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Adventures in Job-Hunting!
With all the laptop brouhaha from the past few days, I didn’t really get to focus on the more important things. Namely: my search for a new teaching job.
The interview at ‘Other Diocesan School’ went well. (Maybe a little too well considering the lukewarm feelings I had about the position from the beginning.) Turns out I’m even less keen on the job now, since it’s apparently only a part-time position. (That would mean a major pay-cut, which would be bad since private school salaries are pretty minimal to begin with, and, in all likelihood, very little – if anything – in terms of benefits or health coverage.)
The interview questions were very strange, besides. They never even touched on my qualifications or experience. (And I didn’t even have time to ask about salary before they ushered me out the door to take care of their students’ dismissal for the day.) They seemed to want to ask a lot of educational theory questions – hypothetical vague stuff that I used to get in my education classes in grad school. Nothing really in terms of actual classroom practice and procedure. (With the types of things they were asking me, I almost expected to be asked things like: “If you could be any household appliance, which would it be and why?”) Plus, I knew exactly the types of answers they were looking for by the way they asked the questions. (A lot of them started with phrases like “Would you agree with me that . . .” or “We feel ‘such-and-such’ is important. What are your thoughts?”) Probably the only topical question they asked had to do with my feelings about “teaching-to-the-test.” I was honest in my response, and it was probably the only answer I gave that may or may not have matched their opinions on the matter. (Administrators’ viewpoints often vary on the whole testing thing. My principal feels a certain way about it, but that doesn’t necessarily mean my interviewers feel the same.)
So, all in all, the interview went very well. I just don’t think it’s what I want.
I did, however, get a very positive response to the résumé I sent out for that adjunct position I mentioned earlier. The woman said she’d like to get in touch with me this week. Now, that’s a position which, even if it did turn out to be part-time too, I may still really want to give it a try. I also learned that this particular language program (a collaboration between three local universities) just launched on March 29 of this year, so they may not even be fully staffed yet. I’m very excited about this prospect, and I’ll be eager to speak to the woman when she contacts me.
In addition, there are several members of my fencing club who have connections in some of the local public schools. I didn’t know this before, but I saw them last night for the first time since learning about my current school’s impending closure, and several of them were very forthcoming with information about their districts. I really know some nice people!
So the job hunt is actually going pretty well so far. Hopefully the eventual results will be just as good.
The interview at ‘Other Diocesan School’ went well. (Maybe a little too well considering the lukewarm feelings I had about the position from the beginning.) Turns out I’m even less keen on the job now, since it’s apparently only a part-time position. (That would mean a major pay-cut, which would be bad since private school salaries are pretty minimal to begin with, and, in all likelihood, very little – if anything – in terms of benefits or health coverage.)
The interview questions were very strange, besides. They never even touched on my qualifications or experience. (And I didn’t even have time to ask about salary before they ushered me out the door to take care of their students’ dismissal for the day.) They seemed to want to ask a lot of educational theory questions – hypothetical vague stuff that I used to get in my education classes in grad school. Nothing really in terms of actual classroom practice and procedure. (With the types of things they were asking me, I almost expected to be asked things like: “If you could be any household appliance, which would it be and why?”) Plus, I knew exactly the types of answers they were looking for by the way they asked the questions. (A lot of them started with phrases like “Would you agree with me that . . .” or “We feel ‘such-and-such’ is important. What are your thoughts?”) Probably the only topical question they asked had to do with my feelings about “teaching-to-the-test.” I was honest in my response, and it was probably the only answer I gave that may or may not have matched their opinions on the matter. (Administrators’ viewpoints often vary on the whole testing thing. My principal feels a certain way about it, but that doesn’t necessarily mean my interviewers feel the same.)
So, all in all, the interview went very well. I just don’t think it’s what I want.
I did, however, get a very positive response to the résumé I sent out for that adjunct position I mentioned earlier. The woman said she’d like to get in touch with me this week. Now, that’s a position which, even if it did turn out to be part-time too, I may still really want to give it a try. I also learned that this particular language program (a collaboration between three local universities) just launched on March 29 of this year, so they may not even be fully staffed yet. I’m very excited about this prospect, and I’ll be eager to speak to the woman when she contacts me.
In addition, there are several members of my fencing club who have connections in some of the local public schools. I didn’t know this before, but I saw them last night for the first time since learning about my current school’s impending closure, and several of them were very forthcoming with information about their districts. I really know some nice people!
So the job hunt is actually going pretty well so far. Hopefully the eventual results will be just as good.