2020 has been one very long year - and not just from the COVID isolation. 2020 has been a very long year because I was job hunting from March 2020 until the end of April 2021. A year of searching for employment can take its toll on you. You send out hundreds of job applications. You go through dozens of interviews. Each time you think, “Maybe this will be the one. Maybe I’ll finally have something,” you’re ghosted, or you receive the “Thank You” email or a computer algorithm spits out a generic one-sentence rejection letter. It is a terribly exhausting process. Yet, ever the optimistic teacher, I’d like to think I learned some things from this very, very long year. So, here is a list of the five things I learned through my job hunting process.
1. Know What You Want
When I started my search, my main focus was simply getting an English teaching job. By the end, I realized how much time I wasted applying to positions/schools that I ultimately did not want. For example, in September 2020, I applied to - and was offered - an immediate hire position at a school on Long Island. I liked much about the school, especially the focus on an integrated, project/inquiry-based curriculum; however, I learned after my first interview that the position was actually for a teaching assistant in 7th grade with no guarantee of a job post-COVID. Clearly, this was far less than ideal, and I turned down the offer. I didn’t want to be a teaching assistant.
Then, in October 2020, I was offered a position at a charter school in Florida. It was a newly opened campus in a tri-state network. The educational philosophy was heavily focused on data-driven teaching. I personally have found that data-driven is code for paperwork, teacher scrutiny, and teaching to the test. I'm afraid I also disagree with charter school franchises. So, I also turned down this offer. I didn’t want to teach at a brand new, data-driven, franchise charter school.
By January and February 2021, the independent school hiring season had kicked off, and the recruiter I was working with passed along middle school after middle school position. Now, middle school is not my favorite group to teach, but I was feeling the pressure to line something up. It had been nearly nine months since I started my search, and I was apprehensive that my degree and somewhat patchy experience were keeping me from getting callbacks from schools I was actually interested in. But when a middle school invited me to a third-round campus visit, I realized that the thought of teaching 7th grade was driving me crazy; I did not want to teach middle school.
I wanted to teach high school English (ideally world literature) at an established school, not part of a nationwide franchise, and had a curriculum that focused on effective teaching practices rather than turning students into numbers and data points. I also wanted to be a part of a strong community where my unique background and skills in a foreign language, international education, and curriculum development would be valued and used. Had I focused my search around these wants instead of simply trying to get “a job,” I may not have had as many interviews, but I would have perhaps saved myself time and stress.
2. Know Your Worth
As I briefly mentioned, I don’t have your typical English teacher background. In university, I studied French and Education. It took teaching English literature courses - and then teaching French - to realize that I far preferred teaching literature, culture, and societal issues to language acquisition. This background worried me throughout my search. After all, I didn’t have an English degree, and I had only just started my Master's in English. I felt that my background and resume wouldn’t hold up when placed next to other 8-year English teachers with a degree in English. Every time I was turned down due to “high competition” after one or more great interviews, I would dwell on that thought. Not healthy, I know.
That changed when a school actually brought up my varied background as an advantage. My international experience translated into an ability to relate to their international students - especially as they were establishing an international campus; my French experience meant I could teach multiple subjects; my experiences as a founding faculty member at two different schools meant I had experience building and crafting a curriculum. My interviewer told me in the first interview that I “ticked a lot of boxes.” If I had been able to see that worth earlier on, I perhaps could have leveraged it and ended up with the position I have earlier.
3. Adjust Your Resume as You Go
We’re all told to tailor our resumes to the job we’re applying for. Of course, the reality is usually the opposite, unless you’re applying for clearly different jobs. I ended up adjusting my resume several times throughout the year when it felt as though it no longer reflected my search. In the end, I went through four versions of my resume.
The first version we’ll call the pre-pandemic version. It was pretty basic and contained all the necessary bits - and quite a few that I struck later on. It worked for the immediate hire positions I was aiming for at the start of my search, but the formatting was clunky, there was too much information, and it was not AppliTrack safe. By the end of October, I was pretty tired of typing in my entire resume over and over again because the formatting didn’t lend well to parsing.
My second version had some big changes. First, I re-formatted it to work better for those oh-so-wonderful online application systems (thankfully, most independent schools just ask you to e-mail materials). Second, I reduced the wordiness and word-worked my action statements to focus on outcomes. Third, I completely changed the traditional “objective” section to a “profile” that gave a better idea and summary of who I am, my skillsets, and my accomplishments. This resume lasted until January, when I got hired (thanks to this resume) as a long-term substitute at a local independent school. Clearly, my resume needed to be updated again.
The third version, therefore, focused on including that long-term substitute position. I also further reduced wordiness and changed the formatting from a two-column format to a single-column format, purely to fit all of my 8-year experience into a front-and-back piece of paper. I also condensed my Fulbright and Fulbright English Immersion Program experience under a single heading, as the same employer technically employed me. I used this resume for much of the January-February hiring season, but, as I mentioned previously, I felt as though my college degree was impeding my search. So, my resume changed one last time.
The final resume was an effort to reduce the focus on my degree and increase the focus on my experience, strengths, and unique offerings. After watching YouTube videos and reading articles written by HR managers, I decided to move the education section to after my work experience, thus putting those 8 years of teaching, curriculum-building, coaching, and dorm-parenting to the forefront. I was hired after using this resume.
The takeaway for me is to recognize that a resume is a communication tool. If it starts to feel as though it’s not working, or you’re not getting the results you want, it may be worth it to take a look at your resume and make some changes.
4. Recruiters Aren’t the End All Be All
It is prevalent in the international and independent school community to use recruiters. I have used recruiters in the past, and I had good results. It’s how I ended up teaching on Jeju and in Pennsylvania. However, this year I became very frustrated using the same recruitment agency I’ve used before. Despite filling out my preferences with what I wanted and communicating with my team, I ended up being forward positions that did not fit these preferences. For instance, I mentioned that I wanted to teach at a high school; I received only middle school suggestions. I felt as though the representative I was working with saw my resume and my tendency to use more interactive teaching methods, along with my age and gender, and put me into the middle school teacher box. This led me to use other sources - school websites, LinkedIn, and other job boards. I may not have had the weight of an organization behind me, but I found more schools and positions that fit what I was looking for and, ultimately, ended up with the position I will start in August. It is possible to find an independent or international school job without a recruiter.
5. Be Persistent
This last point can sometimes be the hardest - especially when your search reaches that one-year marker. Over the past year, I submitted 150 applications, attended 8 job fairs, interviewed at 25 different schools, was rejected by 22 of those schools, offered positions at 3 different schools, turned down 2 positions, and accepted 1. There were many times when I would fall into slumps, feel dejected and depressed, and think about just giving up or “settling” for a position that I wasn’t excited about. Thankfully, I am in a privileged enough position living at home that I didn’t have to give up or settle. And, if I had, I wouldn’t be moving to Connecticut. Most likely, I would have accepted one of those less-than-ideal immediate hire positions and would probably have still had to go through the hiring season in 2021. Persistence pays off.
I have plenty of other reflections on my year-long search, from my thoughts on good interviewing techniques to recognizing red flags in job descriptions. However, considering there are still teachers looking for a position - especially those who just graduated - I hope that these reflections can give some advice and insight.