Another way to get a jump start on the market before students flood the schools for jobs is to start your search early in your last semester of school. Schools know by February or March if they will have jobs to fill for the next academic year. So if you begin your search for a teaching position in March or April, you can often land an interview or even secure a position for the fall long before many of your contemporaries in school begin their hunt for their first teaching job.
Becoming proactive like this always gives you the advantage in finding the job you really want rather than just “any job” in the teaching profession. Spend some time narrowing down exactly what kind of teaching position you want and at what level you feel your personality and teaching style will benefit students the most. You may do much better with young children than with teenagers or you may wish to focus on high school students because they are more intellectually equipped to grasp the subject matter with you. By knowing well in advance where you want to teach, you can target those kinds of positions in your job search and improve your chances of finding that perfect teaching job.
You should make the phrase “leave no stone unturned” your motto for hunting up the teaching jobs that are open in your community. First of all, be very proactive in your search. Just because you are graduating, even with honors, with your teaching degree that doesn’t mean the schools will seek you with jobs. Take the search to them before someone else does, in doing so it will be you that gets the premium teaching positions rather than have to take “what’s left” after the good teaching positions are snatched up by more aggressive graduates.
