How to Prepare for an International School Job Interview

A virtual interview is not simply an in-person interview conducted through Zoom. It’s a glimpse into who you are and what you bring to the classroom energetically, creatively, and operationally. With the digital age drastically shifting how we connect with potential employers, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the process. To ensure the best chance at landing a role, it’s vital to prepare on three levels: the professional content of the interview, the virtual environment, and interpersonal signals that may get lost in translation over a computer screen (Basch et al, 2021).

1) Connect To The Heart of the Role

Start with the school, not yourself. Just like how a school wants to get to know you, you should build awareness for who they are as well.

Study the school’s mission, vision, values, curriculum, and educational philosophy. These pillars not only give context to the institution, but help you understand the student population and international context. Knowing how to identify what exactly makes the school distinctive can even inspire stories from your professional experiences that meet the school’s priorities.

Assessing how well a job “fits” you operates at both the cultural and professional level. Look past the job description and ask: What problem is the school trying to solve by hiring for this role?

2) Prepare An Engaging Professional Story, NOT A Script

A good candidate memorizes a plethora of possible questions and answers. A great candidate builds a portfolio of quality stories that directly demonstrate their professional strengths.

Effective story prompts include:

• Challenging student situations you successfully addressed.
• An example of adapting to a new cultural or educational context.
• Collaborations with colleagues.
• A measurable example of improving student learning.
• Displays of leadership or initiative.
• Demonstrations of safeguarding, inclusion, or intercultural competence.
• Mistakes or failures you learned from.

Another method to ensure you don’t sound scripted is the useful STAR structure:

Situation → Task → Action → Result

Knowing your stories well helps to adapt them to various questions, so you can go from basic candidate to standout force!

3) Practice The Interview You’ll Actually Have

Preparing for the interview setting is an important complement to preparing what you want to say about yourself as a candidate. Some great ways to practice include:

• ● Record yourself answering common questions, then watch it back without sound to assess your body language.
• ● Listen to your recording without watching and focus on clarity, pace, and energy.
• ● Build confidence around answering the questions without reading notes.
• ● Conduct at least one complete mock interview.
• ● Ask a friend or colleague to provide feedback.
• ● Practice with the actual platform you’ll use for the interview.

Like many other professional skills, virtual interviewing improves through practice

4) Don’t Let the Technology Override the interview

The digital landscape is always changing, including our relationship with it. Taking a few days before the scheduled interview to run through a practical checklist (beyond checking your Wi-Fi) not only lets you troubleshoot in advance, but helps to thoughtfully address obstacles (Wolff et al, 2020).

• Testing necessary equipment. It’s important to make sure your interviewer will be able to hear and/or see you (Sarac et al, 2020). Check that your computer’s camera and microphone both work. And, bonus tip: keep a pair of working headphones or earbuds nearby to help reduce echoes or feedback if they arise.
• Attaining secure Wi-Fi. Stable internet connection matters not only for a smooth interview but potentially for how an interviewer evaluates a candidate. Run a connectivity test the night before.
• Updating the interview platform: Know how to enter the interview, especially if it’s on a platform like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or Google Meet. Test-enter the platform to see if it needs to download as a desktop app or can be accessed via Internet browser.
• Preparing backup contacts. Message your point of contact a few days in advance for another contact method like a phone number, email, or secondary interview platform. It doesn’t hurt to have a safety net in the event your virtual interview disconnects.
• Prepare your device. Close unnecessary applications, silence non-emergent notifications, and charge the night before to reduce distractions and keep your device working as effectively as possible.

Experimental research has demonstrated that audiovisual quality can influence evaluations of job candidates in video interviews (Fiechter et al, 2018). Understanding the interview format in advance gives you another opportunity to reduce preventable technical and communication problems.

5) Look at the Camera—But Don’t Stare at It

With the rise of virtual interviewing, a whole subuniverse of etiquette has risen with it. They pose their own unique, unusual predicament: making eye contact with your interviewer. It’s easy in person to maintain someone’s gaze, but through a camera it can be significantly different.

Virtual interview tip: looking at the interviewer’s face on the screen does not necessarily look like eye contact to the interviewer.

Recent experimental research found that candidates whose gaze was directed away from the camera received less favorable evaluations than candidates who looked toward the camera in a simulated online job interview (Shinya et al., 2024).

6) Setting Up Your Virtual Stage

Keep It Professional, But Not Sterile

Position the camera. Setting it at approximate eye level enhances visibility (Sarac et al, 2020).

Test lighting. They should be able to see you with an unobstructed view (Huang et al, 2022).

Check what appears behind you. Avoid distracting, inappropriate, or visually busy items that could pull attention away from you.

Sometimes, virtual interview platforms provide settings to add a basic backdrop, or even blur your current background. Regardless, curate your environment to spotlight you and your professional presence, which is the very essence of the interview.