Junior High History Teacher

Kathleen N. "I teach 8th graders in the State of Texas everything they need to know about US History, from our colonization to the time period known as Reconstruction, after the Civil War."

Education

---

Required License(s) You must have a  teaching certificate in the area you wish to teacher (e.g., to teach History, you must take the History exam, to teach English, the English exam).

Required Degree(s) Bachelor's degree

Importance of GPA somewhat important

What do you need to do to maintain your license(s)?

You must obtain a certain number of professional development hours in order to keep your teaching certificate active.

Kathleen's Highest Degree: Bachelor's degree
Kathleen's College Major: Bachelor's of Liberal Arts in History with a Teaching Certificate in a Single Field and a minor in English
Kathleen's College GPA: 3.6-3.9

Salary

---

It completely depends on the state you live in. 

I started my teaching career in Florida and the salary was only about $32,000 a year. But in the state of Texas, the salary jumps to about $50,000 a year. It all depends on the state and school district you work for.

Getting the Job

---

How did you get your job?

I knew a person working in the district I wanted to be in. She talked to the principal of her school and then after I applied, I was called and asked to come in for an interview. It does help to know someone in the district you want to work for, but you don't necessarily have to know someone. I know plenty of teachers who have gotten jobs simply based on their qualifications, resumes, and references.  That is how I obtained my very first teaching job in Florida.

How important was networking to landing your position?

Fairly important, but not essential. If you want to move up at all in eduction, that is when who know matters more.

Life on the Job

---

What is a typical day (or week) for you like?

A typical day starts at about 6:00. I'm at school between 7:00 and 7:10 am. Students start coming into my classroom at around 7:30. I go through 2 periods teaching the same thing with a slightly modified lesson because the level of students is different in my first two classes of the day. Third period is my planning period. I usually use it to grade papers, make copies, lesson plan, or plan with the others on my team. Periods 4, 5, and 7 are the same as periods 1 and 2. Period 6 is a little different because I go down to the gym and help out with our athletics period since I am a coach at the school. (I coach 8th grade volleyball and 7th grade girls basketball. It keeps me pretty busy during the Fall and Winter but I love it.) I round out the day with 8th period advisory. Once the school day is officially over, it's on to more grading, calling parents, inputting grades, going to faculty meetings, helping out with the school's History club, or tutoring students who need the extra help. As teachers, we put in so much extra work that it's often I'm not home until 5:30 or 6:00 in the evening.

How closely does your typical day (or week) match up to the general "job description" for your position?

Pretty much exactly. (Although the extra hours can catch up to after a while.)

Does being a woman affect any aspect of your career?

I think at times it does. But I do work in a female-dominated field. Plus most students are used to having females as their teacher rather than males.

What is the best thing about your job?

Getting to talk about history all day long is great! I love history and I love passing on my love of history to my students. And even though there are days when they drive me absolutely insane, I do love my students. It's fun seeing them mature and grow from the beginning of the year to the end.

What is the worst thing about your job?

Dealing with difficult students and parents, and state standards. They are the worst!

How demanding is your job?

My job isn't too tough physically. (I usually make my students do the heavy lifting!) Mentally it can be exhausting. You cannot be a shy or timid person (especially with middle school students) because they will eat you up and spit you out.

Do you have any advancement opportunities?

Yes there are. You can become an Instructional Coach, which gets you out of the classroom but still working with your chosen subject area, a Vice- Principal, Principal, or you can move up and work for the districts Central Office. I'm not sure if I want to take those next steps or not. I may be interested in becoming an Instructional Coach at some point, but as of now I have no desire to be a Vice-Principal or Principal.

Advice for You

---

What are the skills, characteristics, or talents that are most important to be effective in your position?

You must be organized, able to multi-task, patient (SO PATIENT), caring, understanding, stern, open, firm,

What advice would you give to someone thinking about pursuing a career like yours?

Teaching is not a walk in the park, like some people seem to think. Yes we get holidays off and long summers, but we work very hard during the school year and get very little credit for that work. You have to really enjoy working with kids, adolescents, and teenagers to be able to survive the education, and you have to have a pretty thick skin. Kids today can be brutal. So don't go in thinking this is going to be easy. It will be hard but at the end of the day will be very rewarding!

If you could do it over again, would you still pursue the same career?

I think so. There are times when I think about what else I could have done with my History degree. But I enjoy teaching history, I enjoy working with young people, and I enjoy the people I get to work with.

Follow Up

---

Want to learn more? Check out Kathleen's site here. Want to read later? Pin me -->

Team Manager Success Team, Chef Software

Note from Nicole: Marsha is a Team Manager for Chef Software. "Chef" is both the name of a company and the name of the software the company provides. Chef, the software, is an automation platform, meaning it focuses on the relationship between parts of a system to understand how changing one part of the system might affect the system as a whole.

However, the career advice Marsha provides below spans career industries, and is worth reading no matter what job you are seeking.

Marsha "I ensure post sales customer satisfaction, through pro serve consulting and technical services delivery, to maintain and/or increase product adoption."

Education

---

Required License(s) For initial credibility, I had to get a few InfoSec certificates. It was useful for my job but not critical.

Required Degree(s) A Master's degree is good because it is often an interviewing gatekeeper.

Importance of GPA not very important

What do you need to do to maintain your license(s)?

To maintain my certificates, I need to do professional hours against criteria set by the certification authority (usually about 40 hours of continuing education a year, plus some fees).

Marsha's Highest Degree: Bachelor's degree (Bachelor of Arts) and MBA
Marsha's College Major: Bachelor's in English
Marsha's College GPA Range: 3.1-3.5

Salary

---

For Technical Project Managers (where I was about eight years ago) the range was about $110,000 -$130,000. 

As a leadership team member, you generally make more. 

Getting the Job

---

How did you get your job?

My initial job in consulting was landed in great part due to my security clearance I got during my time in the Army. In that first job, I spent nearly a decade learning all I could to be better technically, responding to proposals, and volunteering for many projects to be as well rounded and employable as possible. After I left that first job and moved to a new company, I began to set only 3-5 year goals before I would anticipate a transition to a new employer. Sometimes that transition took place sooner, sometimes later. Either way, knowing I would need to demonstrate substantive impact in a year or two kept me sharp, or the resume would look unimpressive for that job, right?

How important was networking to landing your position?

9 out of 10. I have always valued networking over all. And not as a catalyst to my success but also as a way to help others succeed too. Kind of a Career Karma bank.

Life on the Job

---

What is a typical day (or week) for you like?

I am fortunate in that for my last three jobs I have worked from home/worked remote. My current company has about 70% of staff remotely working. So my weekdays are pretty routine. (Let the dog out, let the cats in, take kids to school, get more coffee, head to my home office and start work around 8am.) I am managing a team of 7 folks at this time, and I am ensuring they are happy, busy, engaged, enabled to do their job, and learning more each day so they can be more helpful to other team members and our clients. We use Slack for 75% of communication, and Zoom for our meetings. I feel very connected to both my internal team, but also the many other Chef team members because of our level of use of these mediums. I talk with many clients per week, interface with our sales staff to write proposals and contracts, and I propose ways to improve our business processes and get the word out about our great company and product.

How closely does your typical day (or week) match up to the general "job description" for your position?

The job description is filled with tasks and activities, like most jobs have. However, the nuances of listening and being a true consultant require me to be an advisor, focused on earning trust with my team, my managers, my clients, really everyone I interface with, and that is a day by day demonstration of positive, friendly interactions and behaviors that help me achieve my professional goals for my company. So I rely heavily on soft skills that do not easily translate to a job description per se.

Does being a woman affect any aspect of your career?

It has. I enjoy being a woman in a to-date male dominated profession, but it has taken many jobs to get to a place that wholly values what I bring to the table as much as the technical engineers bring. It is hard to find companies that understand that to create a world-class team, there need to be a balance of both soft and hard skills, and that everyone benefits when one-upsmanship is frowned upon while collaboration is lauded.

What is the best thing about your job?

The people I get to work with every day, and that I get to contemplate the future of cloud computing and automation (I'm a dreamer that way) and help my customers find their way to get there.

What is the worst thing about your job?

I don't know. Nothing really. I think I would still work here even if I won the lottery.

How demanding is your job?

I view the need for mental toughness to be a requirement to protect oneself when there are political issues rife within a company, or when the culture is broken, morale is low, turnover high, and you leave each day exhausted for the struggle. So in that way, I do not need a flack jacket at this job. I don't steel myself each day. I actually look forward to interacting with my team members. And we have unlimited PTO [paid time off], so if I need a mental health day, or the day off to take my kid to a doctors appointment or chaperone a field trip, I just do it. I've worked long and hard to get to this place. I absolutely do not take this for granted.

Do you have any advancement opportunities?

Yes, I can transfer laterally to work with products or be an Engineering Manager. I can move vertically when the company grows or someone departs. But since I have only been in my position for 6 months, I feel it is incumbent on me to serve as a strong leader in my current position until I have made it the best it can be and I have identified and trained a sufficient backfill so as not to leave the team in a lurch. I love to imagine being more to a company whose values so closely mirror my own and that push me to learn and grow.

Advice for You

---

What are the skills, characteristics, or talents that are most important to be effective in your position?

Me personally, the ability to use my high EQ [emotional intelligence] to put myself in the shoes of my customers who may in fact be struggling with a challenging, politically charged difficult environment. I care when people hurt, and to gain insights to their issues and respond with kindness, warmth, and a potential solution is pivotal to my success (and in my opinion, for anyone doing my/my kind of job).

What advice would you give to someone thinking about pursuing a career like yours?

Nowadays, plan only 3-5 years ahead. You will be exposed to so much in that time that I am sure if you have any energy or drive or ambition, it will redefine what you think you want. That does not mean you are wishy-washy—it simply means you can go with the flow. That, in my opinion, will be more and more critical to your professional survival should you find you do not win the lottery this week and need to continue to work for the next 50 years.

If you could do it over again, would you still pursue the same career?

I would not say I pursued this career. But would I follow the same path? Yes. Were it not for my crappy, I'd-rather-do-anything-but-this-job jobs, I would not have worked so hard to find the perfect-for-me-right-now place, where I currently, happily find myself.

Follow Up

---

Want to learn more? You can connect with Marsha using LinkedIn here. According to Marsha, "If you personalize your request to connect, I almost always will connect back. I love to meet motivated, like-minded professionals."

ESL Teacher

Amy "I'm currently teaching first graders in a bilingual school here in Budapest. As an ESL teacher, I've also taught in Prague. In Prague, I taught pre-school, kindergarten, English club, and had private child clients and private clients at businesses. It's a job that varies wherever you are in the world!"

Education

---

Required License(s) Some countries require a TEFL/TESOL certificate

Required Degree(s) A Bachelor's degree

Importance of GPA not very important

What do you need to do to maintain your license(s)?

To obtain my certificate, I took a month long intensive course in Prague. There are many of these courses, all over the world.  As tempting as it is to live in say, Paris, for a month, it is best to take a course somewhere you will more likely to be able to find a job, since you'll have built-in networking at your program.

Amy's Highest Degree: Bachelor's degree (Bachelor of Arts) and Master's degree
Amy's College Major: Bachelor's in English and Master's in Psychology.
Amy's College GPA Range: 3.1-3.5

Salary

---

ESL teachers have a huge range of pay, primarily depending on the country. Generally, an ESL teacher can get paid more in Asia or the Middle East. While I don't make very much here in Budapest, at least by US standards, my salary package includes perks: like a free apartment! Plus, the cost of living is quite low here. 

Getting the Job

---

How did you get your job?

I found my job thanks to the internet (research!), and then I happened to meet a woman teaching for my current program in Hungary, which solidified my decision. From there, I reached out to see if there were any openings in the program, interviewed for a few, and the rest is history.

How important was networking to landing your position?

For this particular position, not so important, although it helped to have good references. In Prague, I found the best jobs through networking, so it depends on where you are.

Life on the Job

---

What is a typical day (or week) for you like?

My days vary greatly, but here is one example: I wake up at around 6am, take an hour-long commute and begin teaching at 8:45am. I teach in 45-minute blocks approximately, with breaks in between, although my breaks still involve supervising the children. I have lessons until about 1.30pm, then a staff meeting, then planning for the following days. Depending on the planning and the commute, I get home anytime between 2-5pm. Often I plan at home, too.

How closely does your typical day (or week) match up to the general "job description" for your position?

My job description is not entirely accurate, as I am not a main class teacher. Rather, I co-teach with a Hungarian teacher. This is not necessarily unique to be an English teacher, although I wasn't expecting this dynamic in this particular job. However, I do teach less than I thought—and on the flip side, I plan much more than I thought I would have to.

Does being a woman affect any aspect of your career?

Teaching is often a female-dominated field, especially while working with elementary age children, and in more old-fashioned countries, they still don't hire men to work with very young children. Since I am newly married, many people have questioned if I will be leaving soon to have children—perhaps if I ever say yes to this question while being interviewed, I wouldn't get the job!

What is the best thing about your job?

The students!

What is the worst thing about your job?

The politics!

How demanding is your job?

It was quite demanding at first, but now that I have been here over 3 months it is getting better. I always get very invested in my students, so it is hard on me mentally and emotionally if I don't practice self-care. Physically, I am on my feet and moving most of the day, which is great for my health but also exhausting!

Do you have any advancement opportunities?

In my current position, there is little room for advancement, unless I stay for over 5 years. However, I will be taking a different position next fall—same job at a different school. I'm not sure how long I will be staying there, but there is more opportunity for advancement.

Advice for You

---

What are the skills, characteristics, or talents that are most important to be effective in your position?

Creative, open-minded, interest in new cultures, adaptability.  Teaching is not easy, and going overseas will present its own set of different challenges.

What advice would you give to someone thinking about pursuing a career like yours?

Do it! ;) It's amazing to get the chance to live somewhere else and have a job, which is the main reason people are drawn to this career. Many people do it for the short-term, however, and it is a great experience just for a year or two. I would recommend, though, that you take the teaching aspect seriously as well as the traveling aspect, no matter how long you are going to do it—it might be just a way to help you fund your travels, but for your students, their education will impact their whole lives!

If you could do it over again, would you still pursue the same career?

Yes! I love my job and I love that I get to live in different countries while I do it. I would do a few things differently, however: get started sooner, maybe right of out of my undergrad, and I would get certified to teach in the United States as well.

Follow Up

---

Want to learn more? Check out Amy's site here. Want to read later? Pin me -->