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Are You Considering Changing Careers to Teaching? 10 Questions to Ask

are you considering changing careers to teaching 10 questions to ask

Find out what questions to ask when considering changing careers to teaching. First, understand a career transition takes work and is usually more involved than a regular job search.

These strategies will be helpful if you consider transitioning out of the education sector. Before you do, you may want to review these ten education career trends for teachers to see if any of these are of interest.

It is necessary if you dread waking up every morning to work.

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  • Are you bored while you are at work? Is there no challenge to your daily responsibilities?
  • Are you tired all the time and experiencing job burnout?
  • Has your life changed in a significant way? Maybe your kids are grown, and money isn’t the motivator.
  • Do you want to make more money?
  • Do you wish to gain a broader base of knowledge?
  • Does the future look bleak in your current field or occupation?
  • Maybe you can’t stand your supervisor or boss any longer.
  • Are your coworkers hostile or bullies?
  • Does your position use too many of your weaknesses?
  • Did you have a brain wave and discover your calling?
  • Are you fed up with working for someone else and desire to be an entrepreneur?

If this sounds like you, you may need to start asking yourself what you want to do with the rest of your life.

10 Important Things to Consider When Changing Careers to Teaching

Whether you are not happy or feeling fulfilled in your current career, it may be time to make a change. Maybe you are a bit burnt out, or you chose your current job without completely understanding what it would entail, or perhaps you ended up in your career by chance.

You are not alone!

From personal experience, many professionals graduate from college and take the first job offered. Before long, it is ten years later, and they are in the same career without ever having chosen that career path for themselves. Often, life gets in the way of our career dreams. We take the easiest option, the least complicated, or the least risky choice at the time.

And it is easy to understand why. You may have student loans and other bills to pay and families to support. But somewhere down the line, you need to be happy in your career. After all, you will spend the majority of a considerable portion of your life working.

Why not be in a career that you would enjoy? The work we choose should be something that doesn’t seem like work because it’s so enjoyable.

10 solid tips for changing careers to education or transition out of teaching. #Education #Teachers Click To Tweet

You are not alone if you’ve gotten stuck in a rut professionally. It can seem much easier and less frightening to stick it out in the job you’ve been doing. And as I’ve said before, we’ve all got bills to pay and families to support. It’s the safer choice. But is that any way to live your life to the fullest?

So, you’ve acknowledged that you are unhappy with your current situation and that a career change may be your best option. Acceptance and surrendering are excellent first steps. But before you do anything else, there are several things that you need to consider.

1. Evaluate Your Job Satisfaction

When you plan a career change, it is essential first to evaluate your level of satisfaction with your current job. To do this, keep a daily journal to track your reactions regarding everyday work-related situations and help you track the highs and the lows of your work life.

This review will give you some perspective on what aspects of your job you dislike. It will also, in turn, help you to decipher whether the issues you have are with the career field itself or with your coworkers, department, or company culture. Furthermore, it will help you make sure that it is time for you to start looking for a new career, and not just that you are undergoing a rough patch that a vacation could be the fix.

2. Why are You Making a Career Change to Teaching?

Making a life-changing decision can be a very daunting task. You want to make sure that switching career paths are what you want before you go ahead and do it. Remember the education you acquired and the various skills you had to develop to obtain your current job?

Choosing to change careers will require the same effort. Successfully making a career change can be worth it!

So ask yourself this question before you move forward. You need to make sure you are doing it for the right reasons.

3. Assess Your Skills, Core Values, Motivators, and Interests

To effectively manage your career change, you will need to evaluate your interests, core values, adaptability, work skills, and other related aspects by reviewing your vital roles in past jobs, projects, and activities.

Identify the skills you developed or implemented recently in your current job and whether you enjoy these tasks. If you don’t find satisfaction in many of the leading skills and responsibilities you maintain in your current field, you know that you need to make a drastic change.

4. Identify Potential Career Alternatives

Evaluate other career alternatives by networking with people like your friends, colleagues, family, or counselor. Visiting O*NET Online or a physical library (they still have these) for career information can also help you obtain valuable career advice and help you discover viable options. It is best to explore all career alternatives as long as they are related to your skills and core values.

Take time to observe other professionals in a particular field of interest, so you can gain first-hand opinions about whether or not you will be successful in the line of work should you decide to pursue it. Conduct some informational interviews with people in careers that are of interest. Perform an initial comparative assessment of various fields so you can identify a shortlist of job targets for research.

5. Complete an Initial Comparative Assessment

Conduct a comparative assessment of various jobs based on your skills or proficiencies to identify several niche targets for more in-depth research. Don’t make the mistake of jumping into another career only to find out it is also a poor fit—your new career direction to target your desires and match your values, motivators, strengths, and ambitions.

Read as much as you can about the fields you are interested in joining, and try to look for personal contacts that can help you along the way. Evaluate your job interests and skills through self-help exercises to know what to look for in your perfect job. Take time to review your employment records, including the contributions you made to your current employer, to identify the right skills you will need to develop efficiently.

6. Research, Research, and Research Some More

Keeping positive when changing professions is fundamental to success. Some people enter a different profession without understanding its unique challenges. Never enter a new industry or position thinking it will be easier than your last job. Chances are, this type of reasoning will not be correct or solve your unhappiness. You might enjoy it more, but all professions will have difficulties and challenges.

For this reason, it’s vital that you thoroughly research your new career choice so that you have realistic expectations. It will help you understand what skills and characteristics you will require to excel in the unique position. To gain more information about possible careers, you need to read as much as possible and find out if you have contacts in your network of friends and colleagues who already work in these fields that can help you with your job search.

7. Will You Need to Go Back to School Or Take Online Courses?

Depending on the new profession you will be entering, a career change frequently means having to retrain. If this is the answer, you may need to take night classes, attend weekend or online courses, or gain an additional degree, license, or certifications.

Depending on what will be required, these will take time, money, and effort for you to accomplish. Therefore, you need to consider this essential aspect of your career change. Be honest about whether you will take four years to gain another degree. On the other hand, four years is a short time to look at your life.

If entrepreneurship is your direction, you must evaluate how you will get new clients. Social media networking could be one solution, but this involves learning.

Sixteen years ago, when I decided to be a resume writer and a career interview and job search coach, I didn’t expect to need to learn all the new skills required to get clients to my website, such as SEO, technology, website development, social media networking, etc.

Grant it; I do LOVE this part of my career. I’m a very social person that has a QUEST for knowledge and finds technology intriguing. Just be sure to weigh the pros and cons before moving forward!

10 solid tips for changing careers to education or transition out of teaching. #educareers #careerchange Click To Tweet

8. Evaluate Your Transferable Skills Relevant to Teaching

Do you possess the characteristics necessary to excel, such as patience, communication skills, organization, time management, problem-solving, etc.? Do you have transferable skills from past jobs that would help you in this new position? How do you react in situations of turmoil? How fast do you learn new concepts? Can you figure out problems on your own? Do you work well in a team-oriented and independent work environment? At first glance, these questions may not seem relatable to your future or your present position, but if you dig deep and look at your current job responsibilities, you will find that you have many transferable skills and can make them work in a new career.

9. Make a Realistic Career Transition Plan

A career change is not something that will happen overnight. Making it happen will take time, effort, sacrifices, and money. You will need to put together a strict budget to ensure you will not run short of funds to make the transition. The end goal will be worth the effort and risk (as long as you’ve done your research!), but you need to be realistic on your timeline.

For this reason, it is very beneficial to make a step-by-step plan. Your plan should include all the steps your career change will require and a realistic timeline to accomplish each step. Breaking down the phases will help you keep on track since you are breaking up your primary purpose – of changing your career – into smaller, more manageable steps.

10. Are You Able to Be Flexible?

Undergoing such a significant life change will require time and effort. To accomplish this, you are going to have to be flexible. For instance, are you willing to return to school, take an unpaid internship, or work multiple part-time jobs to gain experience and skills in your new profession?

Are you willing to come in early, give up lunch hours, and stay after work to offer extra help to colleagues and learn new duties? Will you strive to develop skills and knowledge through self-study to ensure you are the best professional you can be in this new role? These questions need to be analyzed and answered before you commit yourself.

Making a career change is a significant life decision that shouldn’t be taken lightly or done in the spur of the moment.

Don’t let fear hold you back from finding the career that makes you happy!

Suppose you are enthusiastic about a particular profession, energized at the prospect of a career change, wish to give back to your community, have a passion for a field of interest, and make your mark on a new exciting venture. In that case, you are ready to get started on your career change!

Now, it is your turn to comment on this post or share tips for making a successful career change to teach what worked for you and what didn’t.

If you are thinking about a career transition, what steps have you taken to get as much information as possible to make the career change successfully?

If you like this post, please share it with others.

You can review resume and cover letter education examples to get some ideas to write your own or hire us to do the daunting task.