new hire to hit the ground running but, just as with anyone new staff member, it is important to make sure they have time to learn about their new school, its community and culture.

For staff coming from overseas, there is the need for them to either learn about the English education system if it is their first time teaching in the UK or to get back into the swing of things if returning from a post in an international school.

Over the last few years, we’ve tried to help overseas hires adjust to life in the UK and to working in a REAch2 school by doing everything from providing maps of the area and setting up a connection with an estate agent to helping put them in touch with others who are new to the school, offering guidance on how to get a bank account and registering with the local GP. These practical things can all help new hires settle quickly.  

Overall, education is a global profession and, in order to ensure we are finding the best staff possible to deliver exceptional outcomes for our pupils, it is important we engage in a broad search to secure the best talent possible.

Sue Northend is director of HR for REAch2 Academy Trust