As educators, we often struggle with imposter syndrome — we’re told that teaching is not as important as doing, we’re underpaid, and it’s a crowded job market so it’s harder to get interviews and see how your skills are valued outside of the classroom.

If you feel like you’re not sure how your skills fit into a different professional context, here are a few methods to use to unpack the skills you have and find the right edskip for you.

Here are four distinct methods you can use to search for roles you’re well-aligned to: 

1) Find jobs related to your SME — this is most likely the subject area you teach or particular teaching methodologies (for example, a specific curriculum) or a population of students (special education, for example). You may also have unique SME from outside of your job — you might be an active volunteer for the legislative committee of a climate action group, for example. 

2) Find jobs related to your teaching SME — these are roles that are looking for candidates who understand education, the current teaching landscape, and ‘how schools work.’ These can be roles like Customer Success or Sales or teacher-facing roles like Professional Learning Specialists.

3) Find jobs related to your functional skills — these are roles that look for skills that educators do well: project management, facilitation, curriculum development, training, and so forth. Again, you may also have these skills from outside your current job — you might be the chair of your library’s fundraising group, bringing in lots of money from regular annual events, for example. 

4) Learn something entirely new (“upskilling”) and find an entry-level job in that job area or combine that new skill with others on your list of functional skills and find some ways to demonstrate your abilities (using it in your current job or in a volunteer gig or so forth).