CV Requirements

International CVs/resumés must be written to reflect the needs of international schools and organisations which are often different than in your home country. This may mean that candidates must slightly modify their CVs/resumés in order to increase their chances of finding the best job possible. We have found that having a well written, appropriately-formatted CV can make the difference between getting a job interview and not making the short list.

Personal Information

• Clearly state your name on the first line. Usually it's centred on the line and bold/larger
• State your marital status. This is very important for immigration and housing. Listing the ages of dependent children under 18 is useful
• List your nationality/nationalities
• State your date of birth. This is an important visa consideration. Spell out the month of birth rather than using numerical form as different countries have a different order of dd/mm/yy and mm/dd/yy

Education and Qualifications

• List education and qualifications including the university name/country attended, years attended and qualifications attained. It is usually not required to list details of high school, GCSE/A level subjects/grades unless you are a newly qualified teacher
• List type/subject/age level(s) of teaching certification/qualification(s)

Work history

• List complete work history from mm/yy to mm/yy, explaining any gaps in employment
  • List most recent/most relevant first, moving backwards in time
  • List the name of the school in which you taught, location, and subjects and levels (such as Advanced Placement, A-level, IGCSE) you have taught. If you have taken on any positions of responsibility make sure you list them in each post. Also point out any successes and achievements in the posts and experience with children who have special educational needs or English as an additional language. Define acronyms for subjects/levels in the first use as they will usually not be understood outside of your home country
  • You don't need to list part-time work undertaken whilst at school unless it is relevant
• List reference details. If you do not want us to contact them, please indicate it. References should be supervisors (head teacher, principal, head of department) but note that we will never use personal contact information such as personal email addresses or mobile phones to get references – we always contact the school directly. We need name, school location, title and school email/phone/fax

Other

• Photos. International CVs usually have a photo (face/shoulders) on the top right corner of the CV. It is usually inappropriate to have bare shoulders, alcoholic beverages and family/friends in the photo with you. Make sure you compress the photo so the size of your CV is less than 1.5 meg
• Stick to one or two fonts in your CV. Verdana, Arial and Garamond are good choices. Times New Roman, script-type fonts and comic-type fonts are not as effective
• List any additional languages you speak and many schools like to see a list of your hobbies/interests
• Personal statements should be no more than 1 page in length and should be teaching focussed
• Humour is a very subjective thing that is difficult to translate cross-culturally so we recommend you avoid it on a written, professional CV
• Good spelling is fundamental to a teacher's credibility. Run a spell check before sending it!