In my last hastily written post, I wrote about the process of interviewing from the side of the interviewers. That’s because I’ve been heavily immersed in it for the past few weeks. But it wasn’t so long ago that I was on the job market myself, writing personal statements, meeting myriad people, and giving my demo lessons. And as a first time teacher, I had no idea what to do or expect. I mean, I had my education classes, but they were ages ago (I went to grad school after getting certified to teach), and they didn’t cover any of the practical stuff on how to get a job.

Fortunately, my sister is in education — she teaches at an independent school in Massachusetts, and she went through the whole rigmarole and gave me loads of advice. She also put me in touch with a number of her teacher friends who I asked tons of questions to. I didn’t know the wide diversity of independent schools until I talked with them. Boarding? Day? Mixed boarding and day? How many classes is it normal to teach? How many different preps? What does a dorm parent do? etc.

I also did a lot of library/book research to find out salary information, how to write a good resume, and where to look to find public schools with openings (I’m certified in Massachusetts), and how to find independent schools with openings.

In other words, it wasn’t an easy process. But I learned a number of things along the way that I would recommend to anyone going on the job market. I think most of these mainly apply to independent schools, but I’m not sure…

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