I will do a final recap of my February goal soon, but today is the first day of March so I feel the need to get a new goal down in writing.
While at work today I thought about this a lot... what do I need to change in my life. I came up with several thing I think I could work on, but I think some are more pressing than others. So here is my goal for March:
Prepare for Job Search 2011
Unfortunately this has to be a more serious goal than perhaps my last two have been. Yet the reality is my job is in jeopardy for next year, and right around now is when job postings start popping up for area school districts, and I have to be ready. I'm tired of searching for a new job every spring. I graduated college five years ago, and this certainly isn't where I thought I'd be career wise. So this time I'm coming out "guns blazing." I'm starting from scratch.
Instead of just updating my resume I'm redoing it now. After last year and this year's positions I have a lot more real world experience to highlight. I'm rewriting my cover letter from scratch. (Does anyone else find cover letters super awkward?) I'm creating a website that highlights my experiences and skills as a teacher- an online portfolio if you will.
I know that I am good at what I do. Now I just have to convince everyone else of this. If any of you have creative ideas to make me stand out from the crowd please let me know. Any tips, tricks, and suggestions are very very welcome!
Do you have your dream job? If so how did you find it?
Sara,
ReplyDeleteI had the head of the Writing Commons on campus come into my first class this semester to talk about resumes, cover letters, and assignments. I found it very interesting that she suggested that you should have a new resume for every job you apply, because there may be one time that your volunteer experience is more relevant than your work experience and so on. She suggested instead to have a document which contains anything you have ever done: volunteer, education, work, high school even so that when you read a job description you can just pull from that and work your resume that way. I still haven't done it, but when I'm done with school I probably will.
As for cover letters, she said really to write them like an essay. I hate them myself, I'm not good at talking about myself and also end up seeing how I don't fit the job versus how I'd be really good at it. She said also to make sure when there is maybe one requirement that you don't have you put it out there, like "while I am not fluent in Spanish, I do have 4 years of education under my belt and feel that in a classroom I would quickly learn fluency." Or something to that regard.
Best of luck in your job search! I'll be right there with you.