Substitute Teachers Lounge

Substitute Teacher’s Perfect Job Application

December 11, 2021 Greg Collins Episode 134
Substitute Teachers Lounge
Substitute Teacher’s Perfect Job Application
Show Notes Transcript

There are ways to make you job application rise to the top of the stack.

Greg:

got to got to get a job. Let's see education, check. job experience. Check. Those two things are boring. Let's talk today about what will really get you that job. Whether you're a substitute teacher, a teacher, or students stick around, we've got stuff for you too. Alright guys, Greg Collins substitute teachers lounge, it is December 11 2021. Do you want to quickly say thoughts and prayers go out to the people of Mayfield, Kentucky, where a wicked tornado went through there Friday? I know, a lot of you got bad weather Friday. And I know it was bad enough that my friend in St. Louis, text me and to make sure we were okay. Because so because they could they had heard about it all the way out there. So prayers for those guys, and hopefully everybody is staying as safe as possible. You know, when I thought about doing this episode, it's one of those that I'm really thinking, man, what took me so long to do this one. And I know the reason I know now, three years after I started substitute teaching what I wish had been on my resume or job application. Some areas don't require resumes, some will let you attach one if you want to most school system to use in just like job applications, but it's basically the same information. Now, before you go down a path that you think I might be going on. Let me tell you, Yes, I think experience is important. Yes, I think education is important. But there are other things I guarantee you that school administrators want to see on your job application. And again, this will be good for substitute teachers, teachers, and we're going to talk about students. So I brought some of this up in a class this week. And one of the students just flat said, Mr. Collins, you are so correct. I wish more teachers would do that more substitute teachers would do that. So let's talk about all that stuff. And I'll be honest, from the get go, the thing I would most recommend you put on your job application, I'm going to save until the end, I originally thought I would do that because it belongs on the end of your job application or your resume. I'm not sure that's the case anymore, because I discussed it with a principle a couple of weeks ago. And they couldn't agree more, even though it's sometimes something that a teacher or substitute teacher is reluctant to put on their job application, because they might think that it's actually negative. So we'll talk about that at the end. Let's talk about some of the most exciting things first. And I know this is important, because some teachers shared with me at some schools, the fact that some of the things I know I'm better off than the teachers, most teachers don't know that. Is it? The subject I'm teaching no effect, I'm still the principal assures me at the school I'm in right now that they're glad to have me there. And I actually saw them at a volleyball match. I was refering talk to them a little while. And they had a friend setting with them. And they introduced me as Mr. Collins and said, he's our sub who's our science teacher right now. And I joked with her and said that, you that's what you all think I'm your science teacher? And she said, Oh, no, no, you are a science teacher and you do a good job at it. So that was reassuring. There's a lot of subjects I can't teach well, and I'm always very honest about that. But there are things that I know. Now, obviously, if you are not as knowledgeable in this area, I would recommend two things get knowledgeable in it doesn't take that much effort. Takes some time. And it takes some you know, I guess you know, desire to do that. But here's the first thing I mentioned. Let's talk Google. Okay. Google Classroom, not only was popular even before COVID, but it was almost a necessity afterwards. Here's what I recommend that you are able to put on your job and I don't put anything on there. That's not true, or is even a stretch of the truth, but truthful things on there. Now, the crazy thing is right now, I'm sure they're so desperate and substitutes. I know some schools are using them, they might not even be reading the job application. But that is not always going to be the case. So here's what you're going to do. Go to Google Classroom, go to a particular class, go into that class and click Assignments. And that's it's a different button based on whether you're doing it on your phone or on your computer. But that's easy enough to figure out, and then just play around with a quiz assignment, click quiz assignment, you can keep it in draft mode, while you're playing around with it, drop down to where a blank quiz is, and open it and you're good to go. Now, here's what you need to become knowledgeable of, if you're not already. And of course, if you are already, this knowledge needs to be written up on your resume. I'll talk about it after I describe it. So you're going to go into there, you're going to follow the directions for quiz assignment. There are in fact, I learned a new thing about it this week, I'll share with you there are so many things that you want to learn how to do, learn how to do a quiz assignment, you're basically just hitting pluses to add questions, you can put in sections, you've heard many episodes, go on this podcast, how you could use this to create a fun escape room for your students. I'm thinking about doing one of those. This week, we're coming up on a finals week in high school. And, you know, you don't want to just drill and lecture the whole time that kind of dries them out. So you want to kind of throw some fun stuff in there to educational but but but learn how to do that quiz assignment practice at it. There are just go back in our archives, there's a specific s episode about Google quiz assignment, learn from that. But what I want you to do today is learn it well enough that it's something you can put on your job application, your resume, put on there, knowledgeable of Google Classroom, and especially Google quiz assignment. In fact, if you want to squeeze on there some way how you are good enough at it, you're gonna say it exactly like that. But you're good enough at it that you could say that I've converted paper test to automated tests through Google quiz assignment for many teachers. That's impressive. They might want you to do that for them. I did that another time. This week, we still have a lot of teachers to give out paper test. And I just disliked paper so much, maybe it was cause I was an accountant for 38 years, and it's a paper shuffle. And it's just kind of turned me off. So anything I can do electronically, and grade automatically. That's the plus I do that now. So learn how to do quiz assignment. Speaking of the grade automatically, this is really where you need to point out your strength. Learn how to link a class to your Google Classroom from Infinite Campus. Then once you do that, this is by the way, the part that teachers told me at several schools. Well, with your knowledge of that, you've got more knowledge about how to use that the most of the teachers do. And here's what you can do. There is a feature when you design this quiz assignment that you can turn on grade export. It's on the quiz itself, then what happens once those students take that automatic quiz, they first of all know their scores right away, so they don't have to wait on you just score it, that's something they like to do. Plus, you don't have to manually grade, you're going to go in there turn on the grade export, it's going to update the grades, you click a button that says turned in and it sends an email to all those students about their grades. Then you go to the grade section, that classroom, and there is a button up in the upper right hand side. Assuming you've linked the classroom to Infinite Campus. The button is called si s export, guess what you click that. And those grades automatically roll over to Infinite Campus. So basically, here's what happens. You're learn how to design the test. You've learned how to export the grades, and you've learned how to send them to Infinite Campus. You're basically after you design the test, that's going to be the majority of your time. After you do that. You click two buttons after the testing is over. And those grades are already loaded. Now, with that knowledge. Figure out it's going to be different for everybody that wants to include on their resume, but the way I would include it is just bullet points, point out what you're able to do to help out the teacher. And that will go immensely towards making your resume stand out the key to make a resume stand out, don't make it the same boring thing all the time where it's experience on top and education afterwards, or you don't have that much experience yet, it's usually in the reverse. Put some of these bullet points at the top, so they can read them as a summary on the top, then they can go down to your detail on the bottom. So that's the first one get good at all the Google stuff, so that you can brag about your Google Classroom. I mean, that's what a resume is, you're bragging about yourself, Google Classroom, Google quiz assignment, and exporting grades, and teachers will be impressed. And they will probably even have put you to work a little bit more than they may have otherwise. So make that one of your bullet points at the top, you're going to have your name, your address, your phone number, maybe some of you are comfortable in sharing some of your social media things, I probably wouldn't. That still feels just a little unprofessional. For me, as far as any teaching environment. If you know, if you follow the school, and know that they use social media a lot, well, then maybe you can put that on there, I would hold off on that. But make your Google experience one of your bullet points at the top before you even list education, and job experience. The other thing that needs to be one of your bullets is your knowledge of Kahoot or Quizlet, or quizzes. I'm a Kahoot guy you know that I'm licensed in it, I've taken their classes, I am always going to brag about that on a resume, I'm going to try to pull the description as much away from Kahoot being considered a game as over to how they can use Kahoot for testing how they can use Kahoot for designing their own test and letting the public use it and get your views to go up. If you've designed some that haven't had over 1000 plays, put that as one of your bullet points. But definitely put on there knowledgeable of using the Kahoot tool as a testing mechanism using Quizlet. The thing I like about Quizlet most is their flashcards. I like that a little bit about Kahoot too. They have flashcards feature too, but thirds is more of a premium thing. So make sure you put everything that you're knowledgeable in in Kahoot. You know how to design the test. And if you don't, there's an episode about that. When you're talking about podcast, the biggest thing to measure is how many listens you get in that first week. The Kahoot is number one this year, the Kahoot episode. Interestingly enough, last week's episode is number two, not that far behind Kahoot. The one about do teachers look down on substitute teachers that was a really popular one. But the Kahoot is the most popular one of the year in its first seven days, when you compare it to seven days or the other episodes. It's because there are a lot of people that use that. Make sure one of those bullet points is that you know how to use Kahoot to give test that will impress the people as well. Now, before we talk about just listing your job experience, I mean, the most boring thing you can put on there is something to the effect of I have substitute taught for three years at eight schools. If I did it that way, I'm not sure I would hire myself. Here's what I recommend you do. Make a list on a piece of paper that has every different grade, every different type of student type of student by specialization, anything like that, if you've had there's called different things in different areas. If you've had exceptional child training, and teaching, make sure you put down that if you've had FM D training, make sure you put down that highlight the areas that you are really strong at, but also be willing to list the ones that you're not as strong at but that you do have experience. The more of those you can put down, the better off you will be rather than just saying I've got three years of substitute teaching experience or I got three years of a teaching experience. I'm retired I want to substitute teach now. That's kind of a boring way of saying it. say alright, I have long term experience in teaching math. So Science and biomedical, I could list that now, I could put down strong in math, taught many grades in math classes be more clever than that I'm kind of reeling some of these off the top of my head now, but make sure you're as specific as possible in that regard. Education's the same way, you could say, bachelor's or master's degree in whatever your area you're in. Mine is an accounting, specifically, it's called Business Administration with emphasis in accounting, and I have a Master's of Business Administration. And of course, I've always had that on a resume and it helped get get helps get hired. But be specific about things you were involved with, with your college. So that you can emphasize that or even with your high school assistant, the teacher or the professor with specific projects, and lists that projects name, make sure they know what it was about, make sure that it was something to the effect of ways to better teach students how to understand independent and dependent variables when doing math or for that matter, science. Because that's basically just charting and things like that, be as specific as you possibly can, that will pay off too. So we've got specific bullet points at the top, we've got bullet points within your education and experience put the best stuff at the top, when they get to the part about you had an MBA that's boring to them, they need to know that. But that's boring to them to read over that because everybody looks the same way. Interesting. No, nothing. A little side note about resumes. I listened to a podcast this week about a guy that started up a company. In fact, he was trying to get a job with Disney, some something in there management. And he thought his resume was pretty strong. He knew they were taken 50 candidates, and he didn't get called back. And he was shocked because he thought his resume was strong. So he went to a workshop conducted by them and talk to one of the managers they looked at, they said, Man, that really is a strong resume. I'm surprised you didn't get called back here was the answer. He said, Oh, your resumes longer than one page, our system automatically picks those out. I'm not sure Disney is more specific, is any more specific than anybody else. But I would always shoot for having your resume no longer than one page. It's easy to do these days because of fonts. And you can create, you can squeeze anything onto one page as possible. And that don't make though, don't, don't make it overwhelming. Don't put so much on there that it makes that one page the font on it. And the size of the letter is so small, that nobody can even read it, or they have to strain to read it. But bullet points at the top, you're going to eventually put the education experience. And the other thing, the one I wanted to emphasize most, I was gonna say put it at the bottom. But I think now it belongs at the top. And here it is put down. While something to the effect of while educating those students is important. Building relations ships with them come first, I shared my philosophy in that regard with administrators. And every time I've done it, they said You are so right. So get in a habit of putting a paragraph, couple of sentences at the most at the top that says something to the effect. And I'm not going to give you something specific to write down because I think it's going to be a little different with everyone else, given your personality. And by all means if you don't agree with this, don't put it down just to sound a little bit better. But something of the effect of I feel is important to build. The most important thing in education is to build relationships with the students first, build positive relationships that you know is going to help them enjoy the class. Then, since they will enjoy the class more when you're in there. They will be more willing to participate in the educational parts. So build relationships first, the education part of it falls in place after that. Make sure you say it that way. Don't just go in and say I want to build relationships. Students, I don't care that much about education. What you need to say is, I think it's important to build relationships students with the students first, before we're able to teach them properly. And before they're motivated to do so, a wise man said, satisfied satisfy physiological needs first. And everything else comes after that. Now, I'm not saying go in and feed those students, but feed their most immediate needs first, feed their need for just wanting somebody they can like as a teacher, or as a substitute teacher, fulfill their need to see somebody up there that's going to be positive, that's going to understand if they make a mistake or two. But they you still want to have a relationship with them that will lead to their stronghold in their age education. So you've got your resume, all set, put your bullets at the top, hopefully just one line or two lines at the most for each bullet, maybe five at the most I wouldn't go any higher than that. Put this paragraph right underneath that about my emphasis, my strategy, whatever you want to call it, just for the heck of it. I don't like the word philosophy. I think philosophy is boring. I went in and pulled up some synonyms for philosophy. You could use beliefs. Credo faith convictions, ideology, ideas, thinking notions, theories, doctrine, tenants values, principles, ethics, attitude, view, viewpoint outlooks, a good word, use any of those words that you want to create one of your own. But by all means it's bullets, paragraphs, and then education and experience and in the education experience, which one everyone you have the most of put it at the top. And in both of those put down specific examples, not boring education, and then you're good to go. You've got your resume ready, and you're going to show everybody exactly how you feel about yourself as a substitute teacher or a teacher. And I bet your resume moves to the top of the stack