Careers After Teaching

[walthamcross]

I'm in a temporary job, which they have offered an extension taking me to a total of 18 months at the school. It's really nice, but as it's a maternity, the "owner" of the job will rightly want it back.

I'm really not sure whether to accept the extension or jump now - but I'm really not sure where to start looking for jobs outside the profession, nor what I could do. I'm quite lucky that my monthly outgoings total about £1000 all in, everything asides the mortgage is paid off and that I have a supportive partner. Any ideas?

[DriftingOff]

It’s sometimes worth trying another school before leaving teaching altogether - it could just be the particular school you’re in that is making you want to leave. However, if that’s not for you, you could try the following:

1. Subscribe to emails alerts for various job websites, like job site, total jobs, job centre etc. - there’s others besides these. Put in keywords related to your skills and what you enjoy doing (or don’t, look at everything, and see what takes your fancy).
   
2. Go into your local recruitment agency and see what they have to offer.
   

Look around your local town at all the businesses/organisations there. If they’re big enough they may have a website with a job section. For larger businesses (banks, supermarkets, schools, hospitals, GP surgeries) you may be able to just walk in and ask about jobs. Also, what seems to be taking your fancy when you look at these businesses? Retail, banking, a particular charity, vet surgery?

1. Buy all your local papers every week and look in their jobs section.
   
2. Think about what you enjoy/don’t enjoy about teaching eg. do you still want to work with children, or are you sick of the sight of them? Are you passionate about a particular subject? Do you prefer the admin side of the job?
   
3. Go back to university and retrain completely.
   
4. Buy some stock and sell it on ebay/amazon etc.
   
5. If you are within commuting distance of a university then consider university admin (look on their website, on the jobs pages).
   
6. Do you have a hobby that you are passionate about, that you could turn into a business?
   
7. Look on the websites of educational publishing companies - you may be able to do sales/marketing for those.
   

10. Look on your local council website - they may have a jobs page.
11. I have heard of ex-teachers going into the following: education officer for charity, starting own business, university admin, educational publishing, non-teaching job in a school, law + every other job you can think of.

[walthamcross]

For me, it's more about being able to switch off! Thought about coming down to part time but few teaching jobs come part-time!