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School Application Process

Welcome to Search Associates! We appreciate your choice of our organization to assist you and we look forward to working with you. Completing your online application is the first step to becoming an active registered school.

Schools wishing to employ our comprehensive services such as recruiting, administrative searches, Board Consulting and/or advertising opportunities should first begin by completing the following:

  1. Application: Successful completion of the online school application and acceptance of the agreement with Search Associates gives us the basic information we need to start our evaluation process. It is important to know that all of the information listed on your school application MUST be completed or thoroughly reviewed by your School Head.
  2. Review: New school applications are reviewed first by our Schools Coordinator and then by our Executive Management Committee. Characteristics of those schools that are approved generally include:
    • Appropriate salaries and benefits as compared with other reputable international schools around the world, allowing staff to live comfortably, travel during the holiday periods and still generate financial savings
    • Housing or housing allowance (unless housing costs are adequately covered by the salary)
    • Round-trip transportation/travel allowance
    • Health insurance (worldwide)
    • Annual (or biennial) home leave
    • Free tuition for children
    • Supportive professional work environment
  3. Screening Questions: New school applicants are required to complete our screening questions so we have more information about your school's operations, the salary and benefits package and other important information.
  4. References: New applicant schools will be asked to provide the contact information of several expatriate teachers within the school as well as Heads of Schools/Administrators who are willing to speak to your school's suitability to work with Search Associates.
  5. Approval/Rejection: After careful review of all of the information provided, you will receive confirmation that we can either accept or not accept your school's application for membership.
  6. Payment of one-time only membership fee

Recruitment and membership Fees

Joining fee

Each school accepted by Search Associates is required to pay a one-time only US$2000 initial membership fee in order to be added to the list of actively registered schools and gain access to our database and comprehensive services.

Annual membership fee

  • There is no annual membership fee for schools that register and attend any of our job fairs or hire a Search candidate within one academic year.
  • Schools that do not register to attend any of our job fairs, and/or have not hired a Search candidate through our database within an academic year, will be required to pay a US$500 database user fee.

RECRUITMENT FEES

Search Associates recruitment fees vary to some extent according to the Associate issuing the invoice, but are always based on the US dollar fees. These are currently:

  • US$ 1980.00 for a teacher or intern
  • US$ 2980.00 for an administrator.

PLEASE NOTE

International schools apply to Search Associates as a whole and not to a single office or Senior Associate. Schools within a school group must create a separate online application for each individual school. We provide a discount on the membership fee for schools within the same group, however, each individual school will be assessed separately. For questions regarding the application process, please contact our School Coordinator, Mei-Lyn Freeman, and she will be happy to assist you.

We wish to emphasize again that all of the information listed on your school application must be completed by or thoroughly reviewed by your School Head.

Did You Know…?

Senior Associate Gez Hayden led the first international school authorized to offer all three IB programs in China.