Whether you are new to teaching, coming back after a break, or leaving a corporate job for a teaching job, your resume and cover letter should answer the four questions below.
- What makes you want to teach?
This is a very important question, and you need to answer it in both your resume and cover letter. Your resume's career objective should be a well-written statement about how much you love teaching. Your cover letter, on the other hand, should go into more detail about your goals and how you teach. Your career goal should be longer than those on corporate resumes. It should be more of a summary of why you want to teach and what makes you qualified. No matter what level of school the students are in, you need to show that you care about them and their education. This is one of the most important parts of being a teacher, and it can set you apart from other applicants.
- Do you meet the requirements to be a teacher?
Your education and certifications should come right after the summary of your career. The section should be called "Academic Credentials," and it should list all of the degrees and certifications that make you qualified to teach. In the teaching field, it is very important to have the right credentials for the job you want. List any groups of classes you took in school that qualify you to teach a certain subject. Make a separate section on your resume for publications if you have been in academic journals or written and published textbooks. Make sure that your resume has a full list of all of your qualifications. Don't underrate yourself.
What about your work history makes you qualified to be a teacher?
Unlike resumes for corporate jobs, which list jobs in order of when they were done, teachers need to highlight not only their teaching experience (if they have any), but also any professional accomplishments that make them a great candidate for the job. Use a chronological list to show off your work history if you have taught before. If you are new to teaching, you will need to list any experience you have that makes you a good teacher. If you look at your experience, you will see that you have the qualifications to be a teacher. You just need to focus on the ones that match your career goal. Use a functional format for your resume. Do some research and look for resumes of teachers that you can use as models for your own. If you have worked in the business world and want to become a teacher, for example, list any training you created and taught at your company. If you just graduated, list any jobs you may have had as a Teaching Assistant or any practical courses you took. You can talk about any community service or volunteer work that helps you reach your goal of becoming a teacher. For example, if you volunteered for an organisation like Big Brother Big Sister and helped a child, put that on your resume. Use any experience you have that shows you can lead, that you care about education, and that you can motivate people and teach them new things.
- What are your professional goals for the long term?
Just like a business, the school where you want to teach will want to know why you want to be a teacher and what your long-term goals are as a professional. In your career summary, you should briefly talk about your long-term goals. Your cover letter or teaching philosophy should go into more detail about your long-term goals. Will you go back to school to get your Master's or Ph.D.? In the next ten years, do you want to be a high school dean, or do you want to teach more than one subject? Are you interested in teaching elementary school first and maybe high school later? Do you want to be the head of a department at a college or university? Tell a potential employer about your long-term goals if you have them. But make sure you have a plan for how to get there. This will show your boss that you know what it takes to reach that goal.
Overall, make sure your resume doesn't have any mistakes and that you've used key words from the teaching field, such as jargon and acronyms. Do your research and look at the resumes of other teachers to get ideas for your own, taking into account their experience and level of teaching. Show how much you care about school and how patient you are, and schools will definitely take notice.
