At Teach Away, all teacher candidates applying for teaching jobs abroad (or domestically) need to submit references as part of the application process. As part of the International Task Force for Child Protection, the format and process for handling references has changed. Schools are now asking for confidential reference checks. It is now a requirement to provide references for teaching jobs abroad in order to apply for all our programs.
Luckily, Teach Away has streamlined this process for you. As a part of your account, you can easily create a confidential reference request. The request is then sent automatically to your referee.
We recommend you follow these five tips when submitting a reference request:
Ensure your referee is a supervisor.
In order for your potential employer to see the reference as valid, it needs to come from someone in a supervisory role. Vice principals and school heads are ideal. Team leads, curriculum coordinators, instructional coaches and heads of department are also acceptable. Unfortunately, references from a colleague or coworker cannot be used.
References need to come from someone who has seen you teach.
Principals reading your references want to get an idea of your classroom style. Your referee should have insight into and be comfortable discussing your teaching practice.
Make sure contact information is correct.
As part of the ITFCP, school heads now have a mandate to contact your references. While they’re deep in the hiring process, it helps to show you have been organized and detailed enough to have the correct information. Remember to use a referee’s professional work email address. Having an @yahoo.com or @hotmail.com domain, for example, may raise doubts about the legitimacy of the reference.
Make your references recent.
You may have an exceptional reference from your school in 2006, but the modern classroom, especially in international private school contexts, is a very different space. The more up to date the reference, the better.
Don’t forget to follow up.
When you click “save”, our server sends an email to your referees. It could happen that your request ends up in their spam or junk folder. Email or call your referees as soon as you submit the request to confirm that they received it. If they didn’t – contact your placement coordinator.
Time and time again, we see instances where two candidates have been interviewed and shortlisted for hire. It was the candidate who had completed references that was awarded the job offer. Following the correct process for submitting references will serve you well in your teaching job search.
From the whole Teach Away team, we want to wish all of our teachers interviewing for teaching jobs right now the very best of luck with their applications!
Interested in applying to teach abroad? Head on over to the Teach Away job board and check out our current openings.
