Burnout pushed these teachers into new careers. Here’s how they got there

Nationwide, former teachers are starting jobs in sales, software, healthcare, training services and other hot sectors, with more saying they want to follow suit. However, as demanding as they are, pursuing a career in teaching can be difficult.

Many teachers in transition say they are faced with a mysterious array of training programs and online career coaches. They lack a compass to search for a job in the business world and often get stuck even on the first move.

The result for many people is that their path to a new career is often filled with false starts or money wasted on reverse training. Some former teachers struggle to adjust to the rhythm of corporate life. Others have found themselves mourning the loss of a profession, or calling out, they once thought would carry them forward in their working lives.

“You get desperate and see, ‘Teacher, this is great for you!,'” says Raven Wilson, who left her job as an elementary-school teacher at Newport News for a training course in instructional design. Had paid $3,000. , Va. Although he completed the course, he hated it.

Ms Wilson, 30, is among more than 900,000 people who quit jobs in state and local education last year, according to federal figures. Resignations from private education, meanwhile, close to 600,000. According to LinkedIn, the share of K-12 teachers on the site to start non-teaching roles climbed 66% from November 2020 to November 2021, as the pandemic turned schooling upside down.

And the exodus of teachers may increase in the coming months. In a National Education Association survey conducted in January, 55% of teachers said they would drop out of education sooner than planned, up from 37% who said so in August.

Ms. Wilson says the connections she made through online groups on LinkedIn and with free career resources for teachers inspired her to think about what she loved about teaching that could turn into a new role. could. The path she landed: Helping teachers and administrators master classroom software.

Ms. Wilson started with an education tech startup in April. In the fall, she moved into a similar role with a higher salary, which she found through a LinkedIn contact. She says these days she receives more than two dozen messages a day from teachers looking to change careers.

It’s important for teachers’ resumes to highlight the exact skills they’ve acquired in the classroom that will translate to a new role, says Daphne Gomez, a former teacher who has been helping teachers transition into new careers since 2019. Huh. Instead of listing that you organized field trips, for example, let’s say you coordinated three annual events for hundreds of attendees, including marketing and vendor management, she advises.

Discussing teacher burnout too much can be a red flag in job interviews, she warns. Instead, she suggests that job seekers frame their new career search in positive terms, focusing on what they love about teaching and how it will translate into the role.

Some former teachers caution against choosing a new career field because it is in demand or promises high salaries. Lysette Bohannan says she loved her job as a high-school guidance counselor in Austin, Texas, but not the stress of doing it in the midst of a pandemic.

First, she discovered enrolling in a coding boot camp. Then she heard from college-search site Niche.com, which noted the TikTok account she frequently communicated with students.

The conversation eventually led to an offer for a content-marketing manager position, which she says was a better fit than coding—and came with a pay increase.

“I had to take a chance on myself, my mental health, my wellbeing and still follow my passion in a different way,” says Ms Bohannon, 36, who added that she was now able to help students. Huh. On a bigger scale than she could have done in her consulting role.

As more hiring managers gain experience with former teachers, some are specifically requesting them for certain roles, says Kelly McMahon, a manager at AspireShip, a tuition-free, software sales-training platform. It’s especially looking for entry-level sales recruiting in the case of companies in financial, education, and human-resources technology, she says.

“They’re looking for people who have that natural curiosity, that stamina,” she says.

Jeff Jenkins, head of sales and marketing at RTA, a Glendale, Ariz., company that provides vehicle fleet-maintenance software, says 30% of the resumes he’s received in recent months come from teachers, some of whom They hired him for the software. Training and sales executive roles.

“Teachers, because of what they have experienced, seem like they are a much better fit for the workforce than others coming out of different industries,” he says.

Twice, the teachers he interviewed initially hesitated to take the job because they would no longer have summers on their own. Both eventually accepted. “The increase in money and company culture affected him,” he says.

For 58-year-old Marie Michelidis, the biggest adjustment in leaving her job as an elementary-school principal late last year was mourning the loss of her career as a teacher, which she made with the help of a therapist. .

In January, she enrolled at a community college near her home in Mendham, NJ, in a series of free workshops on topics such as writing an engaging cover letter, answering the most common interview questions, and using LinkedIn as a networking tool. . This process has helped him envision a new professional future and encouraged him to become a more fearless networker.

She says, “You have nothing to lose by talking to someone. You’re only going to learn something else and they’re going to learn something from you.”