In this episode, I interview former elementary school teacher Dave Byma. After being in the classroom for 10 years, he turned his passion for helping others and making a difference into a new career as an onboarding manager. Listen in as he talks about how he landed this new role outside of the classroom.
Listen to the episode in the podcast player below, or find it on Apple Podcast or Spotify.
From Teacher to Onboarding Manager
Daphne:
Hey, Dave. Thank you so much for being here today.
Dave Byma:
Yeah, thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here.
Daphne:
I’d love to learn a little bit about what made you go into teaching, and how long were you a teacher for?
Dave Byma:
Yeah, great question. I knew in fourth grade I wanted to be a teacher. I worked in a very inclusive school with a very heavy special ed program, and I just really had deep friendships with some students that were in that program, and I loved helping people. So from there, and I had a male teacher in fourth grade that was very supportive and awesome. I was like, “Man, he’s just a great role model.” So from fourth grade I knew I wanted to help kids. Was a teacher at one school for 10 years. I taught elementary fifth grade for six years and third grade for four.
Daphne:
Did you have a favorite grade that you taught?
Dave Byma:
I get that question a lot. I like both for different reasons, but they both have awesome things and they’re both fun.
Daphne:
I was a fifth grade teacher, so I don’t know other grades, but I felt like they were old enough to be self-sufficient but also not old enough to hurt my feelings yet. I feel like a couple of years older, they may have been able to hurt my feelings authentically.
Dave Byma:
Yeah, fifth grade for sure is more independent. Third grade I felt like they love their teacher more and which was a little bit different. I was not used to that. Especially being a guy in elementary, it’s like, “I’m not used to all these kids’ hugs.” So it was different, but it was still a lot really fun to see them grow through third grade ’cause you can really get to see the progress. I really enjoyed that.
Dave shares why he decided to leave the classroom
Daphne:
What changed for you? What made you think about leaving?
Dave Byma:
Yeah, I thought I’d be a educator forever, and I think COVID was the trigger. Through COVID, then after we came back into the classroom, I just felt overwhelmed. There was a lot more stuff being added to our plates, and I felt like nothing was being taken off. So the amount of stuff we had to do either had to extend my time to do it, or it just felt like I was rushing and not doing my best. It affected my mental state where at home my relationship with my wife and my family was taking a hit. So talking with family and my wife, it was feeling more like for my own sanity I needed to find something different for now.
Daphne:
Were they supportive of your decision?
Dave Byma:
Oh, absolutely. My mother-in-law was an educator for her whole career, and my wife actually taught preschool for a while, and my sister’s a teacher. So we have teachers very close in the family, and they were very supportive and understanding of what I was feeling and very supportive of my decision for sure.
Daphne:
That’s one of the things that I hear so often from those who do have supportive family members is that reinforced it. Some people, significant others had to have full on interventions, like “You are not okay here. I’ll do whatever I can do to help you.” so that’s great that you had all these people who really understood what is going on inside of a classroom because they have the experience as well. When you started to look for other careers outside the classroom, was that challenging? How did you feel?
Dave Byma:
Yeah, I didn’t know where to start. I actually got a temp job first. I felt like I needed something less brain heavy, so I got a temp job at a warehouse just picking things and filling boxes and that was really good for my brain. That actually gave me a chance to listen to all of your podcasts while I worked ’cause they were like, “yeah, listen to music, listen to podcasts while you work, whatever.” So I actually listened to all of your episodes in three weeks, and it was great.
Daphne:
Oh, my goodness, you’ve heard too much of my voice. I’m so sorry.
Dave Byma:
It was awesome. I know, but it was really good ’cause I grew up in a really small town and so I didn’t know, ’cause I wanted to be a teacher, I didn’t know what else was out there. So being able to listen to those podcasts was really good to be like, “I didn’t know these other jobs existed or that teachers could do these jobs.” so through that, it really helped. Then I started by looking at implementation specialists and onboarding and education specialists and trying to get some of those kind of roles, ’cause I was like, “My skills would translate very nicely into those.” Then I started branching out into coding and doing some free courses and stuff. But it was interesting, but it didn’t feel like me ’cause I describe myself as an extroverted introvert. I recharge by myself, but I do talking with people and engaging in relationships. So having a position where I can be face-to-face or interact with people is I felt like something that I needed and was important to me.
Daphne:
There are so many engineers, like software engineers that do work inside offices where they work with one another. When I worked at that big tech company, they had their own level up at the top, all the software engineers and then they had board games and all the-
Dave Byma:
Nice, I’m a huge board gamer, so I would love that.
Daphne:
That was a place that beer on tap, catered meals and the software engineers were there working with each other. So there are ways to still collaborate with people in those types of roles, but it also probably would’ve taken a bit more upskilling than a role in onboarding or implementation. So it is still a possibility for a long-term path for you.
Dave talks about what the application and interview processes were like for him
But it sounds like you really phoned in on staying in onboarding implementation and that’s ultimately how you landed. So how did that happen?
Dave Byma:
Yeah, so I applied to 75-ish jobs and partway through that at 30 to 40, I kept getting rejections after rejection, and I was like, “I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.” I talked with a friend who’s actually in corporate, a corporate trainer, and I was looking at those positions as well. He helped me make my resume more corporate lingo, which was awesome and give me that advice, but I still kept getting rejection after rejection. It was tough. So I actually signed up for the Career Clarity Session with Emily, which was so helpful. She really took the questions that I filled out and really came with good information to help me maybe start on a different, slightly different path. She actually suggested sales or customer success because one of the things I really wanted to focus on was helping others, making a difference and building relationships, and both of those jobs work with those.
So she suggested a couple courses and things to look into to see if I was interested. Through that, I actually got into the Aspireship course. At that time, they had a sales section, a customer success section, and another section that didn’t apply to what I was looking for. I did the sales section first thinking, “Okay, maybe this is the one I’d be interested in.” But I found out pretty quickly, I’m not really a sales person, but I still finished the course but not the assessment. So I could understand the lingo, understand what their role was ’cause customer success and sales go together and they overlap, so I wanted to make sure I had all the information. Then I took the customer success section, which actually was right up my alley ’cause I thought, “This is what I need to do.”
It really was about helping customers or clients after the sales process and after the onboarding and walking alongside them, listening to them, solving their problems, which is what teachers do. So it just felt like this is what I’m going to do. So I finished my Apsireship course, took the assessment, passed it, and then I went all gung ho for customer success roles. When I got to my current company, they actually interviewed me for customer success, but through our talking they asked me, “What have you been looking for after your education role?” I looking talking about onboarding and implementation specialist. They saw how I got excited about teaching others and they actually had a job in their onboarding section as well. So when they hired me, they actually hired me for the onboarding consultant or onboarding manager for the company.
Daphne:
That’s so cool. So just to backtrack if people are listening, Emily, the Career Clarity Session that you mentioned is inside of the Teacher Career Coach Course and Aspireship. We have a link you can find at teachercareercoach.com/aspireship. So those are the two resources that you mentioned if anyone’s like, “Hold on, what are those things?” If this is their first episode that they’ve ever listened to and they’ve never heard of either of those things before. When you landed your role, let’s talk a little bit about the questions that they asked you during the interview process itself, because you did a lot of homework, and that’s part of Teacher Career Coach Course and scholarship, like your upskilling. I’m sure they asked a couple of questions like why you’re leaving teaching or how your skills uniquely translate. Because you’ve done homework about the background role, I’m just interested in how you really articulated your strength for this type of position.
Dave Byma:
I work with software, and so one of the big questions they asked was how have I helped others with technology because they want to know technology.
Daphne:
No brainer for a teacher.
Dave Byma:
Yeah. It’s like as a teacher, I’m helping my kids all the time, but I was actually the go-to person in the elementary floor for tech issues, if the SMART board sound wasn’t working, their computer, for whatever reason, the mouse setting on the computer flipped the button. So all of a sudden the left button was the right and the right was the left. So crazy things happen to people’s computers and the tech guy’s actually on the other side of the building, and it was a really long building. So instead of walking there, they just came to me. So they asked about what was my involvement with technology and how I helped others and how I explained it ’cause just in teaching you have customers and businesses that everyone learns differently, and you got to scale it to who you’re talking to.
Daphne:
Such a smart answer. It reminds me of something I haven’t even thought about forever. When I got my first role outside of the classroom, it was one of their questions is how many times have I done trainings on technology? Because my role is a professional development trainer, but it was for Microsoft. I was able to say to the person who was interviewing me, “I hadn’t really thought about it that much.” I didn’t have a lot of exposure to those types of interviews at that time. But I said really quickly, “The grade level team came to me. I was their go-to person for tech support. I was technology savvy, I liked implementing technology.”
I realized after the interview itself, the person who interviewed me was not a teacher, did not come from a teaching background. In my head, I had made that such a small thing. In their head, it made me a manager, a leader. They don’t know how big a grade level team is. I think so many teachers’ first instinct is, “If I’m not paid for it, if it’s not in the official title, I don’t want to talk about it in an interview.” It’s a lot of using that terminology of just, “Oh, I just did this or I just did that.” But these are impressive things that we need to remember to write down and think about how we’re going to bring them up in interviews to help showcase our skills and how much teachers really truly do.
Dave Byma:
Oh, absolutely. That came out with my Clarity Session with Emily too. She was like, “You need to really focus on what did you do outside of your classroom with other adults? Did you lead professional development? Did you become a lead in something, or were you on teams that made decisions?” And very important.
Daphne:
Yeah, Emily’s so good. I won’t brag about her too much, but she probably is going to listen to this. She has all those questions ahead of time of just like, “Here’s all the things that you can brainstorm,” and then she’ll talk about them in the sessions. They’re amazing. So if you’re in the Teacher Career Coach Course you can sign up for a Career Clarity call, and they’re great. But moving to my next question, talking more about your role, one of the biggest things that people always are asking is when you get into these new positions, are you just stuck figuring it out on your own like a teacher? A teacher’s like, it’s just sink or swim, “Surprise, here’s a bunch of books. Here’s anywhere between 30 and 700 kids, and you figure it out on your own time.” What was the onboarding process like, and how did that feel coming from the classroom?
Dave Byma:
Yeah. I didn’t know what to expect. I was like, “I want some training, I want to know what I’m doing.” Through the interview process, they made it very clear that their team is there to support us, and they won’t throw me into anything I’m not ready for, and if it takes a little bit longer or shorter for me to go through the onboarding process, that’s great. They want to make sure that I’m ready to do whatever I need to do. But when I went in, it was really cool. They had a whole page for me, a wiki page of things that I needed to accomplish for my onboarding stuff.
It was do it at your own pace, but some of it also included meeting with the C-level people, meeting with different departments and understanding how each department functions in the company. It was really cool to get everyone’s point of view. Since we’re in the learning content management system, so LCMS, there we go, so we’re in that realm, and so they actually use their own product to create their onboarding. So they had all this self-paced training for me to go with homework to do, but it wasn’t at home, it was just do it while you’re at work, but projects to accomplish to learn the content.
Daphne:
I feel like so many teachers get … it’s hard to imagine what a normal job looks like. They get so surprised and delighted about just the most normal things at other companies like, “For five days I got to learn this thing.” They’re so excited about the grace and time they’re given to actually learn and onboard at a new company because teaching is not like that. You don’t get five minutes, it’s all on your own time.
Dave Byma:
Yeah, coming out of a very structured world, my world now is it’s still structured for client meetings, but it’s very flexible. It’s one of the things I struggle with is, “I don’t have something for every minute of the day planned, what am I going to do?” And I find things to do. I still do learning, and I really enjoy to have been sitting in on client calls while other people are onboarding to really get that live experience. That has helped a ton.
Dave explains what it was like for him to transition into the corporate world
Daphne:
Did you find yourself nervous at all about the transition into a corporate environment? I’m curious about this perspective ’cause I feel like a lot of guests really have this misconception of how cold or unwelcoming it can be or unfamiliar.
Dave Byma:
Yeah, I was really nervous about what the new position would be, what the people I would work with would be like, ’cause my old co-workers at the school were fantastic. We still get together for hangout time, and it’s like I really loved my co-workers. So I was really nervous of what that new environment would be like. But from day one, they were so welcoming and supportive. I meet with my boss every other week just one-on-one to talk. I meet with her boss and then she checks in on me. It’s just they’re very supportive, very welcoming. If I have any questions, everyone’s there to help.
Daphne:
What would be a couple of corporate terms or acronyms that you’ve learned in this role that might be helpful for a teacher who’s in transition to learn before they go into an interview?
Dave Byma:
Yeah. So the first one would be an SOW or a statement of work. Others might be familiar with that, but coming out of teaching, I didn’t know what that was, but a statement of work is like a, “Here’s what we’re going to do for you as the company to the customer.”
Daphne:
So like a objective?
Dave Byma:
Kind of, yeah, and then, “Here’s what the cost is for it.” So it’s like a contract, but it’s like they call it a statement of work to be like, “This is what we’re going to provide, and here’s what your pay should be for that.”
Daphne:
Okay, that’s a great one. Number two?
Dave Byma:
So you have the learning content management system, but now we have a component content management system, which I was not familiar with. A component content management system, or a CCMS, is an authoring style for content. So instead of a whole content, you can edit all the way down to a component level, and you can use those components in however you would like in your authoring. So A CCMS was brand new to my brain, but it’s a really exciting new thing in the authoring world that I used for my role.
Daphne:
Awesome, and then what’s your number three?
Dave Byma:
An ROI, the return on investment. I didn’t know what return on investment was until I took the Aspireship course, but just finding the value in what we’re doing, is it worth it to the company or to yourself for the content, I guess?
Daphne:
Yeah. This is something I did not learn until I left the classroom too, is a return on investment and even a return on time investment. I know I talk about it inside the Teacher Career Coach Course too of that 20/80 rule of there is so much busy work that you might be doing where 20% of what you’re actually doing is the most important work that’s actually moving the needle forward. So I have to think about it like is making a post on LinkedIn actually going to have any return on investment? That’s something that is, it’s really valuable to start to really understand track where you’re making progress, where things are happening and scale back. Thanks so much for doing that activity. I haven’t made anyone do that before. You were a really good sport, and you had a notebook.
Dave Byma:
Yeah, there’s a lot of them. So yeah, they’re good to learn.
Daphne:
When you started to actually get your hands dirty inside of this role, were there other parts of your personality that started to show through that made you realize that this was a good fit for you also, beyond just helping people and liking people thrive?
Dave Byma:
Yeah, solving problems is something that I love to do, especially in teaching, you try to solve the problems, but in this role it’s a different kind of problem. You’re trying to make this software that we provide be as used as well as it can be for the customer, and that they get their return on investment on it. So you’re solving the problems of, “How does this work for this client?” ‘Cause every client’s different, and you’re trying to make sure that everyone has what they need to be successful. So my brain for trying to solve these puzzles have really started to emerge more since being in this role.
Daphne:
Do you find that you’re given a lot more space and freedom to make larger decisions and think outside of the box to solve these problems?
Dave Byma:
Yeah. They have actually already come to me and it’s like, “Hey, using your teacher brain, how would you think about this is concept that we’re struggling with?” Or, “We’re redoing this portion of our content right now, let’s talk with it, using your lesson planning brain, how can we make this effective and use it for all of our onboarding managers to use some sort of structure to onboard well?” So they’ve come to me already with my, for teaching brain.
Daphne:
That makes me so happy to hear. It reminds me of a conversation that I had earlier with some teachers who were in transition. I had to talk to them because they were saying something around the lines of, “Hiring managers are not going to give teachers a chance. Hiring managers don’t like teachers.” My response was, “There are some hiring managers that are not going to hire a career pivoter, and it has nothing to do with teachers in general. They wouldn’t have hired someone for that role if they just came from a sales background or just came from even an instructional design background.”
There are some hiring managers that are just, “This role is for someone with this many years of experience period.” Then there are hiring managers that are open to career changers, but there’s still this big caveat of it is your duty to understand the role so that they have less concerns about a career pivot. Then those are the people who really stand out and are invaluable at the companies to them.
Dave shares why doing his resume homework was so important
Do you feel like you would’ve gotten this role if you just had a little bit of a tweaked resume, but it didn’t have a lot of knowledge about customer success or sales on it?
Dave Byma:
No. I feel like if I didn’t do my homework, I would’ve been passed over. The first question they asked me in interview was, “So what do you know about the company?” So doing the research on the company and what they provide and the skills they’re looking for is super important, so helping you get to the next step in that interview process.
Daphne:
What were some of your strategies on finding companies for these types of roles? Were you going to jobs boards? Were you just all over the place?
Dave Byma:
Yeah, I looked at job boards like LinkedIn, Indeed. Then I found Built In and went through there, but I also tried to connect with my LinkedIn people. I didn’t have a big connection pool to pull from when I first started, but I realized I needed a bigger connection outreach. So I started going through every couple days just scrolling through the My Network section on LinkedIn and requesting to connect with just people that I know from the community, parents of kids that I taught. Even I had at least two parents reach out and be like, “Hey, what are you looking for? Because I don’t have a spot right now for you, but if I have anything I’ll let you know.” I actually had one parent email me a job posting after I already had my current job, and I was like, “I’m sorry, I can’t right now.” Then another one actually just called to just process and think ’cause she had such great connections. So just making that connection on LinkedIn, just sometimes it’s who you know for that connection.
Daphne:
100%. The strategy that I always teach in the course is think of people from past jobs that are working in corporate environments, friends, your friends’ significant others, all of the different people that authentically know you and can vouch for you, I have never. . . Four plus years of me doing this, I’ve never once said the parents of your students, it’s never even crossed my mind. But if they know you’re leaving and you have a good relationship with them, obviously they know your work ethic, why not, as long as they know that you’re leaving and you’re not trying to keep it a secret from the entire school. I just never thought about it.
Dave Byma:
Yeah, ’cause throughout the year, you build relationships with the kids, but you also are building relationships with the parents. Some of those parents, we got to know each other real well, and I was like, “I know you’re a parent of an old student, but connect anyway.” All of a sudden they just started coming in. It was like new connections.
Daphne:
Those are the people who were going to help you get a next job. I think the mistake that so many people are making, which I cannot shout from the mountaintops more, is they are rapidly adding a bunch of other transitioning teachers that they don’t know that are muddying up their feed, that are making it harder for them to figure out when you’re looking for a second or a third connection at a company, if you don’t actually know those people, it’s way harder to identify what’s valuable and find those connections. So if you guys are struggling with that and you’re listening, there are episodes all about using LinkedIn efficiently. Please go back and listen to that.
Dave explains what it is like to work in his current position
My last question before we wrap it up is—you clearly like this role. You have made it very clear that this is a really good fit for you. Is this the role that you feel like you want to be in for a long time, or is there room for growth in this role? What does your career trajectory feel like right now in this new position?
Dave Byma:
Yeah, so the onboarding team right now is on the smaller side, but I think as we continue to grow, I would love to take more of a leadership role. I think I could see myself here long term. I love the software that we provide and the ability that it brings to make a difference in company’s lives to save them time and money, and just being able to make their life easier has brought me joy. So being here, I think, and being an onboarding consultant or an onboarding manager, I think has been really just life giving to be able to make those connections and help teach ’cause I love teaching, but just in a different way to a different group of people.
Daphne:
Yeah, 100%. It’s something that I think is so challenging for so many teachers is worrying that nothing’s going to be intrinsically motivating, but you’re going to find that in a lot of different spaces. You’re still going to be a happy person and be able to help people or help companies, and you are a really good example of that. My very last question for you, Dave, I’m so excited that you sound like you found this really amazing position and a good fit and clarity through all of your work, and it was not an easy process. What did you learn about yourself during this process?
Dave Byma:
I learned that it’s okay to not always be okay. Going through this process is probably one of the hardest things I’ve had to do, ’cause when I started, I didn’t really have a plan. Then I found your course, which has helped tremendously. There were times where I was searching for jobs and I couldn’t find anything new, and it was emotionally devastating to be like, “There’s nothing new out there,” or rejection letters after rejection letters. Some of them hit home, and it’s like, “Man, I really wanted to at least get an interview for that job.” But having a support net, talking to people that are with trusted relationships, they just helped me get through that dark time to really find that next step in the process, and so just being able to see that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. It’s hard now, but when you find it, it feels amazing. I never thought I would be this excited to be in this position, but here we are, and it’s awesome.
Daphne:
That is such a good answer. It makes me think of this quote that I just heard. It was about imposter syndrome, and I have it in my notes on my phone right now because it nailed it. It’s like imposter syndrome is basically meaning that you’re pushing yourself to grow. If you’re struggling with that not being okay moment, realizing that you need to change your definition of success, your definition of success should include the process of growth. Knowing that something sucks and is hard means that you’re doing something challenging. Usually, those are the moments in our life where one year later that’s going to be the moment that you look back on and you’re like, “Wow, I really grew in that moment.” It sounds like you pushed through a lot of rejection, which is common, and I’m so happy for you that you didn’t give up even when it probably felt very, very hard. I’m just grateful for you for coming on this podcast and sharing your story with us.
Dave Byma:
Yeah, thanks for having me on. I’m excited to just share my journey.
Daphne:
Thanks so much, Dave. I want to give a huge thank you to Dave for sharing his story in this episode.
Mentioned in the episode:
- Episode 91 of the Teacher Career Coach Podcast
- Our career path quiz at www.teachercareercoach.com/quiz
- Explore the course that has helped thousands of teachers successfully transition out of the classroom and into new careers: The Teacher Career Coach Course (If you are a Teacher Career Coach Course member, you can also sign up for our one-on-one Career Clarity calls.)
