Job search strategies for career advancement are fundamental, especially if your teacher or administrator job search has hit a roadblock or hasn’t seen any progress.
Why not take advantage of this extra time to handle critical job-hunting tasks? Give yourself the time to reflect on your performance throughout your job search until this point and figure out what areas you could improve.
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Take a step back.
If you’ve been living and breathing your job search for several weeks now, you may feel like you can’t think straight anymore. Both you and your job search may benefit significantly from a short timeout. Take a weekend trip or take a few days off from your job search to relax and re-group. Hopefully, you will return to the zone with a renewed spirit and positive energy after taking a few days off from your job search. You should also gain a new perspective and try several job search strategies.
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How effective are your resume and cover letter?
Take the time to re-examine your job search documents. Could your resume or cover letter use some touch-ups, or must they be updated? The problem may lie in your resume and cover letter if you haven’t received many interviews.
Have a professional resume writing company, like A+ Resumes for Teachers (that’s us), review them and provide suggestions on improving the content.
Reviewing sample teacher resumes will give you some ideas on creating your own.
They will provide you with current resume formats, known to some as resume templates, and you will understand our writing style and quality. Ensure your resume contains professional accomplishments and appropriate teaching keywords, and your teacher cover letter conveys relevant strengths and passion for teaching.
Even if you aren’t using LinkedIn or services like ZipRecruiter for your job search, you can test the efficacy of your resume and cover letter by posting them to the sites and seeing how many “hits” you get. A keyword-rich, well-formatted resume, and cover letter will populate more interest online. Make some tweaks and see if the inquiries from recruiters increase.
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How diverse are your job search efforts?
Too often, job searchers focus on only one avenue to find potential job opportunities. Quite often nowadays, this means searching online job websites like Indeed or Monster for available teaching jobs. However, there are several places to find career opportunities, so you shouldn’t limit your efforts to one area. Besides online job boards, you can find teaching positions through school websites, cold calling, general recruiters or recruiters specializing in education positions, in-person or social media networking, LinkedIn, classified ads, education job fairs, or local community events.
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What feedback have you received from past teaching or administrator interviews?
Look carefully through all the feedback you have received after your past job interviews. This could contain valuable information and insight into your job interviewing skills. You can use this feedback to improve your future job interview performance. You may also be able to use some of the information to enhance the message in your resume and cover letter.
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Revisit your career goals in education.
How focused is your teaching job target? How in line with your professional skills and experience is your job target? These are essential questions you must ask yourself to ensure your job search is on the right track. Ensure you have a specific job target; you need to ensure you aren’t just mass mailing resumes to any school district or teaching posted positions.
Your resume and cover letter should be appropriately focused on your specific teaching niche so that when you apply to positions, your teaching skills and accomplishments concerning the position are evident to a principal. There are many cover letter writing mistakes you don’t want to make. This extra time can help provide clarity and focus that can assist in bringing your job search to the next level.
Job searching for career advancement can be overwhelming. Take some help from a professional and reach out to Candace today to polish your resume and cover letter, develop a job search strategy, and even do a mock interview!
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