Teachers in Transition

Teachers in Transition - Episode 88 - Job Hunting During the Holiday Season

December 03, 2020 Kitty Boitnott
Teachers in Transition
Teachers in Transition - Episode 88 - Job Hunting During the Holiday Season
Show Notes Transcript

Many people think that when the holidays arrive, that means they have to take a holiday away from job hunting but that is not the case. You can lose too much momentum and important time if you take a break now. So, if you are job hunting, keep it up. If you are just starting, go ahead and start. Make good use of this time and who knows? Companies are still hiring. You might be lucky and land the job you are looking for. If not, 2021 is right around the corner, and you don't want to be starting from scratch in January if you want to get a good start on the new year.

For more information about job hunting during the holidays, take a look at this article that I wrote for Forbes Coaches Council:  "Job Hunting During the Holidays:  Should You Wait Until the New Year?" The link is at. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2018/12/20/job-hunting-during-the-holidays-should-you-wait-until-the-new-year/?sh=713218ee5ee5

Enjoy.

If you think you might be suffering from burnout, take advantage of this free checklist of the 7 signs of teacher burnout:  https://teachersintransition.com/7-signs-of-teacher-burnout. It's free!





Speaker 1:

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 burn out teachers disliking 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 and transition.

Speaker 2:

Welcome back to episode 88 of teachers in transition the podcast and the YouTube channel. My name is kitty Boitnott. I am a heart centered career transition and job search coach specializing in working with teachers who are burnt out and ready for a new career. I also help with stress as I am a certified stress management coach. And if you've listened to me in the past, you know, that I alternate topics each week between stress management strategies one week and career transition topics on alternating weeks. This week, I'm going to be talking about career transition and what you should do during the holiday season, because now we're into the first week of December. I hope you had a fabulous and safe Thanksgiving last week, but now we are into the new month December, but it's the last month of the year. And about half of the month is taken up with, or at least it has in the past, who knows what this holiday season will be like, but with holiday events. And I would hope that even if you aren't getting together for parties and family, get together as the size of the ones that you would ordinarily attend, that you will still manage to celebrate the holiday virtually and, uh, get with your friends and family by zoom or FaceTime or whatever platform you use so that you still stay connected, even though it may be virtually for this holiday season. And the question that often comes up during this time of year is what do I do about my job search? Do I put it on hold? Do I continue it? What do I do? Because companies start closing down early. They, um, they offer, um, shortened days in some cases. And again, a lot of people are working from home. So who knows what kind of schedule they may be having, but the best advice I can offer. And I offered this in an article that I wrote for Forbes a while back I'll, I'll provide the link in the show notes, so you can take advantage of it if you would like. But the advice that I offered was that you should not stop your job search during this time of year because companies are still hiring. And in fact, in some cases they may have had trouble filling a position that they need to have filled by the end of the year so that they can have the new person ready to rock and roll at the beginning of the new year. So I don't recommend that you adjust your job search in any way, other than to be mindful of the fact that there may be delays in your communication. You may not hear back from people quite as quickly as you would during other times of the year, but don't get discouraged by that. Just understand that that's part of the part of the season that people are operating on shortened days and you know, three, four days a week, maybe, uh, throughout the month of December. So don't suspend your search, but do mean be mindful of the fact that things may not move as fast as you would like for them to. It is true that companies are still hiring. And even if they aren't hiring, you can be doing something

Speaker 3:

Things for yourself as a part of your job search to make sure,

Speaker 2:

Sure that you don't lose the momentum that you've built up to this point or that you get started. Now, if you are just starting out so that at the beginning of the new year, you will have your new resume ready. You'll have researched some companies that you're interested in following up with maybe in January. I mean, there's a lot of foundational work that goes into a job search that new job seekers don't even understand the importance of too many new job seekers overlook and undervalue the importance of research, research research about jobs that you might be interested in about the industry. You might be interested in joining, uh, the kinds of skills that you might need to accumulate so that you can make the pivot that you want from what you're doing now, to what you want to be doing in the future. I mean, there's, there's going to be a gap between the time you start your job search and the time you finally land your new job. And that gap can be anywhere from four to nine months. It's unlikely that it would take much less than four months, unless you're simply going from the same type of job to a similar type of job, then you might be able to shorten the search. But if you're looking to pivot away from what you're doing now into something brand new, you've got to lay the foundation. You've got to create the, the, the, the stage, if you will, for the change that you are attempting to make. One of the things you might want to consider is looking for temporary positions for the month of December, because oftentimes if you do well, if you impress the employer of temporary position can become permanent in the new year. So don't shy away from the possibility of a temporary position. If you are in need of income and waiting for the ideal opportunity, isn't an option. Be open at least to the possibility of a part-time gig. Um, keep in mind that some companies have to hire at the end of the year because of budget concerns. It may be that they lose the money for that position if they don't fill that position. And so be mindful of that. And the main thing is you don't want to lose the momentum that you're building up. As you go through your job, search it, job hunting requires discipline. It requires it. You spend a certain amount of time each day on the job search. I tell my clients when they're working their way through my signature program, jump start your job search that you need to spend at least 10 minutes a day, doing something related to your job search. Even if it's just checking in on LinkedIn and connecting with someone, sending a customized connection request or accepting a connection request, looking for people who are working in the industry that you're interested in working, networking virtually by reaching out through LinkedIn or some other media that allows you to interact with people who are in the company or organization that you're interested in working with 10 minutes a day during the week, and then an hour or so on the weekends. Now the major work that needs to be done is researching the companies, knowing exactly what a job entails and learning how to read job descriptions. I cannot tell you how often I work with people who skim job descriptions and they cherry pick the things that they can do and completely overlook the specific requirements that are part of the job that they don't have a clue how to do. And they don't understand that either they need to get training in that area so that they can put that scale on their resume, or they need to keep looking. So learning how to read a job description is extremely important as a job seeking skill. In addition to understanding the importance of writing relevant resumes relevant, because they pertain to the job description, as opposed to speaking solely to what you've done in your work history in the past, your resume needs to speak to what you can do in the position that you're applying for. And please don't make the mistake of thinking that people will connect the dots that they'll see, well, this, this candidate has done this and they know how to do that. And so they'd be a perfect fit. We could teach them how to do X, Y, Z. If we gave them this job, they don't, they don't connect dots like that. If they ever did, they don't anymore. You have to create the picture for them. You have to be the one to connect the dots. You have to be in the position of demonstrating that you can do the job that you have, the skills and the knowledge and the ability to do the things that are listed in the job description. And if you fall short, you need to consider what might you do to get yourself up to speed so that you would be a strong candidate. Do you need to take a course on Udemy or Coursera? Do you need to sign up for a course at the local university or, or community college? Yeah, for me, I don't recommend that you go back and start all over and work on a new degree because that's just putting yourself deeper in debt and you don't need to do that, but that doesn't mean you might not need to take a course or two to get yourself up to speed so that you can present that. Yes, I have this skill. I understand what this means. And one of the reasons I'll give a shout out to you, Demi, although I'm not, I'm not an affiliate in any way, shape or form, but I enjoy taking courses through that medium. It's you Demi dot C O U D E M Y dot C O. They offer thousands of courses for beginners and intermediate and advanced individuals and every occupation or area you can think of if you were interested or you, if you were to think you were interested, does just say in copywriting as a skill that you need to present yourself for in a new job, you can take a course on copywriting and you Demi, uh, you can, I've had people who were interested in HR, human resources, but they don't have any skill in that area. They're just interested in it and think they might be good at it. So I recommend that they go to you Demi or some other source to take a mini course on human resources so that they can learn exactly what human resources entails, because it's a whole lot more than people tend to do. I think being an HR director requires you to be an expert in multiple areas. So take advantage of those opportunities to train yourself. And maybe now during the holiday season, this is the perfect time for you to be doing that honing skills that you need for the type of job you're interested in, but don't lose your momentum. Don't just stop your job search progress because you think, well, it's the holidays and nobody's going to be hiring. Things will pick up again. In 2021, we will start to see soon as we start to have enough of the vaccine circulating, maybe by the, in the spring, things will start to pick up again. Companies will start to hire again and you want to be ready. You don't want to be lagging behind in your job search because you took time off over the holidays. So take advantage of this time to keep track of what opportunities are coming available. Check those job boards every day. And do you need to do to keep up the momentum so that when 2021 finally gets here and frankly, can't get here soon enough to see me. And I'm sure you probably feel the same way. You'll be ready for the new opportunities that are going to be coming your way. So that's it for today. Don't take a break for the holidays next week. I'll talk about stress management for the holidays and until then stay safe. Stay well, keep up the good work, reach out to me. If you have any questions, comments, I'd love it. If you'd review teachers in transition the podcast or go over to the YouTube channel and subscribe over there, give me whatever feedback, send me questions that you'd like for me to address in future episodes. I'll be happy to do that. So email me at kitty boy, not@gmail.com, any questions or comments you may have be well, stay safe. See you next week.

Speaker 1:

So there you have it. An episode of teachers in transition. I hope you enjoy 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@kittyboitnottatboitnottcoaching.com. If you are interested in finding a new career or just enjoying your life more, this is the place to start. I'm Katie Boitnott and this is teachers and transition.