Unseen, Not Unqualified: Why Hiring Teams Matter

A Head of Department I worked for previously, when contacted by the Principal of a school I was applying to, said, “If you judge Sara only by what’s on her CV, you won’t be able to see what she can bring.” That probably helped to get me hired. I’ve been very fortunate in my career because every time I’ve needed it, someone’s given me a shot. I’m grateful for this and I recognize that this language also meant they felt I was missing something, and they gave me the opportunity to either show that I had it or prove that I could grow into it. It’s the language of less than, of deficit.

But what if I didn’t need to be given a shot? What if people had been able to recognize, from my resume alone, how qualified and capable I actually was? What if they knew that the places I’d worked in made me resourceful and adaptable? That because I’d worked in difficult, tense, and highly under-resourced environments, I was able to handle the hard stuff while operating creatively even without the comforts typically afforded to international school staff. That I’d worked through unstable and unpredictable environments, but also that I knew how to work within highly relational communities and navigate cultural taboos and societal sensitivities effectively. That the teachers and schools I had worked with were equally passionate, innovative, and impactful places that lifted everyone up because there was no other way to be. That, as a female, Lebanese/Palestinian, English teacher who has worked across different languages, cultures, and contexts, I know what it means to be a member of an over-politicized and sometimes disempowered minority. But, to those who could not recognize this (through no fault of their own), they may have read my experience as a string of no name schools in “developing” countries that may have low expectations of teachers; so I posed a risky investment. 

Research conducted by the Council of International Schools (albeit in 2021) showed that leadership in international schools remains overwhelmingly white, Western, and male. Often Heads of School have the last word on hiring and may even have the sole responsibility of choosing between two or three finalists but let’s zoom out a little and look at a school’s entire hiring chain. What happens when that whole chain is made up of a largely homogenous understanding or perspective of life? Without that balance of life experiences, are hiring committees able to find the value in the experiences of others, especially those whose experiences feel foreign and beyond the understanding of the beholder? 

For people whose backgrounds and strengths are not readable nor relatable to some hiring committees, it feels easy to be overlooked. So I guess my question becomes: if hiring committees themselves do not contain multitudes, are they able to create teams and departments that do? And if they can’t, how do we create balanced teams that bring that multitude of experiences and perspectives to our pedagogical tables? And if we can’t, how do we truly educate our students to become, as many of our mission statements aspire to, global citizens?

I believe there is tremendous value to big picture hiring in a way that creates balanced teams that provide our students with broader perspectives, more effective support systems and a richer education. But I do think that, in order to do so, our hiring committees need to recognize that they too need balance in order to create balance.