Need alternative employment ideas for a teacher near Wilmington/Philly

July 20, 2010 6:20 PM

My future bride teaches in Dover, DE. And she's trapped in a job she hates. Please suggest alternative work that she might find within 45 min of philly…

She's been teaching high school for over a decade.. (ag science, animal sci, bio)

Big Goal: Other/similar work that might pay (with decent healthcare?) close in pay/benefits to her existing job. We're looking near the DE border, but we're stressing on ideas that might be different opportunities for her….?

Thoughts: Any certifications she could pick up to make her more marketable? How about a related type of position that she should look at?
She has a love of animals, great with HS kids, etc.

Complications:
Certification to teach in PA: As I understand it… certification to teach in PA only happens 2x a year….
Ugh - She's under supervision based on a so-so review - Did I mention it seems her boss has it out for her?
If mefi helps us figure this out, we'd give our future drones the middle name of metafilter. Please hope us!

posted by Towelie to Work & Money (2 answers total)

She's still a little too broad for people to give her ideas about career choices in a meaningful way. What I think might help: Figuring out what she wants to do before figuring out how to make herself more marketable.

Best, quickest way to do this: read local online job boards - craigslist, universities, governmental positions, local papers, regional sites, HR pages of any large companies in the area, and take the next month-6 weeks or so to just read job descriptions. Don't apply to anything. Just read. Read the job descriptions, and start printing off position descriptions of positions that sound interesting, regardless of whether she thinks she's qualified or not. If she's thinking about a career change, it's fine to look at positions that she might be qualified for in 5 - 10 years.

At the end of the time, hopefully she will start to see a pattern of the types of positions available, learn more about the organizations who are hiring, and the requirements. Based on that, she can make an informed choice about what jobs might be out there and what she needs to do - training, networking, etc. that might make her a strong candidate.

In short, if she doesn't know what she wants to do, do the career exploration before she does the job search. Mixing them, particularly when you're trying to leave a job you don't like, unnecessarily raises the stakes, and just makes people feel fraught, and desperate. That's bad.

Taking the time to explore her options to make sure she's not jumping out of frying pan and into fire: That's good.
posted by anitanita at 7:21 PM on July 20, 2010 [1 favorite]

... wow. anitanita nailed my advice and then some. The single most useful thing to me recently in getting out of a job that I loathed was reading lots and lots of job postings, even marginal-sounding ones. I'm now in a job I never would have looked at otherwise, and I am fanatical about it.
posted by McBearclaw at 7:48 PM on July 20, 2010 [1 favorite]