General Job Seaching Tips

Chock Full of Vitamin C Good Advice!

The job search is a daunting task, especially for future music teachers.  I'm very thankful that I got a somewhat early start on the whole process.  I took my Praxis test in January and once I got my scores in early February, I knew I would be able to start looking for jobs and be on my way to certification.  I highly recommend getting an early start on taking any state-mandated tests so that you know if you'll get the grades and be able to start looking for jobs ahead of the rest of the pack.

My Firefox is unhappy every day when I open 19 tabs of school websites and job search engines.  I check these sites every single day because that way I don't have to look at the whole page; I just use the "find" function (ctrl+F for all you PC peeps out there and probably command+F for the Macs) and put in the date so new postings pop up quickly.  I knew of a few sites that were specific to education jobs in my state and then began to look at other job posting sites as well, such as the local newspaper classified.  I also bookmarked the human resources pages of neighboring school districts because not all schools advertise past their website (which I didn't realize when I first set out to find positions).  

The career services office at my now former (woah) college offers a service where you can pay them to keep all of your credentials on file - aka they'll make sure that the appropriate human resources people at the places you are applying receive all of your letters of recommendation and other pertinent factoids about your life as an academic while ensuring confidentiality.  The theory is that the writer of a letter of recommendation will be more honest if they know the student won't see the finished letter. Valid concern, but in these days with all of the electronic applications, those credential files seem to be falling by the wayside.  Websites such as Applitrack and School Spring require you to upload PDFs of your letters of recommendation, resume, certification, Praxis scores, etc.  There is no way that you can claim confidentiality when you will have to upload the letters of recommendation as PDFs.  What I did was contact people that I wanted to write me letters of recommendation and tell them upfront that I would need the file as a PDF so that I could input it on the job website.  Professors and other teachers that you would ask for letters know that online apps exist and won't think it's some kind of ploy to be able to read what they say about you.  And it saves you like $30.00! 


Besides looking online for postings, be sure that you tell any/all current music teachers that you know that you are/will be looking for jobs in that area.  An especially good way to achieve this is to go to your state music teaching conference (NYSSMA, NJMEA, PMEA, etc.).  During my junior year, I went to two state conferences and when I was talking to teachers that I knew (and some that I didn't) I mentioned that I would be looking for jobs during that time next year.  Just putting it out there has been a great help.  In addition to getting emails from the listserve run by my alma mater (okay that's weird to say), I've gotten emails from current teachers in my state who have let me know that they are anticipating openings in their district or in a nearby town.  It's great to have current teachers looking out for you and making that connection early is never a bad thing.  


I hope this will be helpful to you, my loyal readers. And yes, I do believe that you are loyal even though this blog-to-reader relationship is still so new. I'm a trusting person, I guess. No but really, I hope that this helps my undergrad friends in their journey into the real world. If I think of any other informative tidbits, I'll be sure to let you know.