6 Tips for Teachers Seeking Jobs Outside the Classroom
Teachers can make successful transitions into edtech and other fields, but it often requires thinking differently
“Teachers are quitting,” the Wall Street Journal declared two years ago, “and companies are hot to hire them.” In my experience, that rosy spin doesn’t exactly align with the reality for many teachers. While it’s true more teachers are leaving for greener pastures these days, educators with only teaching experience on their resumes often face an uphill climb to new careers, as I wrote about in The American Prospect a few months ago.
For that piece, I charted the journey of teachers eyeing the exits with retooled resumes packed with corporate jargon more appropriate for the boardroom than the classroom, who still saw more than their fair share of rejection.
But I also spoke with career experts who insisted that fulfilling new jobs in edtech and other sectors are out there, and that hiring managers see real value in former teachers. After all, former teachers know a thing or two about hard work, and they often make diligent, empathetic employees who learn fast and are eager to pass that knowledge onto others.
So what are the secrets of the highly-effective teacher job candidate? What really gets a former educator hired? And what actually moves the needle for hiring managers? Two of those aforementioned experts — Darin Enferadi, the vice president of talent at Kiddom, an edtech company that provides digital curriculum to schools, and Daphne Gomez, founder of Teacher Career Coach, which offers online courses and more to teachers looking to leave the classroom — spoke with me about just that, sharing advice for educators in a competitive job market.
Here are their tips:
Picking a career direction isn’t a permanent decision
Teaching is often seen as a “forever job,” in that teachers may move grade levels or change subjects but generally expect to stay in the classroom for their whole careers, with occasional promotions for some into administration. That’s not the expectation in the corporate world, Gomez says, where workers’ job titles are more flexible. And it’s something teachers looking to transition away from the classroom often struggle with.
“Instead of applying to project management roles and instructional designer roles and sales roles and marketing roles, try and pick a very clear path so that you can go deeper—and you can really revise your resume,” she suggests. If it doesn’t work out in a couple of years, many companies will work with employees they like to revise their job responsibilities or let them apply for new roles internally.
But targeting a specific role and making a strong case for why your skills are a good match can help land a coveted interview faster. For some teachers, it’s all about getting over that initial hump.
“There's so much stigma about their decision to change [careers], that it’s hard for them to just pick one path—and they kind of want to keep every path open,” she says. “Just because they’re really nervous to pick the wrong one, not realizing this isn’t necessarily the ‘Forever One.’”
For teachers, customer service positions are often the easiest transition into edtech
Any time companies need to work directly with teachers—typically to train them on a tool or to troubleshoot a problem—it’s better when a former educator is on the other end of the line, Enferadi says, especially when schools are trying a new curriculum or teaching method for the first time.
“Teachers that can speak to that stressor or that difficulty tend to gain an advocate on the school side, because they showcase that they understand how challenging something can be,” he adds. “They use the same kind of coded language; they’re able to gain trust very quickly.”
Hiring managers know that teachers are good at explaining things and often draw from a wellspring of patience. That makes them well suited for training and user support roles, but also as account managers who work with existing customers and the salespeople that recruit new ones.
“What hiring managers find valuable in teachers is high emotional intelligence,” Gomez says, along with “their ability to have empathy for the customers, their ability to make inferences from what the customers are needing, and being able to patiently walk step-by-step through all the information that the customer or client may need to make the best decision.”
Getting other jobs often means upskilling or getting a new degree
Many teachers have successfully pivoted into marketing, corporate training and project management, and Teacher Career Coach documents dozens of success stories. But most other roles require either a new degree or some dedicated upskilling.
“What I have seen are teachers that often do a stint with [Teach For America] or a few years in the classroom and then they'll go back to grad school and get a specialty degree,” Enferadi says. “And those people tend to go into more strategic hires or roles where it requires some either very specific education or experience. That’s where you end up seeing teachers go into engineering roles, product management roles, design research, or partnership positions.”
Networking means finding people who can vouch for you
When teachers think of career networking, they often fill up their social media feeds with other transitioning teachers in the same boat. They might share job tips and offer each other solidarity, but connecting with former colleagues and even friends-of-friends working the types of roles they want can be a much better use of their time, Gomez says.
Candidates often see the best results when they feel comfortable reaching out directly to someone in the company, which can also help you get a sense of the company culture.
“If you can find someone who can authentically vouch for you inside of that company, and say, ‘Hey, so and so applied, I think she’d make a really great fit’…it kind of bumps you up to the top where someone’s at least gonna scan your resume,” she says. “Most of the time, if you have the same qualifications as many of the other applicants, they’re looking for someone who's going to be a culture fit. They’re looking for someone who’s going to be coachable.”
Before an interview, do your homework
“Research is something that has no downside,” Enferadi says. “I've never once heard a hiring manager complain about a candidate who’s over prepared and understands the business too much.”
The other key is good storytelling, which also takes prep work. A good rule of thumb before any interview is to sit down and brainstorm three or four of the most common interview questions—Why do you want to work here? What are your longterm career goals?—and prepare detailed answers. Too often candidates don’t work on how to articulate their own stories, leading to answers that are less sharp than they should be. “Those are softballs, you should just tee off on every single time they’re answered,” he adds.
Make sure your resume truly stands out
Some teachers prefer more straightforward resumes, stripped of business jargon and corporate buzzwords, Enferadi says, rationalizing that it’s more honest. But writing a business-friendly resume can show respect for the corporate world and its culture. “It’s not ‘not telling the truth,’ it’s being an effective marketer.”
Algorithms rarely disregard resumes without human oversight, he adds. Over the past few years, as Kiddom has grown in size and reputation, his company has gotten far more applications—sometimes hundreds for a single position—and each one must be quickly assessed. What Enferadi is looking for are resumes that stand out. “If you're not putting in a quality product, you can't expect a quality outcome,” he says. “The people who are really good at writing resumes also tend to have the skills and understand how to articulate the experience to get that attention.”
That’s not to say candidates need to write a new resume for every position they apply to (although they will likely have a few). Tailoring a resume with more targeted language, however, provides a chance to stand out in a crowded field. Gomez adds that resumes are an opportunity to showcase where the candidate has created special projects, shown relevant leadership and leveled up their skills. A teacher that designed their own professional development workshops and led their department can easily morph into a director of corporate training. In the long run, these details are more effective at getting a hiring manager’s attention than carelessly seasoning a resume with a few corporate buzzwords.
“That's where we're seeing people making the biggest mistakes,” Gomez says. “If you read their resume, yes, they may have kind of translated it and put some corporate jargon in there. But ultimately, you might do a pass and say, ‘I have no idea what they're even applying for. I don’t know if it’s a project manager position or a marketing position. And from my perspective, it just looks like a teacher.’”
👁👄👁 Show & Tell
“The shortage has been the catalyst on this, we are realizing we don't have certified teachers in front of our children, and that's a problem so I think we have realized we’re going to have to do something about it. We know the issue is conditions and pay and so we’re throwing money at the problem.”
—Sherry East, president, of the South Carolina Education Association on her state’s move to raise the starting teacher salary to $47,000 via WACHFOX News.
📚 Independent Reading
KFVS News: Student teachers in Illinois could see a new annual stipend of $10,000 as a bill makes its way through the state legislature. Teaching often requires substantial (and unpaid) classroom training from pre-service teachers, which has made the field less attractive to college students searching for a career path.
EdSurge: Researchers at Vanderbilt University and the Southern Regional Education Board are taking a close look at what it might take to attract more Gen Z students to teaching in the Southeast. Sure, they want better pay, flexibility and decent work-life balance, but as one Vanderbilt professor noted, students were likely paying attention to the lack of support they witnessed their own teachers struggling with. “It’s not doing us any favors to get more teachers.”
: OpenAI is marketing GPT-4o to students and educators, promising friction-free AI assistance. At one point during a recent demo, a presenter showcasing how students can get math help had to literally stop the software from solving the problem for him. Students may appreciate the cheat code dropped into their laps, but educators are almost certainly unprepared for the onslaught of ethical concerns this advancing technology will have on their profession. If the purpose of math class is to teach students independent problem solving along with numeracy skills that scale with age…who are these super tutors even for, and what is the point?