Teacher Interview Preparation: What a Principal Really Looks For

Introduction: The Unfolding Journey of a School Leader

Most teachers prepare for an interview the night before. They polish a CV, rehearse an answer about classroom management, and look up the school's timings and pay scale. Then they walk into the room and meet a principal who seems interested in something else entirely.

That gap is the subject of this article. It is a gap between what teachers think a school wants and what a thoughtful school leader actually listens for.

Arjun Rao, Principal of Bombay International School, has spent more than two decades working across some of India's best-known schools. In a recent Suraasa conversation with our Founder and CEO, Rishabh Khanna, he spoke about the forces that shaped his own practice, the habits that separate growing teachers from stalled ones, and the questions that tell him whether a candidate will truly thrive in his school.

His argument is simple. Real teacher interview preparation does not start the week before the interview. It starts years earlier, in the way you learn, the mentors you seek out, the purpose you build, and the clarity you have about the kind of school you want to give your best to.

If you have ever left an interview feeling that you said all the right things and still did not connect, this is for you. You are not missing a trick. You may simply be preparing for the wrong conversation.

You can watch Arjun Rao's full conversation below to hear, in his own words, how a principal thinks about mentorship, AI and hiring.

Learning through Observation: How Peer Modelling Shapes Practice

Ask most experienced teachers where they really learned to teach and very few will name a lecture hall. They will name a person. A senior colleague whose classroom they walked past every day. A head of department who handled a difficult parent with calm they had never seen before.

Arjun Rao describes his own early growth in exactly these terms. Much of what he learned did not come from formal training. It came from actively watching senior colleagues: how they managed a room, how they taught, and how they moved through the wider school community with students, parents and staff.

The key word is actively. Every teacher sits near experienced colleagues. Not every teacher studies them. Passive proximity teaches you very little. Deliberate observation teaches you a great deal.

What deliberate observation looks like

If you want to learn the way Rao describes, treat every chance to watch a colleague as a small piece of research. A few prompts help:

• The first five minutes. How does this teacher open the lesson? What signals tell students that learning has started?
• Transitions. What happens between activities? Where does time leak, and where does it not?
• Questioning. Who gets asked? How long does the teacher wait? What happens after a wrong answer?
• The hard moment. When a student disengages or pushes back, what does the teacher say, and just as important, what do they choose not to say?
• Outside the classroom. How does this person speak to parents, to support staff, to a nervous new colleague?

Write down one thing you noticed and one thing you will try. That small habit turns a corridor into a training ground. Our guide to bridging the gap between professional development and real classroom impact goes deeper into turning observation into reflective practice.

Why this matters in an interview

Here is the link many teachers miss. When an interviewer asks, "Who has influenced your teaching?", a generic answer about a favourite professor tells them little. A specific answer about a colleague whose questioning technique you studied and adapted tells them you are a teacher who learns on purpose. That is the kind of evidence a principal remembers.

Beyond Age and Rank: Why Great Educators Learn from Their Students

Observation of seniors is only half the picture. Rao pushes the idea of mentorship much further. In his view, guidance can come from anyone, regardless of age or seniority. That includes the youngest people in the building.

"You can learn from absolutely anybody, including a child."
Arjun Rao

This is not sentimental. It is practical. Students see your teaching from a seat you will never sit in. They know when an explanation lands and when it does not. They know which activities feel meaningful and which feel like filler. They often know before you do that a lesson has lost the room.

Rao's point is that great educators stay humble enough to ask. That humility is a professional skill, not a personality trait. It can be practised.

Simple ways to learn from students

• Exit questions about teaching, not just content. "What helped you most today?" and "What was confusing?" give you data on your choices, not only on their recall.
• A short mid-term check-in. Ask a class three questions: what to keep, what to stop, what to start. Then tell them what you changed because of their answers.
• Student explainers. Ask a student to explain a concept to a peer and listen to the language they use. Their phrasing often works better than yours.
• Learn their world. Let students teach you a tool, a game or a reference they care about. It builds trust and shows you how they think.

These approaches sit comfortably alongside the formative strategies in our guide to assessment for learning vs assessment of learning. Feedback from students is, at heart, assessment for your learning.

Teachers who do this well have stories to tell. And in an interview, a story about changing your practice because a twelve-year-old told you something honest is far more convincing than a claim that you are "reflective".

Assigned vs. Sought Mentorship: Cultivating the Right Growth Mindset

Many schools assign mentors to new teachers. Many teachers also go looking for mentors on their own. Rao draws a clear distinction between the two and argues that each one asks something different of you.

Assigned mentorship asks for openness

An assigned mentor is not chosen for chemistry. You may not click. Your styles may differ. Rao acknowledges this honestly: natural rapport is not guaranteed. His advice is to stay open anyway. A mentor you did not pick can still teach you something valuable, provided you approach the relationship looking for takeaways rather than reasons to disengage.

That openness has a real payoff. Research reviewed by the Brookings Institution notes that strong peer mentoring models, for both beginning and experienced teachers, can strengthen organisational commitment, promote a positive school climate, foster positive peer relationships and ultimately improve teacher retention. A mentorship you resent helps nobody. A mentorship you engage with helps you and the school.

Sought mentorship asks for intent

Proactive mentorship is different. When you seek out a mentor yourself, Rao says you need clear intent. You should know which skill or area of knowledge you are trying to build. "I want a mentor" is a wish. "I want to learn how to run Socratic discussions with a mixed-ability Grade 9 class" is a plan.

Rao also widens the field of possible mentors. Colleagues, yes. But also experts from outside education, people from industry who understand the subject you teach in the real world, and, as we saw, students. A science teacher might learn more about experimental design from a working researcher than from any workshop.

Both kinds of mentorship belong in a well-planned year. Our guide to CPD for teachers shows how to map mentorship goals alongside courses and reading so that your growth has shape rather than happening by accident.

Driving Your Own Development: Preparation and Purpose in Mentorship

This is perhaps the most direct part of Rao's message, and it speaks to every teacher who has ever waited for someone else to notice their potential.

"Nobody else should be as invested in your growth as you."
Arjun Rao

It is easy to hear that line as a burden. Read it again as a statement of respect. It assumes you are a professional who can direct your own career. It assumes your growth is worth owning.

Rao is specific about what ownership looks like in practice. Mentees should arrive prepared. They should bring frameworks and focused questions. They should not expect the mentor to drive their personal growth for them. A senior educator's time is limited. A prepared mentee uses it well. An unprepared one wastes it, and usually does not get a second meeting.

A preparation routine for every mentor meeting

1. Name the goal. One sentence. "I want to reduce the time I spend re-explaining instructions."
2. Bring evidence. A lesson plan, a piece of student work, a short note on what happened when you tried something.
3. Use a framework. Anchor the conversation in a structure you both recognise. If you are discussing planning, you might bring a unit built with backward design and ask where the alignment breaks down.
4. Prepare three precise questions. Not "How can I get better?" but "When a student refuses to start a task, what is your first move, and why?"
5. Close with an action. Leave with one thing you will try and a date to report back.

How this shows up in your teacher interview preparation

Teachers who manage their own growth like this walk into interviews with a very different kind of answer. When asked about professional development, they do not list certificates. They describe a goal, the people they learned from, what they tried and what changed.

That is exactly the evidence a principal wants. It shows that you will keep growing after you are hired, without needing someone to push you. Formal qualifications still matter, and if you are weighing your options our comparison of B.Ed vs PgCTL explains how the Professional Graduate Certificate in Teaching and Learning fits alongside a traditional degree. But a credential is the beginning of that story, not the whole of it.

The Generative AI Trap: Why Quick Prompts Cannot Replace Institutional Wisdom

Here Rao turns to a shift every teacher is living through. Generative AI tools can now produce a classroom intervention, a lesson outline or a behaviour strategy in seconds. That speed is useful. It is also, he warns, quietly costly.

"Our ability to ChatGPT everything has numbed us to the possibility that somebody can teach me something."
Arjun Rao

Notice what he is and is not saying. He is not saying AI is useless. He acknowledges that these tools can offer generic classroom interventions. His concern is what happens when the prompt becomes the default. When a teacher types a question into a chatbot instead of walking down the corridor to ask the colleague who has handled that exact situation for fifteen years, something gets lost.

What gets lost is depth. A veteran colleague knows your school, your students, the history of a particular class, the parent community and what has already been tried. A generic answer does not. Over time, a school that stops asking its experienced people also stops passing down what they know. That is how institutional memory erodes.

Teachers are already uneasy

Rao is not alone in this caution. A Pew Research Center survey found that about a third of high school teachers (35%) say AI tools do more harm than good in K-12 education. Policy guidance points the same way. The U.S. Department of Education's report on AI and the future of teaching and learning repeatedly stresses keeping humans in the loop, and UNESCO's guidance on AI and teachers argues for a human-centred approach in which teachers' professional judgement stays central.

A practical rule of thumb

Use AI for what it does well and people for what they do well.

If you want to use AI well, without letting it replace thinking, our guides to AI in education and ChatGPT for teachers offer practical starting points.

In an interview, this balance is a strength worth naming. Principals increasingly ask how candidates use AI. The strongest answer is neither "I don't" nor "I use it for everything". It is a clear explanation of where you use it, where you deliberately do not, and who you turn to instead.

The Principal's True Role: Preserving and Documenting Institutional Memory

Rao does not place all the responsibility on teachers. He is equally direct about the job of school leaders.

In his view, principals should act as custodians of the school's vision. They should document the institution's philosophy and the pedagogical reasoning behind its practices. The trouble, he notes, is that principals often get swallowed by day-to-day administration. Timetables, compliance, emails and crises fill the week. The thinking that explains why the school does what it does stays in people's heads.

When that happens, newcomers suffer. A new teacher joins and finds practices without explanations. They can copy what others do, but they cannot see the rationale that would help them adapt it intelligently. Without documented thinking, every new hire starts from scratch.

What documented institutional memory can include

• A short statement of what the school believes about how children learn
• The reasoning behind key choices, such as assessment policy, homework approach or grouping
• Stories of what the school tried, what worked and what it stopped doing
• Examples of lessons or units that capture the school's teaching at its best

Why teachers should care

This point matters for job seekers in two ways. First, a school that has documented its thinking will usually make it easier for you to understand whether you belong there. Read the website, the prospectus, the leadership's published writing. Look for a clear philosophy rather than a list of facilities.

Second, it gives you a powerful interview question to ask. "How do new teachers come to understand the thinking behind your practices?" That one question signals that you care about the why, not just the what. It also tells you a great deal about the school from the answer you get.

Beyond Qualifications: Uncovering a Teacher's Real Purpose in Interviews

Now to the interview room itself. Rao's view of hiring follows naturally from everything above. If great teaching depends on belief in what a school stands for, then hiring must test for that belief.

"You can only be the most amazing teacher that you can be if you believe in what the institution stands for."
Arjun Rao

He is clear that qualifications have a role. They indicate baseline competence. But they do not tell him whether a person will thrive in his school's culture. For that, he probes much more personal ground: a candidate's own experience of school, their family background and their personal philosophy of education.

He is also candid about what does not impress him. Candidates who focus their questions on logistics, such as school hours and timings, miss the point of the conversation. Those details matter in life, of course. But leading with them tells a principal that you are evaluating a job, not a calling.

The stakes are high for schools too. The National Foundation for Educational Research reports that teacher supply in England is in a critical state, representing a substantial risk to the quality of education. When good teachers are scarce, a poor fit costs everyone. Principals who think like Rao want to hire people who will stay and grow, not people who will leave after a year.

Questions to prepare for

Based on the areas Rao describes, prepare honest, specific answers to questions like these:

• What was your own experience of school, and how has it shaped the teacher you are?
• Who in your family or community influenced how you think about learning?
• What do you believe the purpose of education is?
• What kind of classroom are you trying to build, and why?
• What would make you leave a school?

Weak and strong answers

None of this is about performing. Principals who ask these questions are listening for honesty and coherence. Your answers should connect your past, your present practice and the school in front of you. If they cannot connect, that is useful information for you as well.

If you are making a bigger move, such as from a board school to an international one, the philosophical gap can be wider. Our step-by-step guide to moving from a CBSE school to an international school covers how to prepare for that shift.

Testing for Cultural Fit: The Power of Classroom Immersion Visits

Interviews, however thoughtful, are still conversations. Rao recommends something more revealing: inviting prospective teachers to spend real days inside the school's classrooms before a hiring decision is made.

The value runs both ways. The school sees how the candidate engages with students, colleagues and the rhythm of the day. The candidate experiences the school's dynamic from the inside and can test whether they could genuinely champion that environment. An interview tells you what a school says about itself. A day in its classrooms shows you what it actually does.

Making the most of an immersion visit

If a school offers you this chance, take it seriously. If it does not, it is reasonable to ask whether you could observe a lesson or two. When you are there:

• Watch the students, not just the teachers. Are they curious, anxious, bored, confident? Students reveal culture more honestly than staff.
• Notice how adults talk to each other. In the staffroom and corridors, is there collaboration or isolation?
• Look for the philosophy in action. If the school says it values inquiry, do you see students asking questions?
• Ask about mentorship. Who supports new teachers, and how?
• Check your own reaction. At the end of the day, do you feel energised or drained? Could you see yourself defending this school's approach to a sceptical parent?

This is where Rao's advice to teachers becomes most practical. Prioritise culture and pedagogical mission over logistics when you evaluate an employer. A convenient timetable will not make you happy in a school whose beliefs you do not share. A school whose mission you believe in will make the hard days worth it.

It is also one of the best forms of teacher interview preparation available. After a day inside a school, your interview answers stop being general. You can refer to a lesson you watched, a conversation you had, a moment that made you want to join. That specificity is hard to fake and easy to recognise.

The Enduring Value of Teaching: Planting Ideas That Shape the Future

Rao closes the conversation not with hiring advice but with a reminder of why any of it matters.

He describes how an idea can take very powerful roots when a teacher plants it. Learners carry those ideas for life. A single question asked at the right moment, a single book handed to the right student, a single risk taken in a lesson can shape how a young person sees the world for decades.

That is why his final message to teachers is about courage. Do not wait for permission. Experiment. Embrace what makes your teaching yours. Take initiative in your classroom instead of waiting for someone above you to approve every new idea. In his words, never forget to take a chance on yourself.

Bringing it all together

Look back at the thread running through this article. Learn by watching others closely. Stay humble enough to learn from anyone, including your students. Be open to the mentors you are given and intentional about the ones you seek. Own your growth and arrive prepared. Use AI wisely, but do not let it replace the wisdom of the people around you. Look for schools whose philosophy you believe in, and test that belief by stepping into their classrooms.

Each of these is a habit of a growing teacher. Together, they are also the most honest form of teacher interview preparation there is. When you have lived these habits, you do not need to rehearse impressive answers. You simply describe what you already do.

Your next steps

1. Choose one colleague to observe this month and write down one technique to try.
2. Ask one class for feedback on your teaching and act on one thing they say.
3. Define one specific skill and identify a mentor, inside or outside education, who could help.
4. Before your next mentor meeting, prepare a goal, evidence and three precise questions.
5. Before your next interview, write a short paragraph on your own schooling and what you believe education is for.
6. Ask the next school you apply to whether you can spend time in its classrooms.

You chose teaching with a purpose. The habits above give that purpose a structure to grow into. And if you want company on that path, we built Suraasa as a system that starts with the teacher and stays with them, so you never have to figure it all out alone. For more on growing in the role you already have, read our guide on how to become the best teacher in your school.

For the Love of Teaching.