Job Discussion Forums

klaw02 · Joined: 17 May 2013 Posts: 10 Location: France

Hi all,

People tell me that it's far more effective handing in CVs in person than applying through email.

I currently live in Wroclaw and I plan to hand in CVs to schools here, but I'd like to apply to schools in other cities too, just to give myself more options.

Do you think it's worth it to travel to other cities just to hand in CVs, or do you think just emailing them is ok? And then I can travel to other cities for interviews.

Also, do you think that it'd be a big issue to use a generalised cover letter? There are hundreds of schools and it'd be a lot easier to organise if I wrote a cover letter saying "I'm writing to express my interest in teaching at your school" rather than change the name for each school and potentially having a huge mess.

oipivo · Joined: 02 Jan 2012 Posts: 163 Location: Poland

Has anyone actually had luck with this? When I went a dropped off a few CVs they looked at me like I was crazy. I had enough luck just emailing and calling.

simon_porter00 · Joined: 09 Nov 2005 Posts: 505 Location: Warsaw, Poland

Not sure how it works in other cities but from my experience sending an email to a school in Krakow or Warsaw is about as useful as punching yourself in the head.

A couple of caveats:
Where there isn't a huge supply of teachers, I would expect schools would answer emails pretty quickly.
When a school has something approaching an organised employment structure and necessary levels of professionalism you'd probably get a reply.

Given that most people don't want to work in small town Poland and that very very very few schools fall into the "organised" category, handing in your CVs at schools in Warsaw and Krakow is the best bet.

Master Shake · Joined: 03 Nov 2006 Posts: 1202 Location: Colorado, USA

It's always preferable to hand out CV's in person, but only if you can find, say, half a dozen decent looking schools in a city that make it worth your while to go there.

Simon's right about the better organized schools being more likely to answer emails. So don't think it's not worth trying if you can't go there in person.

It's still a little early to expect the DoS to be back from his/her holiday. I'd hold off until late Sept before you go knocking on doors, CV's in hand.

ecocks · Joined: 06 Nov 2007 Posts: 899 Location: Gdansk, Poland

It depends entirely on you.

Some people can hand deliver a CV and leave with an offer, others get deposited in the round file as they are walking towards the door.

If you are confident and have the presence to do it, I would. If you lack assertiveness or the ability to fall into an interview without notice, I would just mail them.