I have been looking for work for the past six months since I have graduated from college, and I have found that there are three issues that consistently prove to be a hindrance to the process of trying to find a job.
The first issue is one of “The Black Hole”. People who have applied for jobs recently will know of this one…filling out applications and never hearing anything back from the districts, not even a confirmation that someone has looked at it and said, “no I think we will go with someone else.” Nothing…silence…the Black Hole. Personally, I would rather get a call or a post card saying I have not been selected then no answer at all…isn’t that supposed to be the courtesy that employers are supposed to extend?
The second issue is that many school districts are asking for experience in the classroom for entry level teaching positions. The question I have to ask is HOW is someone supposed to get experience in the classroom, then the entry positions are requiring experience before I can even get any? To me this seems like a catch-22 for anyone trying to get into the career.
The last issue is the one that irritates me to no end, the application that is also a test without telling the applicant. For anyone staring blankly at this article, let me dish out on of the rarely known practices that districts are taking to lately. There is a cookie cutter online application going around that has a bunch of sections on it, however, there is a part called statements where the applicant has to write some short statements about questions chosen by the district. It is this part that gets ‘graded’ in order for the application to move on to someone actually seeing it. However, nowhere on the application is this information told to the applicant in any form. So it is entirely possible that someone capable of teaching is being excluded because they are lacking keywords on an application that they had no idea was a test. I’ve had several people confirm this in my wanderings amongst the districts and personally I think it is an unfair hiring practice against professionals that have spent time and money in their chosen profession, only to get stuck under a glass ceiling if they don’t have the particular set of keywords that particular test searches for.
I know from personal experience that these factors can be devastating to someone trying to find that first critical job in education. It doesn’t surprise me that those with math and science degrees are not willing to put up with such horrible practices when they can find jobs that pay much better and with less grief.