Your teaching job search

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You probably received enough quality advice about getting hired in your teacher education program-- stand-out resumes, portfolios, interview tips, etc. In this post, I'm not going to attempt to give you information about that. 

Yes, I got hired, but I don't know why specifically. Did my resume font really make a difference? Did they call each one of my references? Did I make a great impression at my interview? Was it all just a happy accident? I may never know. But I am here to give you two main points to help you in your quest:

1. Don't take it personally. If you don't get hired right away, if you seem to be shuffling yourself from interview to interview with no successes, just know, new teacher, that it probably isn't personal. It's just that it is a high-risk endeavor for a school to take on a brand-new teacher. Even if you had an amazing internship experience (the more/longer, the better), schools treat new teachers like a wild roll of the dice.

2. Don't discount any job offers/schools because of hearsay. As I was looking for jobs, I pretty much disregarded charter schools in my search. I had been warned specifically against them. Then the summer started to wane, and I feared I had a Pinterest board and a head full of teaching-specific ideas that would prove useless in the rest of the world. I was quite desperate. Then I gave my resume to a charter school, and they were interested in little 'ole me! This became the school I was hired at. 

You will most likely take your first job offer or only job offer, because there won't be many. Your school might not be a great fit for you, but tough out the first year. It opens so many doors for your second year. After all, you will no longer be a high-risk commodity. 
  
I also sort of eye-rolled whenever someone said that getting hired was all about the people you know. Surely this profession is above that, yes? As it turns out, I wouldn't have known about the existence of my school if it weren't for a friend's mother who worked there and gave them my resume. So, yes, we all know people. The luck comes in finding the right people and opportunities. This may come naturally to you. Don't live in a hole this summer-- go to barbecues and weddings and church events. Something or someone will come up to help you in this daunting process. Best of luck.

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