Global Educator Empowerment

At some point in your job search process, you created a résumé. Your résumé is a critical part of the documentation which you furnish an employer when you apply for a job. Any job. Your future employer wants to know that you possess the qualifications necessary to be able to do the job for which they are hiring you. Your future employer also needs to verify your qualifications and credentials. What we are going to do in this article is to examine your résumé with an objective, clinical eye in order to present you and your qualifications in the best possible light. Many job applications are done online. That means that you will have to be very careful as you copy and paste information from your résumé to the online job application fields. More about that later.

This short video offers some helpful advice on how to fill out a job application.

In the meantime here are some items which have no place in your job résumé. You either need to omit them entirely or include them in your curriculum vitae.

Meaningless awards and affiliations

Some awards, medals, and affiliations might be relevant when you apply for certain positions. For example, if you are applying for a job with the Boy Scouts of America, your Eagle Scout status is relevant. On other job applications, the badges you earned while you were a Boy Scout which

Most of us like to start a project and see it through from start to finish. Signing on to run a going concern is a pretty safe bet. But what about tackling something that will make enormous demands on your abilities, energy, and experience but which has a lot of risk? Such as taking over a struggling private school?

Taking over a struggling business entails a lot of risk. However, you have talent and experience. So, let's examine what's involved in investigating a head of school position at a struggling school before you sign on. Here are eight keys to a successful business turnaround.

First, let's agree to define a struggling school as an institution with financial difficulties. Once you understand that you will have to do some hefty lifting raising money, that will help you focus on what has to be done. The truth is that most struggling schools didn't arrive in their present condition overnight. This is a train wreck that the previous head of school and the board saw coming for several years before now. Things have unfortunately gotten to the point that either the school gets turned around or it closes its doors for good.

Reasons why the school is struggling

Let's look at some of the reasons why a school finds itself facing difficult times.

Its business model is flawed.

A flawed business model usually results from the trustees and administration implementing programs and structures that do not meet the needs of potential

One of the basic differences between private and public schools is the fact that most public school teachers belong to a union. Does that make a difference for public school teachers? Does having a unionized faculty benefit schools? How did unions get involved with public education? Are private school faculties unionized? Basically, the question is, should teachers be unionized or not? My answer to that question is "Yes" if you teach in a public school and "No" if you teach in a private school. Let me explain why.

In Public Schools: The Case for Protection and Leverage

Public schools are essentially controlled by the government at the local, state, and national levels. They also are funded by taxpayers at all those levels. So it makes sense for teachers to want and need some protection from and leverage with those three quarters. The most potent protection public school teachers have is their union. Teacher unions also furnish the leverage or negotiating strength necessary to engage administrations in frank discussions about matters like compensation, class size, accountability, etc.

Private schools are funded primarily by the tuition fees paid by their customers, i.e., the parents of their students. Endowments and fundraising make up the delta between what tuition raises and the actual expenses for the school year. Income and expenses must align. Each private school is an independent corporate entity controlled by school trustees, not governments. Each private school has its own particular mission and educational goals. Each school hires teachers

Finding a job - any job - is difficult for everybody in today's job market, private school teachers and administrators included. One way to get your resume noticed, perhaps even read in detail, is by creating value. Here's how.

Why You Need to Project Value

Private schools have historically valued staff who are well-credentialed, enthusiastic and flexible. The reason why stems from the reality that private schools have only as many staff as they need. No more. What that means is that when there are gaps in the team, for whatever reason, the school needs somebody to fill that gap competently and cheerfully. On the fly.

Indications of Value

Credentials

Start with your credentials. Make certain that your academic qualifications align with the school's stated requirements as well as offer an additional specialty or two. For example, if you have a Masters degree in French language and literature and are applying for the school's French teacher position, it won't hurt to be proficient in Spanish or Portuguese, or Italian as well. Chinese would be even better. The point is that offering just a little more will give you an edge when the school begins to review the applications in depth.

If it has been several years since you completed your formal graduate studies, be sure to include some recent courses, workshops, and seminars that you have attended. It is important to show your prospective employer that you have not stopped learning. Make sure that there is no

It's kind of scary to realize that most openings for teaching positions regularly draw dozens of applications. Sometimes hundreds of applications. It never used to be like that. But these are tough times. Thousands of public school teachers lost their jobs in the downturn which began back in 2008. Thousands more new teachers are looking for their first job. In the meantime school budgets have been reduced, some drastically, by changing community demographics and changes in the local and regional economies. These are major factors which have changed the dynamics for teachers all over the nation. The realignments which follow these major changes take time to fall into place. For example, when a major employer shuts down a call center, an office or a plant, it will be years in most cases before that void is filled.

While many teachers might well prefer to remain in the public K-12 system or possibly teach at the tertiary level, the realities of the job market mean that those same teachers will also be competing for private school positions. In most cases the best a K-12 teacher can hope for as far as teaching college is concerned is some sort of adjunct instructor position. The reality is that those teachers will probably be applying for the same positions private school teachers are applying for as well.

Here are some tips to help you cope with the job search process in these tough times.

Be realistic.

Be realistic in your expectations