Many teachers have been considering transitioning from the classroom to pursue a career in Instructional Design. In this latest episode of The Teacher Career Coach Podcast, I interview Dr. Robin Sargent, a thought leader in the ID space with an impressive background.
She discusses all things Instructional Design, including exactly why it’s such a great career fit for teachers.
Related Resources: Creating your Instructional Designer Resume
Listen to the episode in the podcast player below, or find it on Apple Podcast or Spotify.
Daphne Gomez:
Dr. Robin Sargent is an entrepreneur, instructional designer, and professor recognized as a leader in the instructional design community. She’s the CEO of IDOL courses, and IDOL Talent Pool and VITAL courses. She’s been an instructional designer since 2008, and I’m so excited to share this episode with you where I ask her all things instructional design. Listen in as she shares why teachers make such great instructional design candidates. Hi Robin, how are you doing today?
Dr. Robin Sargent:
I am doing so well. And I’m happy to be here with you, Daphne.
Daphne Gomez:
Yeah, it’s really exciting to finally get to talk to you. I’ve been following you for the past year and watching all the things that you’re doing by teaching people instructional design. I know that there’s going to be so much that people are going to be able to learn from you. First I wanted to ask you what is an instructional designer?
Dr. Robin Sargent:
I think the first thing that I would just clarify is a definition of instructional design, and then I’ll put it in real language. And so when everyone asks me like, what is instructional design? I just say instructional design is the process of identifying performance, skills, knowledge, information, and sometimes attitude gaps of a targeted audience. And then we create, select, or suggest learning experiences that close these gaps. And of course they’re based on instructional design theories and best practices. And so that’s a pretty solid definition of what it is, but what it really is, is you are creating training that solves business problems in nonprofits, organizations and things like that. But instructional designers, they also create courses in higher ed, but I mostly focus on corporate instructional design.
Daphne Gomez:
I actually was an instructional designer for an education company. My position was to create the e-learning platform to help teachers understand how that product worked and to get really familiar with integrating that product into their classroom. So that’s one example of how teachers probably have had experience with instructional designers and didn’t even really know it. I know that you focus a lot with working with teachers and it sounds like you are creating e-learning or you’re creating online training. Do you find a lot of teachers actually have success in instructional design roles?
Dr. Robin Sargent:
I think that once teachers realize that the instructional design models and process that we use to develop corporate training matches the explicit model that you use to create classroom lessons, then it clicks and they do a great job because I think that teachers make some of the best student. And one of the things that’s so important about an instructional designer is to be obsessed with learning. And so teachers definitely fall in that camp. And so I think that they absolutely make great instructional designers. Some of the best ones in our industry, we’re all former teachers.
Daphne Gomez:
Because all they’re looking at is they’re looking at what’s the objective? What’s the learning goal for this specific training and how do I get to that goal without taking too many twists and turns into uncharted territory? Correct?
Dr. Robin Sargent:
Yeah. I think the other unique thing about why teachers are so successful in this field is because they come with a heart of a teacher. And so what that means to me is that they really care about the learners and the best type of learning experience is the kind that cares about the learner and ask the learner what they want and meets them where they are. And teachers come with that heart built in. And so I think that’s another reason why they make the best instructional designers.
Daphne Gomez:
One thing that I’ve noticed about instructional design is it is one of the more technology, heavy careers out there that teachers often transition into. Do you agree with that?
Dr. Robin Sargent:
Absolutely.
Daphne Gomez:
What’s some of the technology that teachers would need to learn prior to getting a role as an instructional designer?
Dr. Robin Sargent:
I have an academy that teaches instructional design. And so when I talk about teachers, I’m usually referring to students I’ve closely worked with. I think a lot of times what really happens is that people get distracted by all the technology. If you can set a firm foundation in the process of instructional design and writing the design of a course, then the technology is something that you can learn later piece by piece, because that’s what I see a lot. Is that new instructional designers, they come in and they’re like, “I want to learn all the technology,” and then they get overwhelmed, they get flustered and they aren’t sure how to move forward. And so I will tell you what those technologies are, but I think the first step is the foundational part of how to design a course.
Daphne Gomez:
I love that you approach it in that manner, because for me, that’s where I was lacking when so many teachers were reaching out to me, because I knew that I was an instructional designer. I was nervous because I didn’t want to say, “Well, I think that you should learn Articulate, if there’s another platform that a job that they’re applying for was actually asking for. You never really know what the company’s going to want you to be proficient in. So I think it’s most important to show that you are comfortable with creating a learning experience and then they’ll trust you to learn the platform that they want you to.
Dr. Robin Sargent:
Yeah. Yeah. And I definitely think that you will want to have some kind of technology aptitude because I could say, the standard tools today are: Articulate Storyline, Camtasia, Vyond, PowerPoint, and then some kind of graphic design tool. We love Canva and IDOL courses, but those things change. And so it’s, can you manipulate a timeline? Can you use logic to determine how you’re going to set up triggers? And those are the types of fundamentals about technology that you want to learn, because if you can learn how to run one learning management system and how those things work, the user interface is pretty much the same on all the other ones. So it’s really like, can you learn those fundamentals that are in all the programs? And that’s really going to be success for you.
Daphne Gomez:
I also use Canva for pretty much everything just because I think it’s such an easy program to use, especially for someone with no graphic design background. So I recommend it all the time, especially because it’s free to start.
Moving back to what you just said though, I think that it’s a lot to do with imposter syndrome, that teachers say, “I’m not technology savvy,” and they just put themselves into this bucket, but they don’t realize even virtual teaching has set them up with so many of the skills required for instructional design. Creating your own video lessons, understanding how long the videos should be in order to like track engagement, creating PowerPoints that are so associated with the video lessons. All of those are really great skills that are building such a solid foundation for instructional design.
Dr. Robin Sargent:
Absolutely. And I think you’re right about the imposter syndrome. I think the thing is though, is that no matter what the challenge is, and this is a challenge. If you’re going to change your career from what you’ve always known own to something brand new, that’s a huge challenge. No doubt about it. And with that comes fear. It is just a natural thing that comes with any new challenges that our bodies produce fear. It’s something that we can’t get away from, but I encourage people to acknowledge and to realize that the fear is going to come and the first step is to acknowledge your fear and be like, “I hear you. I know that you are just there to protect me, but my desire, I want to be an instructional designer.” And if you have that desire, then it’s easier for you to say, “I accept the fear and I’m going to take the steps, I’m going to take the action anyway.”
The other part of that imposter syndrome is perfectionism. And that’s where a lot of that comes from too, right? Is they’re like, “I’m an imposter if I don’t do things perfectly.” And I like the idea of get it done, do it messy because it’s imperfect action that builds confidence. Confidence doesn’t come first. Action comes first and more action equals confidence. You don’t get confidence until you start taking all that messy action.
Daphne Gomez:
I love that. That’s such a great way of looking at it. Teachers always teach growth mindset to their students, but when it comes to ourselves, it’s so easy to have a fixed mindset to think, “Okay, well, I’m just not good at that and I’m not going to try.” But with our students, we would clearly tell them, “You need to keep pushing.” Not, I’m not good at that, but let’s rephrase that on what steps can I take to improve today? And this is not going to happen overnight. You’re not going to be able to watch a YouTube video for 15 minutes on how to be an instructional designer and then walk away and feel like a pro. But if this is something that you want, it’s completely doable. It’s really achievable and many teachers have found success in this specific career path, which is why I wanted to bring you on here today.
I wanted to go more into some of the different types of instructional design positions. What types of companies are looking for instructional design and what does that look like for the employee, for the instructional designer?
Dr. Robin Sargent:
There are several different types of instructional designers. I think you’ve mentioned one Daphne, which is you can be an instructional designer for K-12 curriculum and you usually work in a company to do that. And so that would still be considered corporate instructional design, even though your targeted audience is K-12. There are instructional designers in higher education, and of course their audience are university students or adult learners. And then the other types is non-profits also hire instructional designers to create training for both their volunteers and those people that they are helping and their staff.
And then companies, and I don’t just mean like companies that are in office buildings. I’m talking about manufacturing, all the different types of industries have some type of learning and development department or training. I mean, even things like, for instance, my stepmom, she is an instructional designer for the largest government contracting agency that paints battleships. And so their type of instructional design is very different from an instructional designer that mostly creates sales training. And so it runs the gamut as far as like apprenticeship types of training that you could create, sales training, compliance, manufacturing, mentorship programs. There’s so many different types of industries and companies that hire people to close skill gaps. And you can also just think about the types of people that come out of universities. They’ve learned all this theory about whatever their field is, and then people try to hire them and they’re like, “They can’t actually do any of the work that we need them to do in our company.” And so the onus is now on the company to create their own company university. And so that’s just another reason why instructional designers will always have a job.
Daphne Gomez:
Do you love using templates and professional-looking resources but don’t want to master the graphic design skills to create them on your own? Canva has a variety of templates you can use in the classroom or for your small business. I’ve been using Canva for e-books and social media graphics for years. And you can sign up for free at teachercareercoach.com/canva.
When I had instructional design on my LinkedIn, that was one time in my life where I felt like recruiters would not stop reaching out to me. They were from healthcare facilities to like trampoline company for the recreational trampoline companies, just constantly recruiters were reaching out. I think one was a law firm that was looking for an instructional designer for the law firm. And one thing that I think that teachers kind of go into it thinking is, “If a healthcare facility is asking me to be an instructional designer, do I need to have a health background as well? How am I going to learn all of this content?” Do you think that teachers should be experts in whatever the field is that they’re going into as an instructional designer as well?
Dr. Robin Sargent:
You set this question up very well, Daphne. You know that the answer is no way, Jose. We just have to be really good at instructional design and in all the situations and all the different industries that you show up at, you get access to subject matter experts within that company, within that industry. And sometimes they’ll even go and find you an outside expert if they don’t have one in house. And so our main job you is to identify what are the business problems? What is the actions that we need learners to take? What are those performance gaps, for instance? And then we talk to subject matter experts to get that information, to fill those gaps. And so we don’t have to come up with that content off the top of our head.
We still do a little bit of research just to make sure that we’re prepared for our subject matter expert meetings, but you do not need to know anything about that industry. I mean, you can niche down later maybe and become an expert in an industry plus instructional design, but that’s not at all something that you need at the very beginning.
Daphne Gomez:
I think one of the things with teaching is you have eight different lessons a day. And if you’re a newer teacher, those eight lessons are basically new. Every single year that you do it for the first few years, you’re like, “Oh, I need to read up on fifth grade history and make sure that I know everything that my students might ask.” It starts to be decision fatigue, and it starts to be really overwhelming. When I left and I started doing public speaking events, I had to teach people how to do basic coding and thinking back into my teaching experience, I was thinking, “Oh, there’s no away I’m going to be prepared for this,” but realizing, no, you learn this lesson once, and then you repeat it. You only need to learn five or six lessons per month. And the decision fatigue goes away and you’re capable of so much more than you really give yourself credit for. And it’s because teaching had so many puzzle pieces to it that made you feel like you were never good enough.
Dr. Robin Sargent:
Yeah. The most valuable things are the things that are free and when we discount them… Like our brain, our brain is the most valuable thing that we have and we’re born with it and we’re given it and it is very powerful. And if you would just allow yourself to trust your own mind and focus an hour a day on what it is that you want to learn and get good at, you will be amazed about how fast you can become an expert in anything.
Daphne Gomez:
Absolutely. One of the biggest questions teachers are going to ask is what is the work-life balance as an instructional designer?
Dr. Robin Sargent:
Oh man, that’s the sweetest part of it all. I mean, of course I found instructional design kind of when I was in higher education as an assistant dean. And so when I found it, of course I liked the technology. I liked the tools, I liked the creation aspect, but then when I found out that not only that, but you can work remotely and then of course, 2020 comes along and everybody works remotely. But even before then, instructional designers were always being hired into remote roles, or it was some kind of hybrid remote where you would go in the office, maybe two days a week, to have some meetings with your subject matter experts and so on and so forth. But then you were at home when working, because a lot of what we do is behind-the-scenes solo work. And so you don’t need to be in an office to do that. You need to be in a place where you can focus. So work-life balance, I mean, that’s kind of an illusion, but as far as like can you work from home? Absolutely. 100%.
Daphne Gomez:
One thing that I’m hearing, it’s a lot of remote opportunities. I think it’s really important that people identify what jobs would not be a good fit for them as they’re listening to this podcast and they’re listening to the different types of careers out there. It sounds like if you are the type of person who wants to continue to engage with crowds and you need to be around a lot of people every single day and constantly in communication, you’re just a very social person and being on your own would probably not be a good fit for you. Instructional design might not be the right path for you. Do you agree with that?
Dr. Robin Sargent:
I’m a very people person, but I also have a side of me that wants to shut the door and work by myself. So you could still… For instance, there’s actually a couple teachers in the academy who specifically sought out jobs as an instructional designer where they worked in a team and they went to the office. And of course they’re not going back to the office until next year, even the though they landed the job this year, but like you said, they wanted to be around people. They wanted to be a part of a team. They wanted to be collaborative. That’s absolutely something that is a part of instructional design. But if you don’t like working by yourself and being self-directed, then you’re right, this is not a job that you would enjoy.
Daphne Gomez:
Any other indicators that they might not be a good fit for instructional design?
Dr. Robin Sargent:
If you don’t like to learn new things all the time, if you… It kind of ebbs and flows. There will be a time like because the process where you do your needs analysis, pretty slow, pretty laid back. And then the part where you’re doing your design, pretty slow, pretty laid back. And then it comes time to develop and it’s like, “Oh we needed it yesterday.” Staying up late nights and whatever. And so there are chaos moments. So sometimes it can seem a little bit like a roller coaster. So if that just makes you uncomfortable, then that might be another indicator of why this wouldn’t work out for you.
Daphne Gomez:
There will be deadlines that need to be met and sometimes there will be late nights. For the majority of the time, there are not as many late nights as there are for a teacher. Would you agree?
Dr. Robin Sargent:
Oh my gosh, yeah, no. I mean, it’s rare. I mean, if you know that a rush is coming for a development, you could start sooner. But sometimes what really happens is yeah, you don’t get the feedback on time and then you only have a short window. And so it’s pretty rare that you have to stay up as much as teachers do.
Daphne Gomez:
One of my past episodes, I think it’s episode six, I interview a teacher who became a software engineer and she went to a really intensive coding camp that was like three months long. And one of the things that she said was other people who had 9:00 to 5:00 jobs were completely burned out and she was stressed out. It was a lot of work, but teaching and the amount of work that she did as just an elementary school teacher, prepared her where it was still easy for to go through this really intensive three-month camp because she was used to working all these extra hours.
Dr. Robin Sargent:
Probably it was easier for her because she had a real desire to do that work and it makes it fun. And if that’s your desire, is to design instruction for these adult learners in a corporate audience, the creation process is fun. And if that’s what you want to do, then it won’t seem as much of a burden.
Daphne Gomez:
Absolutely. I think one thing that some people who are listening are maybe lacking, is if you find a career that you are really passionate about, you start to sit down and you can’t wait to create something. That’s how I found myself with creating digital courses and e-books and even online curriculum. I get excited and I want to do it on the weekends even, which is not where my head was at when I was in the class classroom. For some reason, it just wasn’t a career that was perfect for me in this way.
Dr. Robin Sargent:
Oh yeah, same here. As a matter of fact, I have to set boundaries so that I actually spend time with my family.
Daphne Gomez:
Yeah. And not because you’re stressed out and you have all these intense-
Dr. Robin Sargent:
No.
Daphne Gomez:
Deadlines; it’s because you love what you’re doing and you get excited to do it. It’s a hobby.
Dr. Robin Sargent:
Exactly. Exactly right there.
Daphne Gomez:
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One thing that teachers are constantly asking and looking for with new careers, because if they are thinking of leaving, this is a big leap of faith. They want to find jobs that have stability and security. Can you talk a little bit about the job stability as an instructional designer?
Dr. Robin Sargent:
I think I will talk about the job stability and I will mention, in case nobody knows, the salary for corporate instructional designers is banging in the sense that it is… Most of my students that land their very first role and they were teachers and they are starting at 75, 80K a year. And so that changes their life. That’s one thing. And then of course stability, once you land your first instructional design job, what’s pretty sweet about it is now you have that on your resume, you have that experience. You will never struggle to land your next job. I had a new instructional design job when I was working full-time in the corporate space every two years, and I was getting a bumps and salary over 10% every year. And then I started my own business and you know, like 100% raise or something.
Daphne Gomez:
So with that initial 75 to 80, that’s just the average and it’s going to vary depending on what company you get hired for, but you do see a really clear path to promotions and increased salary at a faster pace within instructional design than you would with being within a school district.
Dr. Robin Sargent:
Oh my gosh, yes. Well, now I don’t know about promotions. If you want promotions in the instructional design field, some companies do promotions within, but really kind of the way to navigate our career is job hopping. I mean, I know that has negative connotations to it, but not really anymore. You put in a year or two and you just go to your job to get your raise. It’s pretty much how you view it.
Daphne Gomez:
No, absolutely. I mean, in other industries, the highest performing candidates are getting poached by other companies at all times. And other companies are saying, “Well, how can we take you and pull you over to this company? What incentives can we give you?”
Dr. Robin Sargent:
Yeah, in my first role, I started… I don’t mind about sharing salary. My first role was in 2012 for a corporation and I started out at 65K, which was like huge for me, because I, as an assistant Dean of students, I was only making 35K. And so that first jump, I was like, “Oh, I’ve won the lottery.” And then it was within less than four years that I was making six figures.
Daphne Gomez:
Yeah. The upward path to salary increase is so much different when you leave the salary schedule of working within school districts. One thing that people are always going to ask, well, do you need a master’s in instructional design to even land your first position?
Dr. Robin Sargent:
No, you need proof that you can do the work. You need a portfolio. That’s my answer.
Daphne Gomez:
Yeah, no. How would a teacher who’s working in the classroom be able to build a portfolio if they’ve never done instructional design before?
Dr. Robin Sargent:
Yeah. As far as building a portfolio, I mean, of course I would say join the academy or sign up for my Build Your Online Portfolio course, but you can do it on your own. And to do it on your own, you’ll want to select some topics that are corporate facing. Don’t pull things from your teacher bag. So don’t pull out math lessons or anything like that because you want to be corporate facing. And so go find some topics that maybe people are always asking you about. Maybe you are really good with Microsoft Word. So create a tutorial on how to do one thing in Microsoft Word and make sure to follow the instructional design model and keep it instructional aligned and create a couple of e-learning assets and then a instructor-led training and keep that in your portfolio plus job aid.
The most important part about portfolios besides doing the work of putting a practice in of creating your samples, is to get feedback from someone who is where you want to be in the next five, 10 years, because it is important that you’re getting feedback from other industry experts or experienced industry professionals. Because you don’t want to create your portfolio in a box because you might think it looks real good and your friends and family will be like, “Oh, good job. Look at you. You made your first e-learning.” But that’s not how the hiring managers are going to be. They’re going to be like, “Oh, I see. They don’t know what they’re doing.” And so you want to avoid that by… When you start to create things for your portfolio, even if you do it your own, make sure that you get somebody in the industry to give you real feedback.
Daphne Gomez:
If someone was to join the IDOL Academy or even your portfolio course, is that feedback component something that you’re able to offer?
Dr. Robin Sargent:
In the Build Your Online Portfolio, there is a study group. And so you can get some peer feedback on your portfolio there, but the academy is a whole nother animal. And in the academy, we live and die by applied feedback. And so that means that you get peer feedback. And then we also have academy coaches and we have IDOL mentors in the academy who are people that have already reached their big IDOL goal of like either they landed their first instructional design job, or they moved up to a senior role or a training manager role. And now they’re giving back to academy members by supplying expert feedback. And also the IDOL mentors, they have open office hours where you can come and get feedback on your work there as well. And so that is absolutely something that we are huge on.
And then we also have a Facebook group where you get peer feedback. So the process is you create a thing, anything, whether it’s a script, an outline, a prototype, a full course, you submit it to our Facebook group for peer feedback. And then once you implement your peer feedback, you can submit it to the academy coaches who give you detailed, actionable feedback on how to improve whatever asset it is that you submitted.
Daphne Gomez:
One of the reasons why I constantly refer teachers to your course is because it’s going to save them a lot of time and worrying of trying to do it all entirely on their own. And it’s also still less expensive than taking a master’s course in instructional design that wouldn’t give them all of these different assets as well. What other things do you have inside of the IDOL Academy that can help save teacher’s time if they’re working towards their goal in instructional design?
Dr. Robin Sargent:
I think the real beauty of the IDOL courses Academy is that we will take you through exactly what you need to create for your portfolio and all the best practices and the foundation in instructional design. You have an entire community of support. When you enroll, not only are you with your new cohort, the alumni, the people who have already reached their goals or people who want to come back into the new cohort to finish up their goals are all a part of that community. And so you’ve got people who are on your same exact path or who have been on your path very recently there to support you and give you feedback on all the things that you create.
We also host workshops on all the things. So there’s like self-directed training. We have full templates for, I mean, just name a thing. For instance, some facilitator guide templates, participant guide templates, e-learning course templates, all the assets that you need to build courses you get access to in the academy. For instance, like images, icon packs, video clips, stock video, just all those different assets that a lot of times you have to go and dig and find, we have a premium subscription through the IDOL courses Academy, where you can get high quality assets for free through the academy to build your projects, which just takes the professional look and feel of your courses up another level. That’s included. Also, you get access to Vyond, which is a cloud-based animation authoring tool through the academy. And so not only are you able to have all these other templates and assets, you can build animations without any kind of watermarks for your portfolio and for your courses. And then I’ve already mentioned the academy coach feedback, the IDOL mentor sessions, where you could just show up to office hours and ask questions.
And then I do weekly group coaching, as far as taking people through each step, select your topic, write your outline, create your script, create your prototype. And I just show you exactly how you can do it for your own topics and how to build your portfolio.
So when you have a full roadmap and all the support you could even imagine, the average that I see people knock it out is anywhere from three weeks, which is our record setter, to about three months for people that are kind of juggling work and family.
Daphne Gomez:
So would you recommend if a teacher was looking to transition, let’s say in six months time, that they wait a couple months and do it that first three months prior, or should they get their foot in the door as soon as possible to start building that foundation?
Dr. Robin Sargent:
Oh my gosh. Start as soon as possible. You may surprise yourself. Like I’ve had teachers that come in and they’ll say, “I started the academy just so I would give myself enough time to build the portfolio and the job application assets.” But then as they get into the process, they get excited and they’re like, “Oh, I just started applying early,” and then they land jobs. And so I think that the more time you can give yourself the better, because as you can probably imagine, there’s interviews to go through. Sometimes you’ve got to go through a couple of different companies and get through like four rounds of interviews just to find out they picked one other person. And so that just adds up to time. And so the sooner that you can also start building the habit of doing something towards your goal every day, that’s what’s really the value of it. Whether your goal is six months or three months, you want to start that habit of doing something related to your goal as soon as possible.
Daphne Gomez:
Another reason why they should start as early as possible is even if you have six months or two years to go, you could begin freelancing and building income and resume writing experience when you’re finished and have learned all the tools through the IDOL Academy or just on your own. Correct?
Dr. Robin Sargent:
Oh my gosh. I didn’t even mention that part. I’m glad you said that Daphne, but in the IDOL courses Academy, we have digital credentials. And so there are four levels of digital credentials at this moment. There’s about to be a fifth one, but there’s four levels of digital credentials. And when you get to the second one. The first one is e-learning developer. The second one is instructional designer. And once you reach those two credentials, like you turn in your projects to earn those digital badges, you actually can get paid experience opportunities through the IDOL courses Academy. So like you said, if you start earlier on those badges, you can actually get paid experience opportunities through the academy. So beyond even just like you could go find your own clients. Sure. Of course, you can, but you also will qualify to get paid experience through IDOL courses.
Daphne Gomez:
Well, thank you so much. I know that IDOL is actually only open certain times throughout the year. So I have it set up at teachercareercoach.com/idol, where you can sign up to join the wait list. But where else can teachers find you to learn from you?
Dr. Robin Sargent:
Oh my gosh. I’ve been in quite a few places. I really love LinkedIn. I hang out there a lot and I have a couple of Facebook groups. So there’s facebook.com/groups/becomeanidol. Or if you just type in the box become an idol for groups, you’ll find me there. I have a page on Facebook, which is IDOL courses, Instagram @idolcourses. And you can message me on LinkedIn, Robin Sargent. You’ll be able to find me and connect with me there. And you can message me anytime on LinkedIn. I’m happy to talk to anybody. And you could also message me on Facebook. I talk to anybody there as well. I’m really easy to find, but I mostly hang out on LinkedIn and Facebook.
Daphne Gomez:
Well, thank you so much for joining us today. I know so many people are going to be really excited to start exploring this new career path.
Dr. Robin Sargent:
Well, I just am so happy to be able to spread the good news that if you’re ready to make the transition, there is people who have been there and are here now for you and happy to support you.
Daphne Gomez:
Well, thank you so much, Robin, and we’ll have all of these linked in the show notes as well.
Dr. Robin Sargent:
Thank you so much, Daphne. I really appreciate the opportunity to come and speak to your audience. Thank you all so much for having me.
Daphne Gomez:
If you’re interested in more about the IDOL Academy, check it out at www.teachercareercoach.com/idol. If you do decide to enroll, don’t forget to use coupon code “teachercareercoach” to save 10% off of your enrollment. Thank you so much for listening to the podcast. If you’ve been enjoying these last few episodes, please consider leaving a review. It only takes a few seconds and it helps other teachers find this community and support as well. We’ll see you on the next episode of The Teacher Career Coach Podcast.
Dr. Robin is a former corporate Director of Learning & Development who has created an entire online academy focused on teaching Instructional Design, the IDOL Academy.
*If investing in IDOL, use coupon code “teachercareercoach” to save $$
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Where to start
If you’re just beginning to think about leaving teaching, brainstorming other options is a great place to start. But if you’re like many others, teaching was your only plan – there never was a Plan B. You might feel at a loss when it comes to figuring out what alternatives are out there.
Start with our free quiz, below, to get alternative job options for careers that really do hire teachers!
Taking the First Steps to a New Career
If you’ve already taken our quiz, it may be time for the next steps. I want to help you get some clarity in the options available to you. To know EXACTLY what you need to do (and not do) in order to get your foot in the door.
One of the biggest mistakes that I see teachers make is that they try to navigate this process alone. Often, they put off “researching” until the very last minute. Which sets them up for a very stressful application season—trying to juggle teaching, figuring out a resume, researching jobs, and hoping to nail down some interviews before signing next year’s contract.
You don’t have to do this on your own.
If you are considering a career change from teaching, I have a resource that can help you today. With the help of an HR expert with over 10 years of experience, I’ve created a guide to support you in the early stages of your transition out of the classroom.
In the Career Transition Guide, I’ll walk you through the factors to consider and answer those first-step planning questions including:
- A compiled list of over 40 careers that teachers can transition into
- An overview of how to read job descriptions
- How to evaluate the risk of leaving a full-time teaching job for the unknown
- Example translations from classroom-to-corporate resumes
- A checklist of everything you’ll need to do for your career transition (so you know you aren’t missing anything!)
- and more…
Take the first steps on your path to a new career now for only $19 $9!
