When you decide it is time to change your job or career track, you may think that the first question to consider is "What are you 'qualified' to do?" I contend that that is the wrong question, however. Instead, consider what you want to do, and then consider what you might need to do to make yourself qualified to do that. Do you need to take some courses or get some training? What transferable skills do you already have that may apply to a new job that you are interested in? These are the questions you should spend some time with. And Kitty Boitnott, Heart-Centered Career Transition & Job Search Coach can help you explore what those questions mean for you.
When you decide it is time to change your job or career track, you may think that the first question to consider is "What are you 'qualified' to do?" I contend that that is the wrong question, however. Instead, consider what you want to do, and then consider what you might need to do to make yourself qualified to do that. Do you need to take some courses or get some training? What transferable skills do you already have that may apply to a new job that you are interested in? These are the questions you should spend some time with. And Kitty Boitnott, Heart-Centered Career Transition & Job Search Coach can help you explore what those questions mean for you.
Are you a teacher who's feeling stressed out and overwhelmed? Do you worry that you're feeling symptoms of burnout or are you sure you've already gotten there? Have you started to dream of doing some other kind of job or perhaps pursuing a whole different career, but you don't know what else you're even qualified to do? You don't know how to start a job search. You just feel stuck. If that sounds like you, I promise you're not alone. My name is Kitty Boitnott. I'm a career transition and job search coach and I specialize in helping burnt out teachers just like you deal not only with the stress and overwhelm of your day-to-day job, but to consider what other careers might be out there waiting for you. Join me for"Teachers in Transition." In some episodes I'll be speaking to stress management techniques and how you can manage your stress on a day to day basis. In other episodes I'll be talking about career transition. What tools do you need to be successful in a job search when
Speaker 2:Hi, this is Kitty Boitnott of""Teachers in Transition," the YouTube channel as well as the Podcast of the same name, and welcome back. This is episode 11 already, and today I'm going to be talking about career transition. Last week I talked about stress. This week the topic is career change, career transition, job hunting. Whatever you decide you want to call it. Many people call me on a k on the occasion that they find me. They're usually looking for some alternative path for teachers who are unhappy or stressed out in their teaching profession and they are looking for other options or other alternatives. And many times they'll call me with the question what am I qualified to do besides teach? They feel stuck teaching because their degree is often related to education, especially if they're an elementary teacher, a primary teacher, kindergarten, first grade, second grade. If that's all they've ever done and that's what their education is centered on. And many of them have Master's degrees in curriculum and instruction or even educational leadership. What do you do? What, what else would you be qualified to do? I mean it's a logical question. I get why people ask it. I also tell them that there are multiple sites available through Google or whatever your favorite search engine might be where you can simply type in alternate careers for teachers and find lists. I recently looked at a list of 45 alternate careers that were recommended for teachers. That isn't what I do in my work at"Teachers in Transition." I don't offer a prescription for what I think you might be qualified to do. I contend that that's the wrong question to be asking. So what questions should you be asking? Well, I believe that that is what is it that you want in your next career? What career path do you believe at this point in your life would feel more fulfilling or might be more financially sustainable or my offer an opportunity for you to work from nine to five and then leave the work at work instead of having to drag it all home. Because that's one of the primary complaints that I'm getting from teachers, that the paperwork, the papers to grade, the planning is taking up more and more of your time and you don't have time for a family or for a life of your own. Once school starts between the time school begins in the fall and ends in the spring, your weekends are tied up with planning and grading and your evenings are tied up with planning and grading and it's hard for you to even find quality time for your own children because you're so invested in your children at school. So I don't think the question is what are you qualified to do so much as what is it that you would want to do next in your professional life? And then, figure out based on what it is that you would like to do, what do you need to do to become qualified for that? Now I don't recommend that you go back to school for a whole new career or or or a degree. I don't think you need to do that. I wouldn't recommend that. Many of my clients are still paying student loans from their original degree. So I don't want you to go deeper into debt in order to start fresh with a different college degree. So I don't think that's necessary. What might be necessary, however, is for you to take a few courses or to take some training from somewhere or to volunteer in order to learn like an apprenticeship. If you will volunteer to learn the basics of a job, you might decide that that isn't what you thought it was and it's not what you wanted after all. And if you've only invested some time in finding that out, you haven't really lost anything. In fact, you've gained some valuable experience. Even if you decide that it's not something that you would like to do. It's really important that you get real with yourself and that you, if you don't know, if you can't answer the question and many people can't. I will often pose the question, if I gave you a magic wand and you could wave it and have be or do anything on the planet without worrying about the practicality of how you might make it happen, what would you do? And even with that free range, permission to dream as big as you want. Many people don't know how to answer the question. There'll be those long silence on the phone. Oh Wow, what a, what a great question. I wish I knew. That's why I'm calling you. So until you have figured that out, it doesn't matter what you put on your resume or what you include in your Linkedin profile or anything else because you're going to be barking up the wrong tree so to speak. You're going to be applying for jobs that aren't the answer for you and that won't be the long-term solution to your current issue, which is that you aren't happy doing what you're doing now. I recommend that you do some self assessment. Go within yet real with yourself. Ask yourself some hard questions including if you were to start all over again. Pretend that you're in high school and you're looking at going to college. Knowing what you know now, would you still go into teaching and if not, what alternate career might hold some allure for you? What would attract you and then once you have figured that out, do some self assessment to determine do you have the skills, any of the skills that you would need in order to be able to do that job or do you need to do some training? Do you need to take a course or two? It's possible that you have some transferable skills that you are not even familiar with because you haven't thought in terms of what you have to offer. You haven't considered that the experience that you have in your teaching career or whatever it is that you've been doing up to this point has offered you some real world work experience where surely you have some hard, transferable skills that you can apply to a different type of job. It's important that you distinguish between hard skills and soft skills. however. Hard skills are things like data analysis, um, lesson planning based on, you know, particular model, coding. If you're, if you're an IT person, retail, if you're in the retail world. Customer service would be a hard skill. Although many of the interpersonal skills that are considered soft skills are also used in customer service. Many people mistake leadership qualities, interpersonal, uh, the ability to get along well with people being a team player, a mistake. Those for hard skills, those who are not hard skills. And finally, more and more employers are expecting you to have many of the soft skills, the interpersonal skills and, and arent' asking you about those so much. But they are interested in what your hard, transferable skills are. So you need to identify those. And that means you also need to get in touch with what is it that you enjoy doing. What are your work preferences? What is your learning style? If you could design your work day from the moment you got to work until you left in the afternoon, what would your day look like? Who are the people that you would be working with? What would be your idea of the ideal mission that your company or organization would be undertaking? What's the vision that you share with a potential company or organization? And I say or organization because I want you to think in terms of what nonprofits are out there that you might be interested in and would be able to contribute in a meaningful fashion for? So instead of asking yourself, what am I qualified to do? And leaving yourself stuck with that question because you don't know how to answer it. Think deeply about what it is that you want to do. And even more deeply than that, consider what is the legacy that you ultimately want to leave as a professional. What imprint would you like to leave on the world when you are no longer here? What difference do you want your work to have made? Many of us have gone into education because we were looking to make a difference for children the way some teacher in our own past made a difference for us and that's laudable. I'm just of the opinion that we've gotten to the point where there's no boundary and you are being asked to give more and more and more of yourself at the expense of yourself, which is why I think more and more teachers are looking to leave. And if you are a teacher or a mid career professional who has reached the point of knowing that what you're doing now is not serving you well, it's not making you feel good. It is taking a toll on your health because of the continued stress, then it's time to make a change and you start that change by considering what is it that you want. And that's it for today. This is Episode 11 of"Teachers in Transition." I hope you've gotten something from this to think about. If you have, please subscribe to the Youtube channel or the Podcast channel or both so that you can be alerted when the next episode comes out next week and we'll be talking again about stress and stress management. Have a wonderful week for now. This is Kitty Boitnott.
Speaker 1:So there you have it, an episode of"Teachers in Transition." I hope you enjoyed the information and I hope you'll plan to come back. Please subscribe to"Teachers in Transition" so that you can be alerted of future episodes. And let me know if you have any questions or topics that you would like me to specifically cover in a future episode. I'm more than happy to help with individual questions as well. So email me at KittyBoitnott@BoitnottCoaching.com. If you are interested in finding a new career or just enjoying your life more, this is the place to start. Hi, I'm Kitty Boitnott and this is"Teachers in Transition."