^{SEPTEMBER 28, 2024}

Companies See You As Just A Teacher. Now What?

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You’re trying desperately to transition into corporate America, but you feel pigeonholed by your current job (ahem: teaching).

You're have a feeling hiring managers see you as “just a teacher.”

You worry they’re overlooking your skills that obviously go way beyond lesson plans and classroom hulabaloo.

Being dismissed as “just a teacher” is beyond frustrating when you know you bring so much more to the table.

You’re a natural leader, you've grown specific skills that you'd call your "wheelhouse" and you’re a pro at handling chaos (hello- 30 learners at once).

Problem is, corporate recruiters don’t always get it.

They may only see the whiteboard, bell schedules, and lesson plans but not the mountain of skills behind it.

To switch gears, we need to guide THEM to change that perception fast.

Common Solutions That Won't Work:

• Tweaking Your Resume and Still Accidentally Using Too Much Teacher Language:
  Sure, you could rework your resume, but swapping out “lesson plans” for “training materials” doesn’t always do the trick. It might still scream “teacher” when you’re aiming for something more versatile.
  
  
• Rebranding Your LinkedIn Profile Alone:
  Updating your LinkedIn headline and summary can help, but if the rest of your profile still screams "teacher," it will fall short. Hiring managers could assume you’re only applying to non-teaching jobs out of frustration, not genuine interest or capability.
  
  
• Applying Like It’s a Numbers Game:
  Spamming applications without context rarely works. If your resume isn’t telling a strong enough story about why you can do the specific job you're applying for, you’ll get filtered out faster than you can say, "Why won't someone just give me a chance?!"
   

Do This Instead:

• Tell a Compelling Story About Your Pivot:
  You’re not just leaving teaching because you’re over it. You’ve made a conscious decision to grow your career, and you’ve got the skills to back it up. Talk about how you’ve honed your leadership, project management, and communication expertise in teaching, and how you’re ready to apply it in a new context.
  
  
• Target Jobs That Leverage Your Strengths:
  Corporate training, instructional design, project management, or even customer success are all fields that need someone with your experience. You’re already 80% of the way there—these roles just require a little tweaking of your skill set.
  
  
• Network to Educate and Impress:
  Hiring managers may not fully understand how teaching skills transfer to the business world. Use informational interviews or networking chats to connect with professionals in your target industry. This gives you a chance to explain how your background uniquely qualifies you for the job.

Want to Dive Deeper?

My Elevated Careers Career Change Accelerator™ will help you craft that corporate-ready narrative and make connections in your new industry that see beyond “just a teacher.”

Your Next Steps

The key to overcoming this "just a teacher" perception is translating your current experiences/skills into business speak.

1. Craft a strong narrative around why you’re making this pivot and what you’ve been doing to prepare.
   
   
2. Target roles that make the most of your existing skills.
   
   
3. Schedule a couple of networking chats with people in your target field to start building the right connections and get your story out there. (Pro tip: make your subject line "Want to get coffee with me?" and offer to send them a $5 Starbucks virtual card. That way they know you have some skin in the game.

Hope you'll give this a try.

See you next week.