Teachers in Transition

Teachers in Transition - Episode 160 - The First Step in Every Job Search

April 20, 2022 Kitty Boitnott Season 1 Episode 160
Teachers in Transition
Teachers in Transition - Episode 160 - The First Step in Every Job Search
Show Notes Transcript
Speaker 1:

You're 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 job search. You just feel stuck. If that sounds like you, I promise you're not alone. My name is kitty boy. Not I'm a career transition and job search coach. And I specialize in helping burnout out teachers, just like you deal, not only with the stress and overwhelm of your day to day job, you 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 boy, not welcome to teachers in transition.

Speaker 2:

Welcome back to another episode of teachers in transition, the podcast and the YouTube channel. My name is kitty boy, not. I am the founder of teachers in transition. The owner of boy, not coaching LLC, and a heart centered career transition and job search coach who specializes in working with teachers who are burnt out and ready for a career change, but don't know how or where to begin. If you've listened to this podcast in the past, you know, that I alternate topics each week, because in addition to being and trained in a experienced career transition and job search coach to teachers, I'm also a certified stress management coach. So one week I will talk about stress management strategies and on alternating weeks, I talk about career transition strategies. This week, the topic is career transit<affirmative> and I found an article that is, uh, the perfect resource for anyone who is exploring the possibility of changing careers, midstream, whether you are a teacher who's been working for five years or 10 years or more in the classroom, or perhaps, or not a two or the spouse of the teacher and you work in a different industry, but you are also contemplating making a change in career direction. This particular resource would be an excellent, um, something for you to go to, to get some information on how to get started. The article is offered by the bridge span group, and I will offer a link to the article in the show notes. The title of the article is self exploration. The first step in the job search. And I apologize, I'm looking currently at the PDF form and don't see that it offers a specific author or date. Uh, so, uh, that, that may be offered in the show notes as well, but I downloaded the PDFs so that I could share with you what they consider the five musts that you must begin with. If you are considering a job search, the first steps that you need to take, if you're looking to change jobs from what any career that you may be, uh, currently in engaged in. So they say that the first step, the critical step is one that I also harp on a lot, hammer home, a lot. Talk about a lot. I've probably talked about it on this podcast numerous times before, but sometimes it makes sense to hear it from someone else in a different form, a little different wording. So perhaps you'll hear it today in a way that it hasn't landed before today. But what they say is that the first step is self assessment and exploration. Well, why do you want to move into the nonprofit sector? Do you feel this is assuming that you do some people say I, I would like to work in the nonprofit sector, but I don't know how or where to get started. So if that resonates for you, why would you want to be moving into that area? And if you're a teacher who's thinking, well, I'd like to be a trainer or I'd like to go into curriculum and development, explore the reason for why you think that, is it just something that sounds good? Is it something that sounds like it would be a logical transition, whether you have any idea what it would entail or not, they say in their point, do you feel a personal connection to a particular mission? What skills do you have that would be transferable from what it is that you're doing now into the new sector that you're looking to get into? And what do you expect from the transition? So what you looking to get into the nonprofit world or the training world or the web design or whatever it is that you're thinking you might like to do consider why that appeals to you and dig deeper then? Well, it's just something that sounds like you maybe would be a, a easy transition because it may not be as easy as you think it may also be that you're up against people who have experience. And so if you don't have any, yet, you'll be competing with people who are already in that particular sector. And you have to take that into consideration. So self assessment and exploration. Now, when I say self assessment, I'm talking about the numerous assessments that you can take online. Some of them will cost, uh, something Myers Briggs. If you get the full paid version runs about$50. Uh, if you wanted to do a disc assessment, you'd probably have to find a disc specialist and pay for that. But that is information that can be useful in the midst of a career train transition. There are free versions of Myers Briggs. There are 16 personalities, which is based on the same premise as, um, Myers Briggs. There are many, many assessments that you can take advantage of strengths finder, 2.0 is an excellent resource that you can check into. So do a fair number of assessments to start to see if you can determine patterns in what continues to come up to the top of your particular strengths and aptitudes. Those can be signals to the kind of work that you should be looking for. So don't ignore the option of taking some assessments and don't consider that doing assessments and self exploration is fluff work or a waste of your energy because it's anything, but there's nothing fluffy about doing the initial internal work that you need to do before you decide on setting off on an entirely new career path. You, you owe it to, to yourself to know what it is that you're getting yourself into. You owe it to yourself to be going for a job. That's going to feel like a good fit. That's going to offer fulfillment and an opportunity for you to thrive and to be promoted and to be paid commensurate with your level of education. You deserve all of that. But if you skip over this assessment piece, which too many want to do, they don't wanna take the time. They think it's a waste of time. It's anything, but, but they will skip over that and start applying for jobs left and right, and then wonder why they're not getting any positive responses. So take the time may take couple of weeks. It may take a couple of months. It takes the time it takes, which I know is something that I say to my clients that probably drives them crazy. But it's the truth. It takes the time it takes for you to come to a clear understanding of who you are, what you have to offer, where you can fit your into a new career, that will feel good for you and for your family. So that's number one, self assessment and exploration. The second step. Also one that people tend to want to jump over gloss over speed by not take the time to do. And that is researching and networking, researching the job itself, finding out what is it exactly that training specialists do? What in particular does a curriculum designer do all day. So researching by going online and looking up, what do training specialists do? But in addition to doing a Google search, you want to reach out to people on LinkedIn or wherever. You can find them, perhaps people in your own network, people in family and friends who introduce you, interview them. Now they often refer to this particular interview as a, an informational interview, an information. And I don't pre I don't love that term because it gives a sense of an interview, which you is, where you are expecting to be hired for a job at the end. That is not what an informational interview does, but an informational interview instead allows you to interview someone about what it is that they do. So let's use a curriculum design, for example, let's say you find somebody on LinkedIn and they're a curriculum designer, or they're in the curriculum and development arena. And you wanna know more about how they got there. What did they have to do? What kind of training did they need? What kind of experience did they have further more? What is it like to work in that field? Do they like it? Is it, is it enjoyable? Do they enjoy the culture of the company is the company where they work a good place to be because not all companies are healthy cultures. You'd like to know that before you get yourself enmeshed in one with a toxic culture, for sure. So you can reach out to an individual who is already in the job that you're interested in. Now, you don't just automatically without skip being a beat, ask them for an informational interview. You need to do a little bit of rapport building. First, you start out, you send them a casual invitation to connect on LinkedIn. Hey Joe, I see that you are working as a curriculum designer for company X, Y, Z. I'm very interested in that line of work. I'd love to add you to my LinkedIn network. Assuming that Joe is checking his LinkedIn periodically, and that he's accepting new requests. He'll probably nine chances outta 10, except your connection request. If he doesn't, don't take it personally, move on to someone else. In fact, send out several invitations, see who you can build a rapport with, uh, ask them a question about, Hey, I'm just curious. How did you get into curriculum and development? Were you a teacher first or did you go into to this straight out of school? Just a casual non-threatening question. And if they answer your question and they seem open to answering your questions and most people wanna be helpful. So none out of 10 people are likely to respond to your question. Then you might, you know, I'd really love to hear more. Would you be available for a 10 minute conversation about your job? I won't take any more of your time than 10 minutes. I'm not asking for a job. I'm just curious how you got started. What it, what it's like working for your company arranged to meet all on zoom or by phone. And 10 minutes is when you stop. Unless if, if the conversation's going really well and you say, oh, it's the end of 10 minutes. I, I promised I'd let you go. If they say, oh, that's okay, I've got more time. And the conversation's flowing easily. Then go for it. Let them be the guide though, if they say, oh yeah, okay. I need to get back to work or, okay, well, it's nice talking to you then let'em go. So for that 10 minutes, you need to get in as many of the questions as you have, as you can possibly ask, depending on how long they go at their answer. So research and networking, what do you need to know about the sector that you're interested in getting into? What do you need to know about the organizations or the companies? What do you need to know about whether there are even jobs available or not? Who can you ask to help you with your search? Now, this is an area where you might consider reaching out to a recruiter or a someone who can serve as a mentor. If you don't wanna be hiring a coach,<affirmative> number three, the third step outreach and interviews. Now I've already talked about informational interviews, but you also wanna consider how do you set yourself up in the best position with your resume, your cover letter. And ultimately if you get an interview, you do the best possible job that you can inside the interview. This is where you may wanna consider hiring a coach. A coach can help you to prepare for an interview in a way that you cannot prepare on your own. It may be that you need a coach to help you with your resume and your cover letter, especially if you have a, it looked on your own for a while. So consider whether you need to do that or not. Once you've been offered a job, you'll need to be able to offer negotiation and, um, counter offers so that you don't take necessarily the first offer. The you've been given. You wanna determine through conversations with the persons that you've been in touch with. Are you sure that this is going to be a good fit for you, culturally? Are you going to be comfortable once you get into the company and based on the salary that you agree on, can you make it financially with the salary that you've agreed to? Don't undercut yourself by taking a job that doesn't pay beans, just to get out of the classroom. You need to be more intentional. You need to be careful. You've gotta have a bottom line financially. You cannot accept below a certain amount. Now I'm not saying you shouldn't. If, especially if you're at the top of the education salary scale, perhaps you will need to start at a lower salary to get your foot in the door, but you don't wanna take a salary. That's so low that you can't pay the rent and have groceries on the table or put gas in the car to get to work. So be careful about undercuting yourself and finally transitioning into the new role. What should you do to make the transition as smooth as possible, but the most important piece, and the reason this particular article stood out to me to share today is the importance of not the self assessment and self exploration. Too many people that I've worked with over the years are unaware. That that's where they need to start. They think they need to start with their resume. And I have, you've probably heard me use this analogy. I have used it many times, writing your resume and cover letter before you've decided what it is that you want to do next in your career is akin to booking airfare and a hotel before you've decided where you're going on vacation. That sounds nuts. Who would do that? How could you even do that book, air far and hotel before you know where you're going on vacation not possible. And yet nine times outta 10 people think I need a new job. So I need a new resume. The problem'em with that rationale is if you write your resume in a vacuum, based on your teaching experience or whatever your current experience is without knowing what it is that you're transitioning to, you're going to wind up with a teacher sounding resume, and that's not going to get you out of the classroom. It'll get you another job in different district, maybe, but not out of the classroom. Too many people overlook the importance of studying job descriptions. They look at titles that don't mean squat to them, but they think, oh yeah, maybe do that. And they scan skim over quickly, the job description. Oh yeah. I know how to do that. And they ignore the other nine tens of the things on that job description that they don't know how to do and have never done before. And then wonder why when they've applied for the job, they don't hear back from anyone. Don't do that to yourself. The hard part is the internal work and doing that first is non-negotiable. So if you are thinking that you want to leave the classroom, it may already be too late for this to be your last year of teaching. I hate to tell you that, cuz that's probably not what people want to hear, but I am nothing. If not honest, I will tell you what I believe is true. It's already the middle of, until past the middle of April. The average job search after the pandemic I've read is 27 and a half weeks. That means it's over six months, go into seven months. Maybe you cannot expect that you're going to find something easily between now and August. That's not to say it's not possible. It is possible. Not likely. So you probably need to go ahead and sign your letters, intent your contract for next year plan to start the year. But that doesn't mean you can't be looking for other opportunities so that if the right one does pop up, you'll be ready for it. The other thing you have to be willing to accept is that looking for a job as a second job, especially if you're, if you're teaching right now and I don't have to tell you the, between spring break and the end of the year, it gets really crazy. You are busy with testing, pretesting testing, post testing, analyzing data, showing out reports, getting report cards, ready. You, you know, the drill end of the year, activities that are out the Wazu. You are busy 16 hours a day, probably. And don't talk about the weekends, cuz they're tied up too. But the fact of the matter is that if you are going to be committing yourself to a job search, you need to commit yourself and treat it like a second job. You have to schedule time in your, to tend to some aspect of your job search. If you need help with that, I have a program designed to help everybody who may be listening within the sound of my voice. I have a program available as, as inexpensively, as$27 a month, all the way up to$97 a month for people who need help, who are ready for help, who want some direction to help them get out of the classroom. If you're interested in learning more about how I might be able to help you reach out at teachers in transition com slash calendar, set up an appointment for a free discovery session, complimentary discovery session so that we can talk about whether or not what I have to offer is what you need. Do check out the article, self exploration, the first step in the job, search from the span group. And as always, please review this podcast. So whether people can find it, let me know what your comments are, what your thoughts are. Ask questions, email me at kitty boy, gmail.com. If you'd like to suggest a topic for me to cover one week and I'll, I'll be back next week until then take care, stay safe and be well.

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 kitty boy, not boy.coaching.com. If you are interested in finding a new career or just enjoying your life more, this is the place to start. I'm kitty boy not. And this is teachers in transition.