10 Tips Before Changing Careers to Teaching

1. 10 Tips Before Changing Careers to Teaching You may call it a career transition or changing careers to teaching, career change to education, career move, or a job search. • Are you bored while you are at work… there is no challenge left? • Are you tired all the time… experiencing job burnout? • Has your life changed in a major way… maybe your kids are grown and money isn’t the motivator? • Do you want to make more money? • Do you want to gain a broader base knowledge? • Does the future look bleak in your current field or occupation? • You can’t stand your supervisor or boss any longer? • Are your co-workers hostile or bullies? • Does your position use too many of your weaknesses? • Did you just have a brain-wave and discovered your calling?

2. 1. Evaluate Your Job Satisfaction When you are planning a career change, it is important to first evaluate your level of satisfaction in your current job. To do this, keep a daily journal to track your reactions regarding daily work-related situations, as well as to help you track the highs and the lows of your work life. This 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. This will help you to make sure that it really is time for you to start looking for a new career, and not just that you are undergoing a certain rough patch that some much needed vacation time can fix.

3. Why Are You Making a Career Change? Making a life-changing decision can be a very daunting task. You want to make certain that switching career paths is in fact what you want before you go ahead and do it. Remember the education you had to acquire and the various skills you had to develop in order to obtain your current job? Choosing to now change careers will require the same effort. However, making a career change can definitely 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 first evaluate your interests, core values, adaptability, work skills, and other related aspects by reviewing your successful roles in past jobs, projects, and activities.

4. You also have to identify the skills you developed or implemented recently in your current job and whether you enjoy these tasks or not. If you don’t find satisfaction in many of the main skills and responsibilities you maintain in your current field, you know that you need to make a drastic change. 4. Identify Potential Career Alternatives You can evaluate other career alternatives by networking with people like your friends, colleagues, your family, or your 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 to discover viable options.

5. 5. Perform an Initial Comparative Assessment It is important for you to first conduct a comparative assessment on various careers based on your skills or proficiencies so you can identify several niche targets for more in depth research. You don’t want to make the mistake of jumping into another career, only to find out it is also a poor fit. You need your new career direction to target your desires and match your values, motivators strengths, and ambitions. 6. Research, Research, and Research Some More You need to be absolutely positive as to why you want to change professions. Some people enter a different profession without understanding its unique challenges. Never enter a new profession thinking it will be easier than your last job. This will not be so. You might enjoy it more, but all professions are going to have difficulties and challenges.

6. It will also help you to understand what type of skills and characteristics you will require in order to excel in the new position. In order for you to gain more information about possible careers, you need to read as much as you can 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. Evaluate Your Transferable Skills Do you possess the characteristics necessary to excel, such as patience, communication skills, organization, time management, problem solving, etc.? 

7. 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/or independent work environment? Upon 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 are able to make them work in a new career. 8. Make a Realistic Plan A career change is not something that will happen overnight. It will take time, effort, sacrifices, and probably money in order to make it happen. 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 definitely be worth the effort and risk (as long as you’ve done your research!), but you need to be realistic on your time line. For this reason, it is very beneficial to make a plan.

8. 9. Will You Need to Go Back to School Or Take Online Courses? Depending on the new profession you will be entering, oftentimes a career change means having to retrain. This could mean going to night classes, attending courses, or having to gain an additional degree, licenses, or certifications. Depending on what will be required, these will take time, money, and effort for you to accomplish. Therefore, this is a very necessary aspect of your career change that you need to consider. You need to be honest with yourself about whether you are willing to take four years to gain another degree.

9. 10. Are You Able to Be Flexible? Undergoing such a large life change like changing careers is going to require a lot of time and effort. In order to accomplish this, you are going to have to be flexible. For instance, are you willing to go back to school, take on an unpaid internship, or work multiple part-time jobs in order to gain experience and skills in your new profession? Are you willing to come in early, give up lunch hours, and/or stay after work to offer extra help to colleagues and learn your new duties? Will you strive to develop your own skills to ensure you are the best professional that you can be in this new role? These are questions that really need to be analyzed and answered before you commit yourself.

10. If you need help getting your LinkedIn profile put together or any other job search documents let Candace know via email at candoco@telus.net or call toll-free 877 738-8052 (North America) or 780 513-0010. YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/c/ResumesforteachersCandace G+: https://plus.google.com/+ResumesforteachersCandace Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ResumesforTeachers LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/candacealstaddavies/ Pintrest: https://www.pinterest.com/candacedavies1/ Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/Candace_Davies Instragram: https://www.instagram.com/candace_alstad_davies/ A+ Career Edge Blog: http://resumes-for-teachers.com/blog/