More about IT CONNECTS for Candidates

1. You ARE more than your resume and IT Connects offers you the platform to introduce yourself in a more complete manner to hiring schools. Schools are people-places and who you are does matter. You want to find a school community where you are comfortable, happy and professionally engaged, and IT Connects offers you a chance to connect with schools that will be that community for you.
2. When you register as a candidate you outline what type of school and position you are looking for and note your geographical preferences. When a hiring school's search parameters match yours, your professional profile will be directly available for the school's review.
3. Schools appreciate the direct access and great introduction to candidates that IT Connects offer. The compelling platform, great technology and reasonable fees insure that hiring schools will use IT Connects to locate strong candidates.
4. There is no fee for candidates, and if candidates so chose, they can use IT Connects in addition to another placement agency.
5. As an IT Connects candidate, you will communicate directly with hiring schools; you will not be relying on a placement agent to send your file, answer your email or let you know if a school is interested. However, you will have the Independent Thinking team available to support your search and answer your questions.
6. As an IT Connects candidate, you will have access to job search tips and independent school insights from a team of former independent school administrators and teachers who have successfully worked with schools on their hiring needs for more than ten years.

1. Create a username and password.
2. You will then be directed to a Candidate questionnaire that will ask you for just about everything-name, address, school, experience, names of reference, position seeking, etc... This will take you 15-20 minutes to complete and will provide hiring schools with your contact information and will create your search criteria.
3. You will then be directed to create your professional profile. Now that you have a username and password, you can log out and come back to this process. Your professional profile and candidacy will not become active (or visible to hiring schools) until you activate it by clicking the appropriate icon.
4. Once you have activated your candidacy, your professional profile will be available to all IT Connects hiring schools. Thus, you might want to make sure that if you are currently working in a school, that the appropriate individuals are aware that you are exploring new opportunities. Independent Thinking cannot be held responsible if you put yourself in a compromising position with your current school if your professional profile pops up in one of their searches.
5. You can continue to edit or add to your professional profile once it is activated.

Marketing and branding are words that may still make you cringe but have become more acceptable (and necessary) in the independent school world. Your IT Connects profile is your opportunity to market your candidacy to schools. You want someone to read your summary, get pulled in enough to pull up your resume, watch your CV (Connects Video) and say, "I want to meet this person." Once you connect live with the hiring administrator, it will be you and not your paper or your CV or your classroom website that will determine whether you receive a job offer. BUT-you won't get to that stage of a job offer if your marketing materials are less than compelling. So, as you put your professional profile together ask yourself, "Would I want to meet and maybe hire this person?"

1. Keep in mind this is a professional profile, not a Facebook or eHarmony page. Post a picture that is appropriate (fully clothed, no party pictures, you alone-hopefully smiling). No fair putting up a picture that is a decade or two old.
2. Offer a summary that is succinct, honest and grammatically correct.
3. You do need your resume. Letters of reference, no more than 3, can certainly be helpful (if they are good and actually say something).
4. Consider posting a personal statement or statement of educational philosophy. This is an opportunity to offer a sense of who you are as an educator and as a person. Show your intellect, humor and personality-don't use this as a platform to "show off" your extensive vocabulary or pontificate. Remember:  Would you like to meet this person?
5. Have a classroom website or blog? Offer a link so a hiring school can get a glimpse of what you will bring to their school community.
6. Make a CV-Connects Video and post it to your page through YouTube. Your CV should be one to two minutes in length and should present the professional you. Dress well, brush your hair, speak up, make sure your setting is appropriate and well-lit and your camera is steady. Practice. A CV is not required but offers another great opportunity to market your candidacy. Learn how to make a CV using YouTube

• Administrators-Academic:  The timeline for senior academic administrator positions in many instances has moved to a fall or early winter kick-off. If you are just looking up from your desk in April thinking about a new position for the upcoming July, many schools will have already completed their searches-although late and unexpected openings do occur.
• Administrators-Development and Finance: Schools tend to hire for these positions 12 months a year, although more positions will come open in the early spring for a July 1 hire.
• Administrators-Admissions: While many of these searches will follow the same pattern as the academic administrator searches, admissions positions often come up in late March/early April because experienced admissions professionals are too busy doing their jobs to contemplate a search until the admissions busy season has slowed down a bit.
• Teachers:  Independent schools typically begin to know their hiring needs for the following school year in the first couple of months of the calendar year. The hiring season peaks in March and April and begins to slow down, although openings will continue to be filled through August.