When should I start to apply for jobs

[Warmday]

Hello all.

I’m unsure here, I’ve seen some jobs come up in my area. Some of the schools I’m not sure about as due to covid you cannot view the schools. I’m adamant I don’t want to stay at placement school even if a job opens up.

If I applied to one a while back (7 weeks) and have not heard. How long should I wait? I’ve seen some come up but I don’t want to frantically apply.
When is the peak times when jobs come out. Getting a little worried now As a lot of people are securing jobs and I’m waiting to hear back and I’m not sure if I should really be making at least 2 more applications.

Help?

This is a good time to be applying. When you apply, look at the closing date as schools will short list and notify candidates who have secured an interview shortly after this.

7 weeks since it closed? Or 7 weeks since you applied? If it's over a month past the closing date I would be forgetting that one and making new applications.
It's just entering peak job season now so it's a good time to get applying - and for the next couple of months. Dont get too fixated on a particular school- cast your net as widely as you can geographically and get applying in decent quantity so you start getting interviews.

@Ploughingthrough how many do you suggest I make. Also correction it’s been 4 weeks. But I’ll just take this as a no anyway. It’s just a bit disheartening working ages on the application:(

Apply for anything that looks suitable and that you might like.
You can always pull out if you get another job. You're not going to get anything if you dont make quite a lot of applications.
Rejection is part of the game in any industry, and yeah it's frustrating as you spend a lot of time on applications. It's just part of life and you'll need to toughen up your skin a little and just keep applying. Remember teaching is quite fluid, if you get something and it's not your dream job then you can always move on after a couple of years.

Just apply for any jobs you like the look of and that are open for you to apply. Round us, secondary jobs are beginning to come thick and fast now, but there have only been two local primary jobs for September advertised so far.
Some of our last year's trainees applied for 15 or 16 jobs last year during lockdown. They all got one by the start of the year. Some got the first one they applied for and a couple were offered jobs in their placement school without an advert.
It varies.

For those that remember this is the time of year when the TES Newspaper used to start getting fatter and fatter every week with the job adverts 😂 between now and May half term is peak vacancy time and then after May half term the jobs of all those who resigned for those vacancies will start to be advertised so there's a second peak of possibilities for NQTs.

Apply for anything you like the look of, OP, maybe set yourself a limit of 3 a week for now just so you aren't spending all your time and energy on trying to fill in badly-formatted forms!

Has no one at university given you advice on this? Trainees that I deal with seem to get loads of help and advice on when to apply, what to apply for etc.

But as PP have said, you need to get on with applying & you need to apply for loads. In my experience, jobs outside of teaching are even worse for rejections - many people will apply for well over 100 jobs before they even get an interview, whereas it doesn't tend to be anything like as bad as that in teaching, but I teach a secondary, shortage subject. Even then, I reckon I don't hear back from 3/4 of all jobs I apply for (probably because I'm expensive).