Finalists are brought in for interviews. The interview process took all day. I met with several people from the hiring department individually, the Head of the hiring department, the Head of School, the Head of the Upper School, and the Head of the Lower School. I also sat in a break room for about 40 minutes where teachers could come in and ask me questions. I gave two full periods of demonstration lessons at two different levels, while several teachers observed. There was a lot of pomp and circumstance about the interview process, even when they already had the position reserved for a friend of theirs. Avoid talking in too much detail about the exact techniques you use, and avoid doing anything original in your demonstration class, because they stole my activity. They actually demonstrated an original activity I used in my demo lesson for the entire department later and started using it in their classes, all without giving me credit for it or hiring me. Depending on the department, they might not actually want a teacher who knows enough not to be their puppet, so "knowing a lot" isn't necessarily a good thing. Most of the teachers they're hiring are young and fairly inexperienced, so being old and experienced isn't good, either, since experienced teachers are more expensive. They're definitely mostly focused on hiring "young blood". Eventually, I received a cryptic e-mail from the Upper School Head that didn't really even give me a reason for not hiring me, and I was someone who was "part of the community", supposedly. He even sent me the e-mail on a holiday he knew was important for me and my family. Overall, there was a lot of favoritism in the hiring process. For example, someone who was a "favorite" of the Upper School Head got hired for a teaching job without even having to go through an interview process and give demo lessons, since the position wasn't even publicly announced. Oh, and it helps to be good-looking, too (no joke).
