Try Something Like This:
- Led and supported school staff through the first-ever implementation of Positive Behavior Intervention and Supports , and decreased student referrals from 37% to 12%
- Through leadership with PBIS, student attendance across grades 1 and 2 increased from 67% to 89% within three months of structured interventions
- Supported teachers in integrating 21st-century skills into their lessons and helped 42% of teachers increase their evaluation scores from 3 to 4
Including this type of data will show hiring managers that your hard work and skills increased productivity within your organization.
Walking The Walk And Talking The Talk
Its not just about identifying your transferable skills but how you translate them on your resume.
Here are three of my biggest tips to help you effectively translate your transferable skills and experience on your teacher transition resume.
First, be specific by quantifying your accomplishments.
Second, unless you transition into an education-based role, leave out the teacher-specific terminology, acronyms, or pedagogy. One of the biggest mistakes teachers make on their transition resumes is not rewriting or translating their resume experience so that it is applied to the world outside of the classroom setting.
Make sure you are showcasing your skills and experience in a way that translates into the new roles you are looking for. Hiring managers dont want to see you as a teacher. They want to see you as someone qualified for and ready to take on the role you are applying for. Depending on the role, managers dont want to know about record keeping for 25 students, but that you managed a portfolio of 25 clients. They dont want to hear about teaching pedagogy and lesson planning but about training strategy and training materials. The corporate world isnt about grading and cumulative assessments but about data tracking and analysis.
Build Your Teacher Resume With Experience Using Software & Tools In The Classroom
Another way to build your resume while still in the classroom is to use free or low-cost software traditionally used in businesses in your classroom. Working to master these programs to create lesson plans or presentations, organize your work, and collaborate with your team is a time-efficient way to upskill and may help you to work more effectively. Check out what types of programs are traditionally used in your chosen career path. Can you incorporate these into your teaching routine? A few suggestions:
Trello or Asana: These programs are used by businesses to help teams organize their work flow and collaborate. They are free to use and a great way to share lessons, files, and shared tasks.
Canva: This free program is a great way to step into creating your own classroom materials and presentations and is used by many businesses for designing online and print materials and reusable templates.
Website & Online Classroom Tools: Your school likely has purchased dedicated programs for online teaching and website creation. Some schools use Google Classroom, for example. Take a look at different ways you can incorporate these tools for use in your classroom. You may be able to find additional free training for how to use these in school and business as well.
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Volunteer For Roles That Align With Your Chosen Career Path
The difficulty for some teachers, especially newer teachers looking to transition into a new career, is a lack of opportunity. Sometimes these leadership roles or chairs fall to other, more experienced teachers. Volunteers are often selected. If you feel passed over for these opportunities, it may be time to step up and volunteer for these roles.
Volunteering to help you team by creating grade level or individual websites, creating materials for your team, or sitting on/chairing a committee is one way to get started. You may also have opportunities to represent your grade level throughout the year at training events, PDs, or at PTO meetings, for example.
Volunteering in your own school is a great way to build your teacher resume experience, but there also may be chances to volunteer outside of your school setting. Look for roles that align with your desired career path. You may find opportunities in your community or for local or online businesses that can help you diversify your skills.
Listing Skills On A Teachers Resume
At the end of the day, recruiters judge your candidature on the skills that you possess and whether they are relevant to the job you are applying to.
The key is to identify the most relevant skills and list them well on your resume.
The best way to go about it is to lead with the most important skill, followed by ones a little less important and so on.
But the question is, how do you identify the important skills for a teaching job?
The answer is simple! Just follow these steps:
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Translating Your Classroom Experiences Into Various Positions Within The Realm Of Education
I want to backtrack here and revisit what you said about continuing to pursue working within education roles. I want to dive into that a little bit deeper. So for me, Ive worked as an instructional designer and an educational consultant doing professional development. For both of those types of roles, it would be relevant for me to include some of my teacher duties as long as they really translated into what was being asked of me in this new profession.
When you work with educational companies, theyre looking for experience pertaining to using products like theirs to enhance teaching in addition to how youve actually performed the duties similar to what the duties and the role would be. So for my professional development role, I really focused heavily on educational technology and how proficient I was in implementing such technology. I also talked about how I did a lot of train the trainer type of sessions, training other teachers on how to implement technology into the classroom. That was basically the job duties mentioned in the posting, so it made sense.
Can you talk about different roles within education companies where teachers can easily translate their experiences?
Focus On Transferable Skills
First, read the details in each job posting that you’re considering applying for with a critical eye.
You may know that you’re perfectly capable of handling the requirements, but if you have no experience with them, you’re not likely to be considered. This is the place you need to focus in on for your resumewhere you can include things you’ve done in addition to classroom teaching.
For example, while all teachers are, in a sense, trainers, companies are mostly interested in peer-to-peer training. If you’ve done this, that’s a plus to highlight. For another example, if you’ve participated in organizing trips, that may be useful for teachers who want to get into travel or event planning.
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How To Craft Your Teacher Career Change Resume + Ace Your Interview
Once youve decided that you want to leave the classroom, the next big question on your mind is, What career am I going to pursue? Well, there are two different ways you can gothe employee route or the entrepreneur route.
The entrepreneur route means that you go into business for yourself. Maybe you start a website, a boutique, a virtual assistant business, an online tutoring business, a photography business, or a TpT shop. The career is irrelevant the important thing to note is that as an entrepreneur, you are going into business for yourself.
The employee route means that you choose to work for another individual or company. Again, we are less concerned with who hires you and more interested in how to get you hired for the job of your dreams.
So in todays episode, we are going to focus on the employee route and how writing a teacher career change resume will help you land some of the best jobs for teachers outside of education. The cool part about what Im sharing is that these tips will help you in getting hired for ANY position.
But we are going to spend the majority of our time unpacking some of the specifics you might not have considered when you began thinking about landing the best jobs for teachers outside of the classroom.
So lets discuss the 15 things you need to do to design a winning teacher career change resume and land your dream job outside of teaching.
Length File Format And Other Tips For Your Teacher Career Change Resume
When it comes to the length of your resume, it really depends on your experience. While one-page resumes were once a rule-of-thumb, most resumes are now one and a half to two pages. However, if you have 15 years of work experience, you shouldnt shy away from your accomplishments. In that case, its totally acceptable to have a 2-page resume.
Next, you want to focus on another F-word: file format. There are different platforms and software, but I recommend you send your resume as a Word document, unless otherwise specified. So, when you go to save your resume file, be sure its saved in the .doc or .docx format. ATS will reject files saved in Pages, Excel, or JPEG format.
The last big resume formatting tip is about style. If your go-to is a creative and colorful template that landed you your job in the classroom, its time for a change. Simple, chronological resume templates are your best bet in the corporate world, listing your experience starting with your most recent job. This is the most popular resume style, and its best for ATSs. It also happens to be preferred by recruiters and HR professionals, so you really cant go wrong here.
A chronological resume should be written to include the following elements in the listed order:
- Current volunteer experience
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Turn Your Specialization Into A Corporate Asset
Every teacher is qualified to get hired as a curriculum consultant or with an edtech businessesand this is an especially good option for elementary education pedagogues.
High school teachers can leverage subject matter expertise by looking for work in a related field, and then highlight those projects youve developed in your resume.
Robotics teachers can describe the 3D-printer project they assigned, while literature teachers aspiring to editorial work can reference the school literary magazine theyve advised.
Showcase What Makes You An Ideal Candidate
In addition to pointing out your transferable skills, you should also try to identify how your previous background offers something unique in comparison to people who are already working in the career you want. Showcase why you are a superior choice to a candidate without your specific experience.
For example, if you are a veteran who served two tours overseas, it would help to capitalize on the skills you gained from that experience that another person wouldn’t necessarily have. If you are now searching for a job in computer science, it may benefit you to mention the innovative technology you had access to during the time of your service.
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What Teachers Can Do
If this sounds like you, and you are not happy in your current role as a classroom educator, it is only fair to both you and your students to consider other career options.
For this article, I spoke with Lynda Spiegel, who is a specialist in resumes and creating LinkedIn profiles.
Spiegel, once a teacher herself, runs Rising Stars Resumes, where you can find her offerings, a plethora of information, guidance, and sample resumes for almost every industry.
According to her site, Spiegel has spent the last 14 years as a Global Human Resources executive, and she understands how recruiters and hiring managers view a potential candidate’s resume.
As a recruiter, she has experience posting jobs on LinkedIn, so she knows how to write a LinkedIn profile that will improve the chances of being found by a target employer.
Other Transferable Skills Teachers Have
From managing inventory , keeping accurate data records, to analyzing results of student progress over time, you most likely have a ton of transferable resume experience. Perhaps youve worked with the PTA on their budget or helped marketing efforts for a fundraiser. Coordination of field trips and other more significant events can be written in
The truth? The transition out of the classroom can be tough. You have a limited time to do it if you are working around a strict contract. Its essential to produce your strategic game plan now. If you still have the remainder of the school year, build skills to your resume to fit the experience youll need for your next career.
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Keep Your Cover Letter Honest & Short
Cover letters can be intimidating whether youre transitioning into a new career or not. Instead of feeling overwhemled, use the following standard cover letter guidelines to help you write a short and simple cover letter:
- Paragraph 1: Who are you?
- Paragraph 2: What have you done?
- Paragraph 3: Where do you want to go with your career?
Make sure that your contact information appears in the form of a signature line that includes your name, phone number, and email address, and get ready to be called back for an interview!
High School Teacher Resume
Why this resume works
- The “Education” section of your high school math teacher resume should list clearly and separately the different degrees you’ve earned. No need to list high school education on your resume unless you lack any time spent in college.
- Focus your high school teacher resume on your accomplishments instead of your responsibilities.
- For example, instead of saying “Prepared students for standardized exams,” say “Helped improve standardized testing performance by 3%.”
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Example Resumes For Making A Career Change
The Indeed Editorial Team comprises a diverse and talented team of writers, researchers and subject matter experts equipped with Indeed’s data and insights to deliver useful tips to help guide your career journey.
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While todays job market presents specific challenges, this workshop with Career Clarity will explore six steps you can take to transition into a new career.
A resume is important for applying to any type of career opportunity, whether it be an entry-level role or a position in a new industry. If you are ready to change your career path, consider altering your resume so that future employers can see the value of your past experiences. In this article, we offer tips and examples for reconstructing your resume for a career change.
Transferable Skill #: Teachers Have Great Time Management
As a teacher, you are in charge of adhering to a time schedule. Whether its delegating how long youll study an objective for your benchmarks or how much time to allow for social studies lessons, time management is a major transferable skill teachers have.
Time management skills include organization, prioritization, goal-setting, planning, and communication.
Many positions require time management skills if you are in charge of major projects. When you are writing your resume, youll want to emphasize long term projects that you were in charge of. Anytime you are writing your resume, try to use the specific time frames and success rates when possible.
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Use Your Work Experience To Show Off Transferable Skills
Lets take a different example and say youre moving from a job in sales to copywriting.
A resume youd use for sales compared to a more creative field like copywriting is probably going to be a bit different.
But what do both of the roles have in common?
Well, for one, they both require you to have excellent communication skills. You also need to be good at understanding your target market and conveying complex information in simple language.
And thats the common thread you want to focus on in your work experience section.
So, when listing your previous jobs, think of some transferable skills that you bring to the table that are going to be relevant.
Even unrelated jobs have some universal skills that are helpful everywhere.
To give you a better idea of what we mean, lets look at some examples:
Sales Executive
Company X – 11/2016 – 04/2019
- Boosted sales for the most underperforming product by 40% by developing helpful and instructional material for prospects.
Heres whats done right:
- Shows transferable skills and achievements.
- Highlights only the parts from the experience that are related to the new role.
While the above example doesnt talk about product descriptions or ads, communication materials and sales scripts do show that the candidate can write.
So, for a copywriting position, its going to be relevant and worth mentioning.
Now, compare that to the career change work experience below:
Heres what you need to know:
Start Setting Up Your Classroom
Go ahead and celebrate because if you’ve made it this far, you’re well on your way to that A+ resume! By spending more time throughout each phase of the writing process, you’re vaulting yourself closer to your next teaching job. It’ll be time to start setting up your new classroom and preparing lesson plans before you know it!
If you’re not quite satisfied with your current resume, upload your resume to our resume checker for our AI-powered tips. If it’s time to start from scratch, use our resume builder to work with our AI from the ground up. We can’t wait to see you land your next teaching role!
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