The demo class is not about the lesson.

The screening call

20–30 minutes · coordinator or head of department

Rarely about your teaching. This call exists to check four facts before anyone senior spends time on you: that you have taught the board they follow at the classes they are hiring for, that your qualifications match the designation, that you can join when the session needs you, and that the salary band is not going to waste everyone's afternoon. Answer all four in your first two minutes and the call turns into a conversation instead of an interrogation.

• Have your notice period, earliest joining date and the session you are targeting ready as dates, not as "fairly flexible".
• Know exactly where you stand on paperwork: subject degree, B.Ed., CTET or your state TET, NET if the post calls for it, and anything still awaited.
• Ask what the posted figure actually means — consolidated pay or a scale with annual increments, what the gross-to-in-hand gap looks like, and whether PF is deducted from it or paid on top.
• If the salary genuinely will not work, say so on this call. Everyone involved will be grateful.

The demo class

20–45 minutes · a real section, sometimes recorded

The single most weighted stage, and the one most candidates prepare for wrongly. Organizations are not marking whether the lesson worked — with unfamiliar students in an unfamiliar room, often on a chapter they have or have not reached, it frequently will not. They are marking how you behave while it is not working. A class that goes off-plan and is visibly recovered scores higher than a polished delivery to a silent room.

• Ask in advance for the class and section, the strength, the chapter and how far they have got in it, and how many students need extra support. Asking is itself part of the assessment.
• Plan for two-thirds of the period. Something will always run long, and running out of lesson is far worse than not reaching the end of the plan.
• Build in at least one point where students talk to each other, and one where you check what they have understood rather than what they have heard.
• Learn and use names within the first five minutes. Observers notice this more than any other single behaviour.
• Many organizations run a recorded class or a video round before inviting you to campus. Rehearse with your actual camera, actual light and actual connection, not with a plan to fix it on the day.

The child-safety question

Every organization, every round, no exceptions

It arrives in different wording — "tell us about a concern you have raised about a child", "a student tells you something at the end of the period, what do you do", "when would you not keep a student's confidence" — but it is always asked, and it is scored differently from every other question. There is no partial credit for good intentions. The answer they want is procedural, immediate, and free of any hint that you would investigate, promise confidentiality, or handle it yourself.

• Name the process, not the feeling: listen, do not promise confidentiality, do not question or lead the child, record what was said in the child's own words, report the same day to the person the organization has named for it.
• Know the term the organization itself uses — child-protection or POCSO committee, designated teacher, the internal complaints committee for staff matters — and use it.
• Never say "I would look into it first" or "I would speak to the parents". Both are scored as fails.
• Have your training on hand: who ran it, what it covered, and when you last refreshed it.
• Expect a follow-up on bullying between students, conduct on phones and class groups, or a concern about a colleague. The route for a colleague is usually the principal, not the designated teacher — know both.

The panel

45–75 minutes · two to five people

Formats vary widely. It may be the principal alone; it may be a principal, an academic coordinator, the subject HOD and a trust or management representative in sequence across a morning; at a hiring drive it may be three organizations in the same day. What does not vary is that different people in the room are listening for different things.

• The principal is listening for judgement, for how you hold a class, and for whether parents will be comfortable with you.
• The academic coordinator is listening for accurate, specific language about the syllabus — the CBSE or ICSE unit split, weightage, internal assessment, the practical or project component.
• The subject HOD is listening for whether you would be easy to work beside in the middle of a board term.
• A trust or management representative, where present, is listening for how you would handle a parent with a complaint.
• Answer in examples with an outcome attached. Three well-chosen stories will cover most of what a full panel asks.

Your questions to them

The stage most candidates waste

"Do you have any questions for us?" is not a courtesy. In a structured process it is scored, and it is the only part of the interview where you choose the subject. Asking nothing reads as indifference; asking about holidays first reads as something else. Ask three things you genuinely need to know in order to say yes — and one of them should be a question the organization has to think about.

• "What does staff turnover look like this year, and what is behind it?" — the answer, and the pause before it, tells you a great deal.
• "Who would I be planning with, and how often does that actually happen in the timetable?"
• "How much of the year plan is set centrally, and where does a teacher's judgement begin?"
• "How many periods a week, and what sits on top of them — remedial, board evaluation duty, exam duty, house activities?"
• "What would make you say, a year from now, that hiring me had worked?"

The offer, in writing

Raise before the offer, not after

The most expensive mistake in organization hiring is discovering the shape of the package after both sides have committed. Organizations are not offended by these questions — the good ones expect them, and the answers are usually already written down. Ask them at the point where you are clearly a serious candidate, which is normally the end of the panel stage.

• Consolidated pay or a scale: whether the figure is one fixed monthly amount or a basic with allowances and an annual increment, and when that increment is reviewed.
• The written breakup: basic, allowances, PF deduction, professional tax, and the in-hand figure that actually reaches your account.
• PF and gratuity: whether you are enrolled from the day you join, and what the organization's practice is on completed years of service.
• Campus accommodation at residential and semi-residential organizations: provided or an allowance, what it includes, and which duties come attached to living on site.
• Fee concession for your own children, if that matters to you — the percentage, and whether it applies from the session you join.
• The working week: how many Saturdays are working, the vacation calendar, and what you are expected on campus for during the break.