How I Got Out Of Teaching

I had been teaching for over 7 years.

I was with at least 4 school districts. I taught business and computer classes. I also coached multiple sports and academic teams for a while.

But after Covid hit, the classroom atmosphere really changed. At least for me.

I also worked for heavily impoverished district, in one of their most difficult middle schools. The teachers had no admin support, students had no discipline, and the teachers were blamed for everything. It was a pretty toxic year, my last year in teaching.

On top of that, we had a new principal that came in. He wanted certain teachers out, to bring in teachers he worked with prior. And I was on that list.

We as teachers always get that lull during certain times of the school year. October hits hard, and some of us start asking ourselves, maybe I can find another job. Then Thanksgiving and Christmas break give us some much needed down time and rest.

But then some time in spring it comes back again.

Linkedin

I had quite a few friends in the private world raving about LinkedIn. They told me that’s how a lot of networking goes on, online.

So I had created a profile a few years before I left teaching. And would just add 2nd connections that I saw as friendly or we had some unique things in common.

But for some reason I knew, that LinkedIn could be a powerful tool if I was looking to leave teaching one day.

My last month of teaching was hell. It was so hard. My principal kept asking me most days, “When are you going to quit?”. Clearly he wanted me out. I don’t know what I did to him, but I could tell it was personal.

A few teachers put their hands on the students. Since they had been with the district so long, they just got transferred to other schools.

Quite a few students were looking to cause even more mayhem when they knew they could get away with anything now that the teachers would just get transferred.

I just had this gut feeling that, someone was going try something shady to get me out. Whether it was my admin or some students who did not like me.

That’s when I prayed super hard to God and asked for a way out.

Skills

I had done a lot of research on teachers who got out of teaching. Majority of it was forsure knowing someone that got them the job.

I also didn’t know at the time how to create a resume that showed all the hard work I did in teaching, but how that would translate into the private sector.

I ended looking different types of in demand skills. I liked computers and was comfortable enough to do something IT. The only thing was the pay was low to start, but had promising growth.

My wife just wanted me to get out, because she saw the pain and discomfort I was in.

I kept seeing something about Tech Sales. But I had done so retail sales before, so I thought it was the same thing.

But after I watched a few videos of janitors and former teachers talk about how it’s business to business sales. I learned that it was very different from traditional sales roles.

The starting pay was a lot higher as well.

There were many remote roles open too.

So I decided to dive deeper.

From there I found an online course from an SME in the sales world.

The results of finishing the course seemed very promising.

So I took the course, which was suppose to be 3 months long. I finished it in 3 weeks.

But, here’s the kicker, I had a job offer two weeks into the course.

It was crazy how fast I was able to transition out of teaching.

I hope to share more about that experience in a new post.

Blessings!

-Emilio