Teachers in Transition

Teachers in Transition - Episode 33 - Mindset and the Successful Job Search or Career Change

November 06, 2019 Kitty Boitnott Season 1 Episode 33
Teachers in Transition
Teachers in Transition - Episode 33 - Mindset and the Successful Job Search or Career Change
Show Notes Transcript

When undertaking a job search or career change, it is very important that you adopt a "growth mindset" and adopt a positive and open attitude. You need to start out with a playful attitude and look at all the various possibilities as you start your search. Then, as you narrow your focus and develop some clarity around what you want, you need to be aware that the process rarely goes quickly or smoothly. So you have to stay positive, flexible, and adaptable as you go. 

Kitty Boitnott:

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 you're moving from one career into a totally different track? These are questions that you need answers to and I can help you find those answers. My name is Kitty Boitnott. Welcome to"Teachers in Transition." Welcome back to Episode 33 of"Teachers in Transition." My name is Kitty Boitnott, and if you've been listening to me for a while now, you know that I try to alternate topics each week between stress management strategies and job search techniques or strategies. And today I want to talk about job search. And specifically I want to speak to the mindset that a new job seeker or career changer needs to adopt in order to undertake a job search or career change successfully. Now, you hear a lot about mindset these days and really a mindset is simply a set of beliefs or attitudes that one tends to have about certain things. And unfortunately a lot of new job seekers or career changer changers start out thinking that it's going to be quick and easy and that surely they are going to be snapped up by the first potential employer. And you know everything's gonna go smoothly and, and you get the picture. Unfortunately, it rarely, it can happen that way, but it rarely happens that way. The truth of the matter is that the job search process is often long. It's often tedious. It can be a much like a, a nightmarish type of roller coaster where you're not having any fun. You're simply going from high to low and up and down and here and there and everywhere. And it's not a lot of fun, frankly. Uh, and hated break it to you in case you're one of the people who've been thinking about undertaking a job change and you think it's going to be easy or quick because it isn't. It's neither easy nor quick. In fact, the average job search, the last estimate I heard, and it may, may have gotten longer by now. It used to be three to six months. Now it's gone to four to nine months, and that's the average, which means that some people do in fact find work within four months, but it can go as long as nine months or a year. And frankly, a lot of your success depends on the attitude that you decide to adopt and maintain throughout the job search process. So when I speak to mindset, what I'm really speaking to is the need for a growth mindset. The need for a positive mindset instead of attitudes on a need to be flexible, a need to be adaptable, a need to go with the flow and be okay with the process and not expect too much or to be, so I'm set on a certain outcome that you're not open to other opportunities that might come along because the fact of the matter is if you are closed and only looking for certain types of jobs or specific types of opportunities, you may in fact be missing out on some other great opportunities that you just haven't thought about yet or that you haven't thought to explore or that you're not even aware might be out there. So when I start working with my clients, the first thing I tell them is that you got to be willing to play with the possibilities. And I encourage people to adopt a playful attitude in the beginning rather than to be overly serious because what I want them to do... Very often they come to me, t hey they know they w ant t o make a change, they're ready to start looking for a new line of four. They need to get out of their current position and t hey're looking to make a change as quickly as they can, but they don't really know what it is that they're looking for. They know what they're looking to get away from. T hey're not quite as clear about what they might be interested in doing next. In fact, that's often why they come to me. They feel stuck and and uncertain as to what direction to take. So, my first encouragement to them is to be willing to be open and playful, play with all the possibilities. Allow yourself at this particular juncture before you've committed to anything in particular. Be open to the idea of anything can be possible. For the time being I encouraged them not to worry about how they would make something happen, just to consider what type of work would really like them up would really make them feel eager to get to work on Monday morning instead of dreading it. What are the type of people they'd like to work with? What type of work preference do they have? Do they prefer to work as part of a team where they work with the synergy of, you know, lots of ideas swirling and you know, and, and going with the flow of the team or do they prefer to work alone? Do they prefer to just have the assignment given to them and they go off and work on the project and turn it in by the deadline because they prefer to work by themselves? I mean, there are different types of people who enjoy different types of work and you need to be clear about who you are and what you have to offer before you can speak with any kind of confidence to a new potential employer about what you bring to the job that you're applying for. So in the very beginning, the mindset that I would encourage you to adopt is one of playfulness, one of being willing to look at all the various possibilities that are available to you and then to start to slowly but surely narrow down the possibilities until you have a clear picture of the kind of work you are interested in pursuing. Because that's when you start writing your resume, not before. You know too many people think,"Oh, I'm ready for a job change, so I guess I need to write a resume." If you write a resume before you've decided what you want to do next, you might as well. It's, I liken it to booking your airfare and hotel before you've decided where you want to go on vacation. Now that sounds crazy, right? Nobody would do that, but too often people start writing their resume as the first step. And the problem with doing it that way is that the resume speaks to the previous work you've been doing and isn't focused as much on the future work that you want to be doing. You've got to think about your future self in terms of your employment, not your past. If you write a resume based on your past experience, you can get a similar type job that if you're looking to make a complete change in your career, you need a different kind of resume. You need a resume that speaks to your specific skills and aptitudes and talents and abilities as opposed to chronicling all of the work responsibilities you had in your previous job. This is especially important for teachers who want to get out of the teaching world and into the business or nonprofit sector. So you have to think about what it is that you bring to the job and you have to really study the job description. That's the other thing that I think too many people gloss over. You know, they, they don't pay close enough attention to what the job description says the company or organization is looking for and they pick out three or four things that they, Oh yeah, I could do that. And they apply for the job and then they never hear back and they wonder why. Well, it's because they didn't pay attention to all the other requirements that were embedded in the job description and they wound up not being a viable candidate. They may have even been discarded during the applicant tracking system process, never their application maybe never even made it to a human being. The thing that you've got to remember, if you're starting a new job search or you're thinking about changing your career, is that the job market is terrifically competitive. That's as true today is that w w it's ever been, you know, even in a recession when when people are being laid off, there are still people who are working and those jobs are competitive. You've got to make yourself a competitive candidate and you have to demonstrate to the future employer why you would be a great candidate in spite of any apparent lack of experience that you may have in the particular field that you're looking to switch into. It is possible for you to do that, but you've got to be open and willing to look at the ways that you make yourself a viable candidate. And all of that requires a growth mindset. One that it that you don't know everything. That especially this realm of job search and career change, it's totally different from what you think it is. It's different from what it was even five or 10 years ago, so you may need help. That's the other thing you need to be aware of. It may be that you can't do this by yourself. Whether you hire a coach or find a support group. You know here in my town there are support groups for people who are in career transition and they offer resources, high quality resources for free, so look for free resources. You can go back to your college or university and use their alumni career center. There's help there for you. You can certainly buy any one of a thousand--hundred thousand books that are available. Go to the library, find books about job search. But if you do that, be sure you get something that's current because a book that was written 10 years ago about the job search process is already out of date. And of course, because I'm a career coach, I recommend that you hire a professional, someone who's helped other people navigate the uncertain waters of the job search process and who have had clients who were successful in figuring out what it is that they want to do next and how to position themselves in the best possible way for those particular jobs. So. That's it for today. Be open, adopt a positive attitude and have a growth mindset. If you're ready for a job change or career change. And until next time they have a great week. Do email me if you have any questions or comments, subscribe to the podcast and or the YouTube channel or both and make a, make sure you leave a comment so that I know whether this information is being useful for you. That's it for now. Have a great week. 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."