We often don’t know early in the application cycle which locations will be open by the time we interview you. Therefore, it’s crucial that you tell us in your application everywhere that you would consider living so that if openings change throughout the process, we know your complete list of preferences and can get your materials in front of the right hiring managers.

Unlike the corps member application process, your regional preferences do play a role in determining whether you move on in the interview process and which hiring managers interview you. We have a limited number of roles in each location, so let’s consider a few scenarios.

1: If you let us know your fiancé is planning to go to business school at The University of Virginia in a few years and you will both be moving there to establish state residency, then we’ll likely ask you to interview via webcam with only the Virginia hiring manager.

2: If you let us know you can only be in Ann Arbor because your partner is starting law school there, we will only be able to interview you if the current Ann Arbor RM decides not to return to her role.

3: If you say that you would go to any big city in the Northeast, it’s likely that a number of hiring managers would want to interview you and that we may ask you to participate in a few different interviews (virtually or in-region).

Our advice to you on your location preferences - be flexible, but be honest!

The more flexible you are about where you would live, the more openings you could likely be considered for. However, while we ask that you be flexible, we recognize that you likely have strong ties to particular geographic areas due to family connections, general lifestyle preferences and other personal and professional obligations. Therefore, while we hope you will think expansively about locations where you would consider living, we also ask that you think carefully about each location and share your true preferences in this survey. If you wouldn’t actually accept a role in a particular region, it isn’t a good use of your time or our hiring managers’ time to go through the interview process, get an offer, and turn it down because of the location.

So take some time now to think hard about where you would truly be happy living next year before completing the location preferences survey as part of your application. And, if anything changes (i.e., you become more OR less open), email us at RtStaffing@teachforamerica.org.