Teachers in Transition

Teachers in Transition - Episode 126 - What to Do to Get a Job Search Started

August 25, 2021 Kitty Boitnott
Teachers in Transition
Teachers in Transition - Episode 126 - What to Do to Get a Job Search Started
Show Notes Transcript

If you are a teacher who is ready for a career change, you need to do several things before you start your job search.

First, you need to decide what is it that you want to do instead, and you may have to sit with that and think about it--even research it--before you know for sure that it's the job for you. You may need to do some assessments. Get in touch with your strengths, aptitudes, gifts, and talents.

Then you need to learn how to read a job description and determine the keywords you need to use. A word-cloud program like Tagcrowd or Wordle.net might help. If you want to get through the Applicant Tracking System, you have to identify the keywords that will get you through it.

And then, there is the writing of the resume itself. It needs to convey what you know and can do without too much emphasis on your teaching career unless you want another teaching job. If you are looking to spring out of teaching, you may need to consider writing a functional resume--one that conveys your abilities over your work history.

If you would like to learn more about how to write a resume, join me on September 2, 2021, at 7:00 PM for a paid workshop "Resume Workshop for Teachers Who Want a Career Change." To register, click here:  https://event.webinarjam.com/register/43/47l41axo.

If you have questions, email me at kittyboitnott@gmail.com. I would love to hear from you.

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. 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 and transition.

Speaker 2:

Welcome back to episode 126 of teachers in transition the podcast and the YouTube channel. My name is Katie Boitnott. I am the owner of Boitnott coaching and the founder of teachers in transition. I specialize in working with burnt out teachers who are ready to make a career change, but I'm also a certified stress management coach. So if you've listened to this podcast before, or even if you haven't, you need to know that I alternate topics each week, one week I talk about stress management strategies and the alternating week. I talk about career transition. This week, the topic is career transition, and I'm going to be sharing with you at the end of this presentation that I'm offering a paid workshop on September 2nd, about how to write your resume. If you are ready to make a career change and you don't know how to begin with your resume. Now I have to tell you, before you get to the actual writing of the resume, there are a couple of things you need to know. The first thing you need to figure out is what is it that you want to do next? Because just writing a resume based on your work history, won't get you the transition job that you're looking for. It might get you another teaching job, but you need to be able to demonstrate through your resume what you have to offer in a different capacity, not in a classroom anymore, but in the industry and the job in the organization that you are seeking to transition to. That is often the first and ultimate challenge for a lot of teachers, because for most of the teachers, at least that I've worked with teaching is all they've ever wanted to do. They were wanting to be teachers since they were five years old and they thought they would only ever teach that they were, they were planning to retire from teaching, but after the last, the last three years with the pandemic and even before then, with all the extra emphasis on paperwork and pacing guides and not, not really teaching the whole child, but teaching to the test, a lot of teachers have found themselves at the point of stressed and frustrated and burnt out and thinking that there must be something else out there in the world that they could be doing with their time and their talents. And there are lots of things that teachers can do. Teachers are, well-educated sometimes overeducated for the kinds of work that they would like to transition into. So the challenge is figure out what it is that you want to do next. And that may take a little bit of time. You may have to sit with that for a while, maybe, you know, right off the top of your head, what you would love to do instead. But most people struggle with that a little bit. They have to consider if you're not, if I'm not going to be a teacher anymore, what, what do I want to do? And you also need to take an assessment of what your skills are, what your aptitudes are, what your talents and God-given gifts are, and you want to consider how can you best use them in a job that will not only make you feel fulfilled, but will pay you commensurate to the education that you've invested in. So that takes a little bit of time for a lot of teachers, but it's critical that you figure that out first, because when you get ready to write your resume, the resume needs to be written for the job that you are about to apply for. You also need to know before you write your resume. In fact, in my course on jumpstart, your job search 2.0, I offer an entire module about how to write your resume for the applicant tracking system. Now, if you've never heard of the applicant tracking system, or if you've heard of it, but you really don't know what it is. The applicant tracking system is the software program that companies, government agencies, organizations of any size at all use to sort manage and follow applicants as they go through their system. Starting with that initial, you know, when you, when you hit the submit button on the applicant, you were sending it straight into an applicant tracking system. The applicant tracking system will be programmed to be looking for key words from the job description in your resume. And so if you haven't taken the time to really study the job description and you haven't called out, figure it out about what the key words are. Sometimes I recommend to clients that they use a word cloud program like TagCrowd or Wordle, but net do a word cloud, how to determine which words are being used most often in that job description. Because the words that are used the most often are the words you want to include in your resume. You can not. I also use a tool online. It's I guess it's an app called job scan, and that's C O can use it for free for a couple of times before they ask you for a credit card. But I use that with my clients a lot to help make sure that they are using the proper keywords from the job description in their app and their, uh, resume the applicant. The tracking system is the first hurdle. Once you've started your job search, the first hurdle is figuring out what you want to do. But the first hurdle after you have started, your job search is getting past the applicant tracking system. If you aren't at least a 60% match, you're probably not ever going to hear back from anybody. You won't be invited for an interview. And of course, it's the interview in which you nailed down the job offer, not the resume, the resumes, your marketing tool designed to help you get to the interview stage. If you haven't used the proper keywords, you won't get to the interview. So you need to pay attention to the keywords that are in the job description. Now, my experience is that a lot of people, and I don't know if it's specific to teachers or not, but a lot of people and I'm guilty of it too. Back in the day, when I didn't know any better, you, you tend to scan or skim over the job description. Don't actually read it. You're looking for the words that convey what you know you could do. Oh, I could do that. I, yeah, I know how to do that. And then we sort of block out or ignore or don't pay attention to all the other things that the job description requires that you don't have. And so you might be wasting your time to apply for that job. I've had people to send me their resume and the job description and the job description might clearly say PhD required. And, and my client doesn't have a PhD. If it's required. It's more likely that they're going to be looking for a candidate who already has a PhD. They might accept a candidate. Who's a student in a, in a PhD program. But if you don't have a PhD and you're not working toward a PhD and it's a PhD required, and you maybe you don't want to waste your time. Applying for that job job applications require a lot of time and sweat. Sometimes it it'll take all day to fill out one application. So you want to be discriminating about which jobs you decide to apply for. So you're not wasting your time. Once you have determined that you have the skills that the job description requires, it's your job to write a resume that speaks to that job description. That may mean that you need a functional resume, as opposed to a chronological resume, a functional resume will help you to demonstrate the things that you know, and can do that make you a solid candidate for the job. So you see, there are several things you need to do and decide before you're ever even ready to start writing a resume. Given that, as I said earlier, I am offering a paid workshop. It's$25. I'll be offering the best information I can about how a teacher in particular should approach writing a resume for a job that they want. That's outside of the realm of teaching. And if you would like to attend that workshop, you need to sign up for it. I'll put the link to it in the show notes, it's going to be, uh, offered Thursday night, the 2nd of September. So a week from today, Thursday, and it will be at seven o'clock in the evening. You pay$25 to attend, and that will also give you a replay rights. And I will also a template that I recommend to my clients for how to approach writing your resume. So$25 for an hour long resume workshop next Thursday, evening, 7:00 PM. If you'd like to join me, please do. And that's it for this week. I hope you have a wonderful week, please, wherever you are, stay safe, stay well. And I will see you next week. Bye for now.

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 Boitnott at boys, not 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 Boitnott. And this is teachers in transition.