Hello, friends! Today I’m coming to you with a highly requested post: sharing how I transitioned out of teaching. Almost a year ago, I resigned from my full-time teaching position. I discuss all about why I resigned in this post here in case you are new around here or missed it. Since I resigned, I’ve had an overwhelming amount of followers reach out sharing similar frustrations in the teaching profession, and let me be the first to say, I get it. While teaching is an incredibly rewarding profession, it has also become one of the most draining careers of today. Emotionally, physically, and mentally, I hit a point at 27 years old where I was no longer myself. I lost my happiness, I started seeing a therapist and was prescribed anxiety and depression medication. I knew that I had to make a change for myself, but it was scary. I never imagined myself doing anything but teaching, so I felt very lost, confused, and scared. Luckily, I came across some resources and took things one step at a time, and eventually landed a job in HR. I’m going to share all of the resources I used and some tips that helped prepare me to enter the job market, and hopefully this post can help you, too!
Identify Your Skills
Although society sometimes likes to treat teachers like talentless losers, we all know that’s not true. Teachers possess a ton of skills that most people don’t! A major skill that I have learned employers find incredibly valuable is our ability to not only manage people, but plan far ahead and identify possible road bumps that may arise. Working with adults is a whole different ball game than working with children of any age, but believe it or not, I’ve come to learn that sometimes the adults are more difficult to work with than kids! As a teacher, you undoubtedly work with kids in groups, but also adults. Think about all of those faculty meetings spent in groups with you colleagues, team meetings or department meetings. People management is a great skill to have!
Some more obvious skills that teachers possess are time management, organization and planning, problem solving, flexibility, and the ability to work as a team. Everything that you do for your classroom or school environment are useful in the corporate world, too! The key to showing off your skills are identifying them and translating them to “business terms”. For example, rather than having “lesson planning” on your resume, switch it to “project management”. Just as you identify standards and learning targets to build your curriculum, you can identify project goals and determine the steps to meet them.
Update Your Resume
Once you have identified your skills, update your resume! I struggled with this at first because I truly did not know how to translate everything that I am capable of to a few key words or phrases on a paper. I stumbled upon the Teacher Career Coach, and used her resources to help me update my resume and write cover letters! Not only does she offer resources to help you rewrite your resume, but she also has an extensive list of professions and jobs outside of the education world that would be a good fit for teachers. You can check out her resources here!
Identify the Parts of Teaching That You Love
Leaving the classroom is not an easy transition, and there are still a lot of things that I miss about it. Personally, I loved the creative side of being a social studies teacher. I was the teacher that would stay until 8:00 pm revising lesson plans the night before because I had a great idea that I knew my kids would love. Lucky for me, I have had my blog for a few years which allows me to still have a creative outlet. Whether it’s collecting data, building relationships, being creative or thriving off of organization, think about the parts of teaching that you really love and try to find a profession that will still offer you that! Again, the Teacher Career Coach has a lot of great resources to help you identify your passions and see what other careers will allow you to pursue them. She even has a quiz you can take that will offer career results for you to pursue. Click here for her quiz!
Sign Up/Update Your LinkedIn
I created a LinkedIn account back in college when all of my other business major friends were doing it, and I hadn’t touched it in years! Companies use LinkedIn as a screener, and it is one of the best ways for them to get to know you. Sign up for a free account and update it with the skills you added to your resume! In your bio, explain that you are searching for a new opportunity, and list all of the skills you possess that would impress an employer.
LinkedIn is also a great tool to use to search for jobs, and the application process is easy once you have an account!
Network
Unfortunately, a lot of times it’s all about who you know in the business world. I have a lot of friends and family who work outside of the education world, so I made sure that everyone knew I was looking for a job! As they would hear of openings, they would send applications my way or help put in a good word for me. Ultimately, I ended up accepting a position in HR for a company where a friend works. You never know who might be able to help you! Additionally, your college or university might also have resources to help you. My college frequently emails job opportunities to their alumni, and have an alumni career counseling program to help with career transitions and job placement. Be sure to look into that!
LinkedIn also has an option to set your profile to “open to work”, which allows recruiters to easily see that you are on the job market. I had a few recruiters reach out to me through there, so it is another great tool!
Give Yourself Grace
I’m not going to lie, I think I applied to about 500 jobs before I finally landed one. I made it to the final round of interviews multiple times, only to be told they went with someone “with more experience”. Granted, a lot of the roles I applied for were out of desperation. I felt like a failure for leaving the classroom and not having a job. I doubted myself and questioned my decision almost every night. Unfortunately, it takes time to find a job! Don’t give up, and don’t get discouraged. The right job for you will come along when the time is right! As I mentioned above, be sure to network and learn on friends and family to help support you during this time. Transitioning out of the classroom is not easy, but if you are anything like me, it will be well worth it. I am so much happier and am beginning to feel like myself again. You can’t pour from an empty cup, so do whatever you have to do to refill yours!
If you are reading this, then I assume you are a fellow educator struggling with the profession right now. You are not alone. Please know, though, that you are incredibly talented and valuable in the workforce. Market yourself like the multi-tasking master you are and show off all you can do!