coming for a pre-locating visit or not

so, you are going to come down with no job? do you have other skills to fall back on

Well that is more or less my question. Is it best to come down before the move? I'm coming regardless. I have a long history in serving in fine dining and can definitely fall back on that should education not work out immediately.

The idea of a PMV is to come to the island(a) for a short period not on vacation but on a fact finding mission to find out What island life is like and if it "is for you". You don't spend your on the beach drinking pina coladas but rather checking out stores, grocery prices, available living arrangements, housing costs, utility costs, banking, transportation and a whole host of other everyday activities. Some also look at employment opportunities or at least lay the groundwork for the actual job search when and if they make the actual move. Once this fact finding trip is over one usually goes back "home" to digest what they learned and then makes a decision to either relocate or do something else.

The odds of finding employment during a PMV are small but it has happened. If you are one of the fortunate few who find employment during a PMV great. If not you'll at least be able to form a plan of how you will proceed when you do decide to relocate.

Awesome feedback. This was all information I wanted to learn in more depth. I'm thinking saving my money and going down for the move alone may be my best option. I have friends who live on the island who may be able to help with this transition.

i meant no disrespect-lots of people come down here with nothing lined up and then get in a bind.

there are some posts on here that deal with the teaching profession. please do a search for those here. lots of great info.

if you are coming down regardless, thats fine. most people prefer to have a job lined up though . they say to try to come down with about 10k. keep that in mind too , for f/l/s, utilities, car etc...

$10K will be gone in a flash, especially if you buy a dependable car, which you'll absolutely need.

Hello,
I can only talk about the public school route that I encountered on STT. It is certainly best to go to the HR website and obtain all the required documents necessary for employment. It's a bunch! I hand delivered my documents and interviewed that day but only to confirm that I had all the required documents. The actual interview happened via Skype months later. Of course I guess things could differently depending on the needs of the school district. I delivered documents in April and they interviewed me in August for that school year. Not really sure that you would get an interview without having done the paperwork. You could call them to find out though.

Good luck it's worth it.

Thank you for your feedback. Would you recommend I call the schools individually, or the VI DOE? For some reason I do not have access to any HR pages.

Go to "vide.vi" and look under divisions and you should find HR and the documents needed.