I am presently away from the campus on my annual trip to interview prospective staff who have applied to teach at the College.  I think the single most important part of my role as Principal is selecting the right teachers – after all, if we have the right staff, then we are very likely to have the right College!  That is why I devote the time and effort that I do to speak to short-listed applicants at length, meeting their families where possible, and speaking in detail with local referees.

My recruiting interviews are taking place in five cities this year – Singapore, New York, Casablanca, Mombasa and Mumbai.  At first, it may sound very exciting to be interviewing in such exotic locations, but sadly the reality is considerably less glamorous.

I left the Hong Kong on Tuesday morning to begin the interviews.  My time in Singapore amounted to only a little more than 12 hours, hardly enough to buy a postcard let alone do any exploring!  My flight to New York was over 17 hours duration (I actually flew on the world’s longest scheduled non-stop flight!).  This was followed by an hour waiting in the immigration line, and then an hour in New York’s rush hour traffic, so I arrived at my hotel just 25 minutes before my first scheduled interview.  Having just travelled through a time difference spanning 13 hours, I felt that I (and the interviewee!) did extremely well to keep talking in a focussed way for about two and a half hours.  Following that interview, I left my hotel in New York at midday on Thursday, and subsequently spent my time on planes and in long airport transits until arriving at my hotel in Casablanca at 3 am on Saturday.  I am not saying any of this to get sympathy – I certainly don’t expect any! – but simply to make the point that conducting these interviews is a reasonably demanding task from both physical and mental points of view.

Having said this, the interviews have been extremely stimulating.  I have already met some sensational teachers in my interviews, and even the longer interviews have been stimulating, challenging, and filled with possibilities and potential.  In between interviews, I conduct reference checks by telephone, and these have also been very positive and affirming experiences.  And during the waiting periods between phone conversations while I undertake that task, I have been keeping in touch with students, teachers, board members and parents by e-mail and working on several reports and initiatives for the College.

The biggest challenge I find in undertaking this work is maintaining adequate sleep and exercise, especially given the necessary rapid adjustments to different time zones and the long periods of enforced sitting while travelling.  So, this afternoon, I grabbed a couple of hours to go walking through the streets of Casablanca near my hotel.  This was a much-needed and highly stimulating experience which gave me some overdue time to clear my head and broaden my focus.  It was during this walk that I took the photo at the top of this blog – the image is only two hours old at the time I am uploading this blog.

Okay – that walk was exotic!  Although it was not typical of my week, it was welcome almost to the point of necessity when it came, and it has reinvigorated me for the next rounds of interviews that lie before me in the coming days.