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There are different career choices for teachers who are tired of the rut they are stuck in, in their professional teaching career. With an education background and relevant transferable skills and accomplishments, teachers can easily slip into private sector jobs, while also consider a career in government services. You may ask the question:
What can I do with a teaching degree if I don’t want to teach? There are many great career changes for teachers to research and identify what best suits their passion and strengths.
Several of these second career options can be quite unusual and ones that you may not have otherwise considered. Teachers can use their transferable teaching skills for opportunities in human resources, marketing, sales, journalism, information science, publishing, childcare administration and higher education, and many more. Let's find out more about these opportunities.
Explore These Alternate Careers for Former Teachers
It is not difficult to find a related job or even to launch a brand new career for teachers who are willing to use their experience in the classroom in other fields. Some of the best jobs for former teachers rely on transferable skills like communication, management, problem-solving, and decision-making skills. Let's explore the top 5 career alternatives for teachers.
1. Private Tutor
Teachers have many transferrable teaching skills that can easily come in handy in the world of private tutoring. As a private tutor, share your subject knowledge and help others learn. At the same time, keep away from the politics and bureaucracy of the education system and focus on what you do best, that is teach.
2. Writer
Your subject matter expertise can help you to write online content or a nonfiction book. For the more creative ones, the option of writing fiction stories also holds great promise. Content writers with teaching experience are in high demand in the field of curriculum and development for schools and colleges.
3. Training and Development Manager
Your supervision, organizational skills, and curriculum development knowledge can be put to good use by in a career as a training and development manager.
4. Interpreter or Translator
For teachers who taught a foreign language in the classroom, a career in interpretation and translational in multinational organizations beckons. Teachers can apply their reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills for the effective execution of such roles.
5. Life Coach
Also called executive coaches or enrichment specialists, life coaches are responsible for helping other people establish goals for themselves and developing action plans to achieve them. Most life coaches are self-employed, giving them the flexibility to choose their clients.
Retraining for Another Career After Teaching
Teachers are well-equipped with knowledge about student learning and development, along great communication and presentation skills, high levels of creativity, and lots of experience in dealing with difficult situations. These are easily transferable skills if you are thinking of a career outside of the classroom. More importantly, with these skills, the retraining required for a new role will be minimum for former teachers.
Improve Your CV
Technicalities aside, retraining for a new career also depends a lot on personal preparation and redefining yourself as a professional to help you understand which career profiles would suit you best. Looking back at your previous experiences, and at your current role, will help you answer the question as to how you would fit in with the career you wish to move into.
Look at your skills listed in your CV – are they transferable? If so, how? Your experience as a teacher would mean that you have all sorts of important skills and qualities that will fit well into many careers, such as communication, interpersonal and organization skills.
Take a look at yourself in terms of character and employability.
Think about what you really want to achieve out of your professional life. Consider your qualifications and skills - where do they fit in? Do you really need a relevant training course to improve your chances of getting into the alternative career that you are interested in?
Take a skills assessment test, speak to a local careers counselor for a broader perspective on the choices you have ahead of you. Friends, family, and colleagues can also help you get an idea about the requirements of different careers. Keep an eye on the job market, in general, and look for patterns or anything promising that you feel your skillset might work with.
Jobs for Teachers in the Public Sector
The public sector in India is one of the biggest and most secore sources of employment, providing jobs to teachers, police officers, firefighters, doctors, civil servants, and several others. Not driven by revenues, public sector jobs are funded by taxpayers.
Make a Fundamental Difference with Education Policy and Research
Teachers are driven the desire to make a difference in the lives of young students, and, by extension, to the direction of national affairs Teachers are passionate about helping students. The classroom may be too stifling for those teachers who want to make fundamental changes, at the national policy level. For such teachers, the field of education policy and research can provide many jobs in the domain of education field besides teaching.
You might find that working for a government organization such as state education is a gratifying and enjoyable experience, and might, therefore, decide to explore other options within this sector, but outside of teaching.
Teachers have many important skills and qualities, which can be easily transferred to roles in the public sector, such as:
- A strong work ethic
- The ability to work well under pressure
- A creative, innovative approach to tasks
- A good understanding of people and human behavior
- Working successfully in a team and independently
- The ambition to constantly improve and develop
Start a New Career After Teaching in the Private Sector
Education in the modern era has largely shifted to technology-based pedagogical techniques which has helped the world of education and teaching take giant strides. However, on the downside, many old-school teachers have been unable to cope with these drastic changes, resulting in alarmingly high rate of teachers quitting teaching and opting for an alternate career - either in the public sector or in the more lucrative and flexible private sector.
Jobs for Teachers in the World of Business
Surprising as it may be, there are actually many fundamental similarities. The education degree and skills of a teacher and their knowledge of people and development make them ideal business employees.
Teachers have a knack for being able to navigate tough situations, organize activities and a workforce, and juggle many tasks at once.
Sales
Teachers bring with them insight and experience of the world of education and school life. This can be useful for business who want to know exactly what teachers and schools need, along with a strong understanding of human relationships, needs, and behavior. Sales can be one of the top new jobs after teaching retirement!
Human Resource Specialist
As an HR specialist, former teachers can use their interpersonal skills can successfully carry out their responsibilities of recruiting, hiring, and training new staff for large companies. A teacher's skills as an educator and the ability to work with a variety of different learners will also make it easier for them to successfully plan and train new employees.
Marketing
Teachers are professionally and creatively equipped for handling the plethora of marketing jobs out there, in both traditional and online roles. For example, an IT teacher can easily migrate to the world of online marketing, with specialized roles in search engine marketing and optimization.
'Marketing' is a broad term that encompasses all kinds of roles from public relations to organizing promotional events.
As someone who has had to use their creativity for lesson planning as well as for enhancing communication with each learner, this means that you will be used to developing ideas in a structured way as well as making them accessible to young learners.
Real Estate Agent
Real estate agents work with buyers and sellers to facilitate the sale of real estate, both residential and commercial. Former teachers would find that many of their interpersonal skills would help them to succeed in this profession.
Personal Financial Advisor
Personal financial advisors work with individuals to help them make sound financial decisions. Maths teachers, in particular, might find that they have a strong skill set to be successful as a personal financial advisor.
Irrespective of why you may be contemplating a transition to an alternative career, one thing is for sure - there are plenty of alternative careers for teachers to choose from. Whether you want to continue in a non-teaching role within the education industry or start afresh with something entirely different, the choice is your!
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