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TRANSCRIPT:

The best investment that I ever made, as I was progressing in my career as an IT, tech, technology, educator, administrator, etc, the best investment that I ever made was listening to, and reading business based podcasts, books, audio books, all that kind of anything related to business. And so it’s always a difficult conversation when you start talking about education and business in the same context.

Because, you know, people don’t necessarily want to think about education as a business. But for me, it was really learning how to run my career, like it was a business, and really learning how to promote and market myself how to package up my skills in a way that was necessary for employers, as I’ve done some consulting work with, with educational institutions, and companies that maybe they run a training program, really just showcasing, you know, my skills and my abilities in a way that really makes sense for them.

And so when I listened to all these different books, audio, I had, I had a pretty long commute for a little while and listened to a lot of different audio books, podcasts and and then purchase books went to the library had it I have an Amazon Kindle, or Kindle unlimited subscription, really just short of shifting that mindset from one of I am looking for opportunities to teach and to become an educator, really shifting to one of I’m going to create those opportunities and create those opportunities for myself and create them for other people as well. And that was a huge shift for me. And I really think it helps helped my career and helped me build out myself as a technology educator.

I remember one time I was at a networking event at you know, and it was for cybersecurity professionals. And I was talking to a group of people and somebody had asked me what, you know, what kind of degrees Do you have to get to be able to, you know, teach and to work in administration, that kind of thing. And I said, Well, I have a, I have a bachelor’s degree in computer science, I have a master’s degree in education, and I have a PhD in information technology, and I was able to merge all those three things together to create, you know, some of the opportunities that I’ve been, been afforded the wonderful opportunity to do some of these things. And so the guy commented, he’s like, he’s like, I just never really thought of that as like a career path. And I said, well, somebody’s got to teach people how to do the things that you need to do out in industry. So, you know, it was really just like a way of just learning how to market myself and package up the skills that I have to be able to share them with whoever might need them.

So I again, I really just, you know, treat my career like I’m running a business, as opposed to being assigned particular tasks from, from from an from an educational institution. So and as you are progressing, and you are becoming an IT, an online, it instructor, you’re either working for a university or working for a college, or you’re building some of these courses out on your own, you want to you want to approach things that way, as a hiring manager, I could tell the difference between the people who were like, they’re taking charge of this, they really enjoy doing this, this is something that they’re taking charge of. So treat your career like you’re running a business. I quickly figured out, like I said, if there’s if there’s not the opportunity that I wanted, I went and created it.

And one of my first adventures in online education was running a training program for teachers and how to manage their online presence and how to make sure that you know, this is like, this is like, you know, social media was was becoming a thing, Instagram, Facebook, all that kind of stuff is becoming a thing, and how to manage your online presence so that you know, students are going to find you that right. And I wanted to see some sort of training like that, and it didn’t exist. And so I went and I created it. And I taught it online, I taught it through university in Wisconsin, and it was fantastic. The teachers that the teacher that were in the course they absolutely loved it. So when you are advancing in your own online teaching career as a technology professional, you want to take some of these things into consideration here. So let’s let’s talk about some tactics here.

So understand that there are two different kinds of schools. There are schools that they have job racks to open all the time and they’re collecting a pool of resumes for when they’re in a bind, and they really need somebody right now. Then there are the schools that only post job openings when they are available. So say you see a job posting and it might say pool. It’ll say pool right in there. Or if you look in the jobs scription it’ll say something like that they’re collecting resumes for a pool. So you might not necessarily expect to get a phone call back right away. Some schools will post like, if they mean, you know, somebody who understands, you know, the C sharp programming language, and they, you know, it’s very specific, they have a class running, they need somebody who understands C sharp, that’s what they are looking for. Um, you can certainly apply if you know, Java, if you know, you know, Ruby on Rails, if you know some of these other programming languages, you can certainly apply at least get your name out in front of people. But if you don’t know C sharp, you’re probably not going to get a callback on that job.

So understand that there’s, there’s there’s job wrecks, for collecting resumes in a pool, and then job wrecks for very specific, we have a very specific need. Understand, again, treat your career, like it’s a business. And so sometimes when you submit your resumes to these online, websites, your resume can end up in a in a pit, it’s like this black pit, right? And you want to understand that that could possibly happen. And so you need to take charge and you to reach out to recruiters, you need to reach out to the hiring managers, and you know, see where they are in the process. It’s entirely possible that the job had already been filled. You know, there’s, there’s a lot of different things, you know, there’s a lot of different reasons why it ends up in this in this in this hole, but you understand that that just because you’ve applied doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to get a phone call back, be proactive. Treat your career, like it’s a business, sell yourself, get on the phone, make phone calls, send emails, find them on LinkedIn, things like that.

And you also want to make sure that you’re selling yourself to the right people. There’s been a lot of times, at least in my career, where I’ve had people reach out to me that they’re, you know, they’re an English instructor, they’re an English teacher, and I’m not the right person, you know, and so sure, I can certainly forward on your resume, I can certainly, you know, you know, get get you in front of you. But if I don’t know, you, it’s gonna be real hard for me to, you know, provide that sort of recommendation, that kind of thing. So make sure you’re selling yourself to the right people, much like if you are developing a training program that you want to sell to an organization, you also need to sell yourself to that hiring manager.

And then you always want to know that that everybody is the right people, the right people, right. So when you are doing when you’re interviewing, the recruiter very much has a say in the hiring process. If you are rude to the recruiter, if you are rude, please know that that information does get back to the person making the final decision. So just know that everybody is the right people.

And then, you know, just again, treat it like it’s a business take notice how much or how little you’re being paid, determine if that’s worth it, if it’s worth your time. Sometimes things are good to have on your resume, to have as experience for you know, future opportunities to showcase your teaching abilities for other schools. Maybe for an educational training provider may not even necessarily be a school, but it shows that you have training experience that can be useful in the private sector. So just you know, keep keep track of you know, you obviously you’re not doing this as a charity. You know, you do need to earn some money, you need to earn what you’re worth, and make sure that you’re just you’re just paying attention to that.

And then you know, again, it’s great to give back but you have to earn money to sew. And then don’t don’t rely on some buddy, an educational institution, a college, university, Community College, vocational school, private training institution, don’t rely on other people to give you the opportunities that you want.

If you are not seeing what it is that you think is needed, and you think it’s out there, go and create it. Go and create those opportunities. Go you know, build your own course build your own website, build your own platform, build your own podcast, build your own stuff, you know, the the internet’s wonderful the technologies here, it’s easy to use. So if you are not seeing the opportunities that you are looking for, don’t be afraid to go ahead and create it for yourself.