Teachers in Transition

Teachers in Transition - Episode 75 - 10 Must-Do's If You Are Looking for a New Job

September 02, 2020 Kitty Boitnott
Teachers in Transition
Teachers in Transition - Episode 75 - 10 Must-Do's If You Are Looking for a New Job
Show Notes Transcript

Back in January, I wrote a blog post entitled "10 Must-Do's If You Want to Improve Your Career in 2020." I wrote it before COVID-19 hit the country like a Mack truck.

Still, given that many teachers are quitting their teaching jobs rather than putting themselves at risk by going into the buildings where they might not be safe, I decided the tips are still pertinent.

I talk about the ten tips you need to keep in mind if you are starting a new job search, and if you want to read the post in full, click here:  https://teachersintransition.com/teachers-in-transition/improve-your-career-in-2020.

I mentioned that I am starting a new cohort of job seekers in September. If you would like to join the group to get the coaching you might need to make a career transition, check out this link:  https://boitnottcoach.samcart.com/products/jumpstart-your-job-search-group-coaching-during-the-pandemic/

And if you would like to chat about your specific situation in a 20-minute complimentary Discovery Session, click here:  http://teachersintransition.com/calendar.


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 75 of"Teachers in Transition, the podcast and the YouTube channel. My name is Kitty Boitnott. I'm the owner of Boitnott Coaching, LLC, and the founder of Teachers in Transition. If you've listened to this podcast or watch the YouTube channel in the past, you know that I alternate topics one week, I talk about stress management strategies. And the next week I talk about career transition strategies because I am both a certified stress management coach and a trained and experienced career transition and job search coach. This week, the topic is career transition, and I felt like it was a good time to talk about the fact that many teachers are facing whether or not to go back into their buildings, given that across the country school is starting in the next either this week or next week or some places they've already started. And I just heard on the news this morning, that there were so many teachers who asked for some sort of leave of absence or some sort of accommodation that the school district decided just to hang it up and go virtual for the first part of the year. Many school divisions have decided to start the year as a virtual platform, as opposed to bringing everyone back into the building. But there are places that are either bringing everyone back into the building or bringing small cohorts back into the building on a hybrid plan. So wherever you are, I'm wishing you the best and hoping that your school year is not as stressful as I suspect. It probably feels because all the, all the uncertainty is what creates stress, not knowing exactly what the expectations are and not knowing exactly how all this is going to play out. You know, everybody sort of turned on a dime and did what they had to do to get through the end of the school year, last year. But this coming year, I mean, it's a whole new ball game. Students are going to be held accountable for their schoolwork, whether they're virtual or in person and teachers are going to have to accommodate a whole new set of challenges that we've never faced before, because we've never dealt with a pandemic in the beginning of the school year before. Now. I also know that a lot of teachers and you may be one of them who's listening out there. You decided not to go back. You figured you had a health issue that it made it just too risky for you to want to go back into the building and to take a chance that you, whether you started virtual or, or whatever that eventually you'd be going back to the building before we have a vaccine or cure, and you either have diabetes or lupus or some, some underlying health issue that causes you to be fearful of the idea of exposing yourself to the virus without a vaccine and without a cure. I know you're out there because I've talked to some people who feel exactly that way. They're either afraid for themselves, or they're afraid to pick up the virus and inadvertently bring it, bring it home to a vulnerable household member. So what do you do if you've decided to quit your job, then how do you undertake a career transition or job search that will replace the level of income or even come close to replacing the level of income that you need as a teacher that will offer benefits? I mean, how do you even begin that kind of job search? So I want to offer some suggestions today based on an article that I wrote back in January before. I mean, I'm sure in January, I had heard about the Corona virus in another country, somewhere in January, it was certainly something that was in the news, but it was, it had not come here yet. It had not, it had not begun to infect Americans yet. And so when I wrote this article in January of 2020, I was writing it from the standpoint of brand new year wide open with all kinds of opportunities. And on top of that brand new decade, and the article was entitled, 10 must do's if you want to improve your career in 2020. So I wasn't even looking at the possibility of necessarily changing, but just improving your career. And I think in spite of the fact that so much has happened since January of 2020, here it is. We're heading into September that some of these messages are still pertinent and I'd like to share them with you today. So the first one is to get very clear about what it is that you want from your career. And I, one of the exercises I recommend to my clients is that you make a list side by side list on a piece of paper, write it out, don't just keep it in your head. You need to have it to refer to periodically. And on the left hand side of the paper, you want to write out all of the things that you love to do about your current job, all of the activities, all of the tasks, all of the duties, the responsibilities that you get, something good farm that you enjoy. You're good at it. It feels good when you engage in those activities. And then on the right hand side of the paper, I want you to write out all of the things you'd prefer, never to have to do again, whatever they may be and keep that list handy, because one of the things you need more than anything else in the beginning of a job search is clarity, clarity about what it is that you're looking for and clarity about what it is that you don't want in your next career. And frankly, not so many people start out with that. They don't have any clue, real clue that it's not just about when you're, when you're in the midst of a career transition. It's not just about what might you be qualified to do, or what might you like to do, or what might you be able to settle for. But what is it that you would love to do that would allow you to fully express yourself professionally? I encourage you to take some time to think about that. Perhaps do some assessments, take some personality quizzes or some aptitude tests, or some kind of objective use an instrument that will allow you to tune into things that you haven't thought of on your own, that you would enjoy doing gain some clarity around what it is that you have to offer the world and start from there in your job search. The next thing you want to do is, and, and really you can't do the second thing until you're clear about what it is that you want to do next, because your resume reflects not only what you've done in your past, but what you'd like to embrace in your next job. So you want to have your resume up to date, but you also want to be writing your resume with an eye toward the job you want, not the jobs that you've had in the past. I know a lot of people mistakenly think that a resume is a chronological list of all the jobs you've ever done in your, in your whole life. And that is simply not true, not necessary. What you want to be able to do in your resume is to portray what it is that you have to offer by way of experience and education and skills and talents that you can plug into a new career. So while your experience is important, it, isn't the only thing that's important in your resume. Your resumes needs to speak to what job is it that you're looking for next? And then you also want to keep your LinkedIn profile up to date. And I recommend that you be very mindful of the fact that that headline space that's directly under your name on your LinkedIn profile. It will default to the job description of the last job that you had according to LinkedIn, but you can override that by intentionally typing in something else, as opposed to your job, just do your job title for your last job. And I would recommend that you use key words that convey what it is that you do well and that you would like to be doing moving forward. So think of keywords, maybe even pull them from a job description that you have a particular interest in and put them in that space, separate them with a pipe STEM, which is a straight up and down punctuation Mark that you can find just above the enter key on your keyboard. It is the shift back slash key. When you, when you shift, it becomes a straight up and down, Mark creates a hard stop between those key words. So if I were using keywords, just as an example for myself, I might have stress management and then a space and the pipe, stamina space, career transition space, and a pipe, stamina space and job search strategies. Those might be possible keywords that I could use. So think of words that sum up in a key word, what it is that you have to offer and put that in that space below your name, instead of letting it default to teacher at whatever school, even subject areas that doesn't tell people as much about what it is that you can do. So think in terms of what you can do, be sure that you keep your professional skills up to date. And if you're thinking about changing careers or switching career lanes now is the perfect time for you to be bringing some skills up to speed. Take a course. You don't have to go back to school. I don't recommend that you go back, start all over and get a whole new degree and spend a lot of money and go into a lot of debt that it is possible for you to get coursework relatively cheaply. So if you're not a whiz on Microsoft office, or if you need to update some of your other technology skills so that you can offer yourself in a new realm and do that and take advantage of this time right now to do that, also take time to learn about the different jobs you might be interested in the companies you might like to work for the industries you'd like to become involved in and do some research so that you truly have a deep understanding of what those jobs entail, what the companies are like and what the industry forecast would be. You can use glassdoor.com as a website that might help you with that. You can also take a look@onet.org actually, w you would type in O net online.org and find some of the trend lines for industries for down the road to see, are they growing industries, or they already own the Wayne. You also need to develop a marketing plan. Now marketing plan is a document that you keep for yourself. You don't send it off like you would a resume, but the marketing plan is intended to help you to stay focused on your job search. So you want to create a list, all of the things you do well, those are called competencies, or just think of skills that you have, make a list, write everything down, do a brain dump of everything. You know how to do well, that you would go back to that first list that you wouldn't mind and Jew, and you would enjoy, or we wouldn't mind doing it as a future career, write down everything that you can do, and then make a list of all the potential companies you might be interested in working for and all of the different industries you might be interested in working in and keep that list handy because that marketing plan will help you to stay focused. It'll keep you from running off here and there, jumping down rabbit holes, looking for jobs that really aren't a good fit for you. And that aren't with companies that you were even interested in. So let your marketing plan be your guide to the jobs that you're interested in pursuing. And then you want to learn the basics of what other industries are that you might like to explore. So do your homework on that. It's not enough just to think, Oh yeah, that sounds interesting. You need to really know and have a deep understanding of what the industries entail, what the companies are really like, what the culture is. It may sound on the surface. Like you'd love to work somewhere. And then once you get there, you find out too late that it's not what you thought it was at all. So do your homework and find out as much as you can about the job before you take it. Not after you also want to make yourself a 60 to 70% match for the job when you're writing your resume. And I've mentioned this tool before, but it bears mentioning again, the job scan dot C O tool, which acts as an applicant tracking system. You want to upload a draft of your resume along with a job description that you're interested in applying for and make sure before you apply for the job that your resume is at least a 60% match. Because if you aren't at least a 60% match, you're simply wasting your time. And if you don't know what I'm talking about for the applicant tracking system, you need to learn, do some homework around the applicant tracking system. What does it do? What is its job? Why do you need to learn to work with it as well as to work around it? And then finally you may need to consider getting help almost every college and offers their alumni career services. So consider getting help from your college or university. There are local organizations that offer help to people who are in the midst of a work transition here in my city. I know of at least two nonprofit organizations that offer weekly support to individuals who have found themselves in the midst of a career transition and are looking for assistance. They are fabulous. They offer all sorts of support, both technical and emotional. And you need to look in your city to see if there is such a thing for you. There, you can also go to your, uh, workforce development location in your locality, find out what assistance is available there. And if you want individual help, if you feel like you would benefit from assistance as you go through this process, which is sometimes confusing and contradictory and complex and confounding, because it's full of contradictions, then consider hiring a coach. And I'm certainly available for teachers who are looking for a new career or for mid career professionals who are ready to make a transition. I won't tell you that it's a quick process because it's not, I won't tease you that you could have a job next week, because that's not likely. But if you do want to learn the nuts and bolts the aid to Z, everything you need to know about changing jobs or switching career lanes, then I can help. I've created a course that is all about helping people figure out what it is that they want to do next. And I'm going to be starting a new cycle in September. That will start at the very beginning of the process, helping people figure out what is it that they want to do, how to develop the clarity and focus that they need, how to write their application and their resume with applicant tracking system in mind. How do we brand themselves professionally and in person as well? How to write that resume to make sure that it's a 60 to 70% match to the job that they're applying for. LinkedIn cover letters and all the rest. If you're interested, there's a link in the show notes below that will tell you how you can find out more information. And if you just want to talk about your specific situation and determine if what I have to offer is in fact what you could use, then let's make an appointment for a 20 minute complimentary discovery session. I'll put the link to the calendar below as well. So that's it for today, whether you are thinking about quitting or you've already quit all my best, whether you decide you want to work with me or not, I wish you only the best, and I wish you God's speed. And I pray that you stay safe and well and know that whatever is in store for you. As long as you don't give up, you'll figure it out and you'll find it 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."