I graduated from college in May 2012. The job market was and is still down. However, I graduated with blind optimism that I would get a job and it would be easy. I was overly involved in extra-curricular activities at college (mainly because I can't sit still for longer than 10 minutes). Had a great student-teaching experience where I developed a positive relationship with my cooperating teacher, my grade level, and the assistant principal. I held multiple jobs working with children including substitute teaching. I volunteered regularly. With a resumé packed like that, how hard could it be to get a teaching position?
Well apparently, quite hard. As I was still student teaching, I applied to Teach For America and made it through the the in-person interviews. I withdrew my application after getting cold feet about being sent to a random place to teach. After graduation, I applied to around 50 schools from Maryland (my home state), throughout North Carolina and South Carolina, and even Hawaii, just for fun.
Senior year, we had a seminar which was to help us create a resumé. So, I had a resumé created, but it clearly wasn't working for me. I decided in this day and age that I should create some sort of online resumé. So, I did what everyone does, googled teaching resumé websites. I combined all of the ideas and created: sites.google.com/site/elizabethschmidtccu.
Creating my website actually made my life easier. Since most districts are now using online application systems. This allowed principals to go directly to everything they needed to see, without downloading anything to their computers.
On my webpage, I included:
- My resumé (Duh)
- My Educational Platform - just a basic set of beliefs on education
- Evaluations from my cooperating teacher and university supervisor during student teaching
- Letters of recommendation from my AP, University Supervisor, and Cooperating Teacher
- Lesson Plans
- And a separate section for leadership roles I held during college (I added this because I didn't include all of them on my resumé)
After I started this webpage, I began seeing principals at interviews having it up on their iPads or even printed out in front of them. One principal I had interviewed with, forwarded my information to my now principal and only had to send a website, instead of a stack of paper.
Not only was it a time saver for me, my website clearly made the process more efficient for principals. 47 applications, 2 job fairs, 3 phone interviews, 5 personal interviews, 4 follow-up interviews, and 1 very awkward Skype interview later and I am a 5th grade teacher.
Labels: Interviews, Job Hunting, Resumé
