✏️ How Long Should it Take Me to Transition Out of the Classroom?
"How long will it take me to find a job outside of the classroom"? Great question, but a difficult one to answer.
As a career coach working solely with teachers who want to leave the classroom, I get this question CONSTANTLY. But this is also the most difficult question to answer because there’s truly no right or wrong answer.
I’ve seen teachers transition out of the classroom after only applying to a handful of jobs, which took them less than two months (this is pretty rare though), and I’ve seen other teachers who have been applying for a year (this is much more realistic).
Seriously, mileage may vary on your career pivot out of teaching. It depends on so many factors, that I can’t tell you a hard and fast number on this one!
My Career Pivot Timeline
The best evidence I can give you for a somewhat “normal” career transition timeline is my own. So here’s what my career transition from higher education teaching into instructional design looked like:
🎄 December 2019: My contract was up for renewal in 2020, but my admin told me and everyone else who was up for renewal in 2020 that our contracts were not being renewed due to budgetary cuts. COOL. I went home and cried for about a week before going into job search overdrive.
❄️ January 2020: I started applying to jobs with the spray and pray method…basically applying to ANYTHING that I thought I was remotely qualified for. At this point, I wanted to remain in higher education, so I was really focusing on jobs at the university where I already worked, along with our local community college and some other smaller, private schools around the area.
💘 February 2020: I started getting some interviews, mostly from the university where I was currently employed. I interviewed for a wide range of jobs, including: financial aid representative, accommodations coordinator (I actually REALLY wanted this job and was devastated not to get it), office administrator for a few different departments, DEI coordinator, academic advisor, and more.
😷 March 2020: COVID happened, and everything went wild. There were hiring freezes everywhere, so many of the jobs I had applied to or was in the middle of interviewing for put the job search on hold, or canceled it altogether. I was now trying to juggle my regular teaching schedule remotely, applying for jobs, and guiding my students through an incredibly difficult time. I pivoted into applying for remote “for now” jobs, narrowing my search to instructional design, learning design, and curriculum design. I was still mostly focused on a job in higher education (because I was absolutely terrified of a corporate job!).
🌹 April 2020: I wasn’t getting a ton of traction on jobs, there were either hiring freezes everywhere, or the jobs were super competitive. I interviewed for maybe 2-3 jobs in April, and was feeling pretty desperate because I needed to have a job lined up when the school year ended in May. I ended up taking a part-time job at a local grocery store to make a little extra money, and to ensure I had SOME kind of work if I couldn’t get a job.
🌞 May 2020: The job market was still difficult due to COVID, and I had one job that I was really banking on. It was for an instructional design associate and it was remote until return to office (in a different state, but I decided that I would cross that bridge when I got to it). I completed three rounds of interviews for this job, and they offered it to me about a week before the end of the semester! So I didn’t even need to put in a two week notice with my teaching position 😆 I just wrapped up my end-of-the-semester tasks, cleaned out my office, and peaced out of teaching!
Altogether, I say that my actual career transition took ~5 months, but truthfully I started playing around with the idea of moving on to a different career around 2017/2018, so when 2020 rolled around, I was already mentally one step out the door.
How Long Does a Career Transition Take in 2024?
With all that being said, my career transition timeline was average at the time. When you ask recruiters or career coaches about transitioning out of the classroom and into a different career, they’ll tell you that this usually takes 3-6 months.
However, I think this advice is now out of date, and doesn’t take into account the current job market. And frankly, the current job market is BRUTAL. With all the layoffs happening in 2023-2024, teachers are competing not only with other teachers in the job market for a limited amount of positions, but they’re also competing with those who have been laid off (who will have more experience and skills directly relevant to whatever position they’re apply for).
This doesn’t even take into account all the prep you have to do for a future career and to make yourself a desirable candidate for whatever career you’re transitioning into. This might include upskilling in certain areas (like learning software or tech that’s required in the industry you want to break into), completing certificate programs (such as the CAPM), and creating portfolios and sample work items (depending on what career you’re interested in, such as instructional design). When you factor all of these into your career transition timeline, it makes sense that it’ll likely take you 6+ months to find a new job.
So while it used to take 3-6 months to make a total career change, I think teachers should now be expecting a career transition to be a long-haul experience. Plan for this process to take 6-12 months. Seriously, if you want this to be your last year of teaching, you should start applying NOW to find a job by May 2025. While that’s not an ideal timeline for most people (especially when you’re already dreading going to work every day), I think it’s the most realistic career pivot timeline you can expect in 2024-2025.
I definitely don’t want to turn you off from finding a new job outside of the classroom, and I don’t want to scare you with this timeline! But I do want you as a teacher to go into your career transition prepared for it to take much longer than you expected.
Got teacher career transition questions? Feel free to drop them in the comments ⬇️
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