What’s changing for 2024 – 25?
Ahead of the IPSEF conference in London on June 27th, ITM’s Andy Homden caught up with Diane Jacoutot who talked about the changing context for international school recruitment.
Taking nothing for granted
There really is no more experienced analyst of international school recruitment trends than Diane Jacoutot, the founder and Managing Director of the Edvectus International Agency. She has been recruiting teachers for international schools for the best part of twenty-five years, but in a rapidly changing and increasingly unstable world she was very clear that schools and agencies can take nothing for granted about the way they recruit.
The survey
”By late 2023, we knew we had to go back to basics and ask ourselves a simple but important question: just what are teachers in the international school sector looking for now? We were picking up trends which we wanted to explore in more depth, so In October and November 2023, Edvectus surveyed more than 500 international school job seekers (50% of whom were already working overseas) and 150 international schools to evaluate the potential opportunities and challenges for the upcoming international educator hiring season. Our aim was to better predict the international teacher and school leader recruitment landscape in a way that would allow our clients and partners to proactively address market challenges and opportunities. Our surveys were set against the backdrop of an international school market that has largely recovered from the effects of the pandemic, with new markets emerging such as Thailand, Vietnam and Saudi Arabia, eclipsing the previous hotspot of China’’.
Research paper
The outcome was a new research paper from Edvectus:
What were the key findings? According to Jacoutot,
”In some ways the research confirms what we already know: challenging market conditions with more demand for high quality international teachers than supply, mean that schools have to work longer and harder to get the same results from their recruitments campaigns than before. Most schools are therefore taking action to improve their attractiveness. The shortage of high quality teachers in some areas remains particularly acute – the fact that it is hard to find the right kind of IB or A Level Physics teacher will come as no surprise. Neither is it surprising that the most popular locations in which to teach are the Gulf and South East Asia.
A subtle shift
”However, what we also see is a subtle shift in priorities for jobseekers, with teachers now more concerned now about financial packages than the need for security as the effects of the rising cost of living kick in and the memory of the pandemic recedes. It also appears that jobseekers are now more likely to place an even higher value on a school’s reputation, which they are keen to research online while continuing to explore the potential for career progression and professional development as key factors when considering a job offer.
”Furthermore, we found that the number of teachers who are prepared to look for a new job for the coming year is also on the rise. These people are thinking in terms of their preferred locations, a better package and good porentail for career progression. The ability to retain as well as recruit has therefore never been more important for schools.
Question assumptions; work on your website
”It is clear that schools are all too aware of the difficulties and are taking action. More are recruiting earlier – with the September to December recruiting period becoming ever more active. But schools cannot assume that this is necessarily an answer to the problem, because the evidence seems to suggest that there are fewer candidates actively looking at this time and of course many schools will have their stories about candidates who accepted a job early in the year only to change their mind later.
”We have found that attention to details counts. Perhaps connected with the importance to reenforce their reputation, schools report that developing their own website as a recruiting tool is proving to be time well-spent.
Other key takeaways
”We continue to believe that schools would be wise not to put all their eggs in one recruiting basket but to have a number of pathways open and active when they enter the market. However, maybe the biggest takeaway from the survey would seem to be that the risk-reward equation when it comes to recruitment has shifted decisively in favour of reward – something that all schools need to bear in mind for 2024 – 25”
Diane Jacoutot is the Managing Director of the Edvectus international recruitment and a panellist at the IPSEF conference in London on June 27th.
She was talking to Andy Homden, who you can also meet at IPSEF.
FEATURE IMAGE: Unsplash+ In collaboration with Getty Images
Support Image: Cloé Gérard from Pixabay