In this episode, I talk to former teacher Brittani Wright. She left the classroom by transitioning to part-time roles in consulting and curriculum development and then to a full-time position. If you’re currently weighing the pros and cons of working in part-time positions, this is a really great episode for you.
Listen to the episode in the podcast player below, or find it on Apple Podcast or Spotify.
Daphne:
Hi, Brittani. How are you doing today?
Brittani:
I’m good. Thanks for having me, Daphne.
Daphne:
So I wanted to talk to someone specifically who had worked in a lot of part-time roles, but I’d love to hear before we get into your work history beyond the classroom, how long you were actually in education for and your experience as a teacher.
Brittani:
Yeah, so I taught for 13 years. Part of that time was in Minnesota teaching eighth grade English and communications and a few classes like that, and then taught in Chicago for a few years teaching fifth grade, so 13 years total.
Daphne:
And were you always really kind of thinking of something else long term or was there a shift in your teaching career where you started to really evaluate different options?
Brittani:
I don’t know how much I want to admit, but I think teaching was way harder than I ever thought it would be. So right from the beginning I was like, “What have I gotten into?” And then I got better at it and more confident and I mean, I stayed in it for 13 years, so clearly it wasn’t all bad. But yeah, just got really, I’m really passionate about education. So I think, yeah, there was always in the back of my mind what else I could do, but it was probably maybe in the last two years I was looking for maybe something else more specifically.
Daphne:
So what were your first steps when you were looking for roles beyond the classroom? Did you have any idea what you wanted to do?
Brittani:
No, I explored tons of other things. I looked at instructional design, I looked at customer success. I looked at just curriculum writing. I looked at a ton of different types of roles.
Daphne:
How did you start to narrow down where you ended up? Or was it just kind of like a mishmash of wherever you were applying?
Brittani:
A little bit of both, definitely. I feel like as a teacher I’m good at lots of different things and so yeah, it’s kind of a mix of what was available to me also with obviously something I wanted to do and felt like I’d be good at.
Brittani talks about the first role she took outside of the classroom
Daphne:
So what was the first role that you took outside of the classroom? Do you mind sharing a little bit about that?
Brittani:
Yeah, so I actually found two part-time roles kind of at the same time right as I was leaving. So I left mid-school year because I was moving for my husband’s job. And so a lot of people knew I was looking for work, both where I was moving and where I was moving from. And it was actually one of my former coworkers who had left teaching the year before who found me a job with a nonprofit organization writing curriculum, and she’d been doing that. And so she hooked me up with them. And then the other one, actually my school asked me if I would stay on as a curriculum consultant with them. So I got both of those basically on day one after leaving.
Daphne:
Wow, that’s really super lucky. With the curriculum consultant work, you were doing that remotely then, I’m taking it because you did leave?
Brittani:
Yeah, both of them were remote. Mm-hmm.
Daphne:
I think some of the biggest fears that people have when it comes to taking part-time work, and this is completely valid, is that going to supplement their income. It’s not necessarily stable work and it’s not guaranteed. Usually it comes with a very clear at will contract. Was that something that you really struggled with?
Brittani:
Probably not as much right away because I was just so happy to have something to help me keep the savings from dwindling too much when I was first starting to look for full-time jobs, but I knew that the one with my school was temporary, it was just going to be for that spring and summer. And then I knew that the other one was just really dependent on when they had grants for projects. So yeah, it definitely just weighing things out, but for the most part I knew I wanted to take both of those. It was more when I was looking this summer where I was like, “Do I want another part-time job to supplement this curriculum writing one or how am I going to handle that?” So that’s where some of that processing came in.
Daphne:
Yeah, interesting. And we’ll get to that in just a second, but let’s talk a little bit about your work with that nonprofit because I think a lot of people really are interested in working in nonprofits. I haven’t heard a ton, at least through the podcast, people who worked specifically in just curriculum, a lot of them worked with community engagement or more of full-time roles in nonprofits. But when you were working in this role, do you feel like you were exposed to the different departments in the nonprofit? Were you starting to get any experience that you thought would help you go into nonprofit work more on a full-time basis?
Brittani:
Not really. It was really good exposure for me about what curriculum writing would be like if I wanted to do that, but it’s an organization that just does curriculum that is their nonprofit, so I really just worked with the people directly above me and then they basically hire us as contract workers. So I didn’t have exposure to anyone else in the organization, but it was really. . . I learned a ton about curriculum writing, working with them, and just how much more rigorous it is than even just writing curriculum for a school district or something.
Daphne:
When you were working in your teaching position, were you working in that same capacity? Were you writing all the curriculum for your school district?
Brittani:
So my most recent school, it was super tiny, so I was just writing curriculum, writing a lot of curriculum for myself, but it was never being shared with anyone else. But I did do some curriculum writing with my previous school district that was used by the district, so yeah.
Daphne:
And I know you were in the Teacher Career Coach course, but I’m curious how much, because I know you said you got this through networking, and I’m not sure how much of the course you actually went through prior to getting even these part-time roles. But were you leveraging and clearly articulating that you did have experience writing curriculum even for your own classroom on your resume for these types of positions?
Brittani:
So I had started the course probably a month before I left maybe even two. And so I definitely written my resume using Teacher Career Course and all that. So yeah, I didn’t have to interview for this position, but it was definitely very clear in my resume all the work I’ve done writing curriculum.
Daphne:
Yeah, because that’s one of the pieces that I think it feels intuitive and you write down, “I’m a fifth grade teacher,” that’s what I used to teach, like, “Oh, I’m a fifth grade teacher. Here’s some of the things I did and I created curriculum according to state standards.” But when it comes specifically for these curriculum writing jobs, they don’t know if you were at a school district that gave you all the curriculum or if you were in charge of writing curriculum for the entire school year. And those are two totally different types of teachers, and especially you’re not 100% sure if you have never sat down and every teacher has written curriculum, especially for your teacher, your training programs, but if you haven’t sat down and wrote 40 hours of curriculum, you might not realize, “I actually don’t enjoy that work.”
Brittani:
For sure. Yeah, I feel like I hadn’t done quite as much as I did this summer, so it was very eye-opening of how much mental energy it takes me to sit and write curriculum for hours at a time. And as much as I enjoy working for this organization, it was definitely like I don’t know if I could actually do this. And so I did interview for a few full-time positions that were curriculum writing. But yeah, I definitely kind of pivoted away from it after this summer. I was like, it’s great. It’s great work to do. I’m just not sure I could do it. It was definitely a learning experience.
Daphne:
And that’s, everyone’s different. There are people who absolutely thrive in that, “I’m by myself, I’m writing, I get focused, no one’s going to bother me,” phase, and then I’m the type of person where my brain explodes if no one talks to me for four hours.
Brittani:
Same.
Brittani shares how she started looking into full-time roles
Daphne:
I do need interactions and changes and different types of activities. I need different types of work basically beyond just that writing piece, but there are people who know that about themselves who love it. So I don’t want this interview to scare people away. But I was curious because when you started to look for full-time roles, it does look like you may have started to pivot into maybe similar different type of position. Do you mind sharing a little bit about that role, the technical training specialist?
Brittani:
Yeah, so like I said, I’d been applying for curriculum roles for a while and then shifted a little bit because realized I needed something with a little more interaction. So yeah, I ended up getting a role just recently for technical training specialists with an education software company. And like I said, I haven’t started yet, but I’m really excited for it because I’ll be basically onboarding new school districts on this education software, so I get to do a little bit of curriculum writing, but it’s a lot of on Zoom or in-person type work.
Daphne:
Yeah, I love that. That’s very similar to what I was doing in my learning consultant role. And then also I did some of that type of work with instructional design. I also did trainings for school districts and I do feel like it’s a good match of both of them. What did that process look like when you were starting to use these part-time roles to leverage yourself for a full-time position, did you find yourself struggling? Or did it seem like it was a little bit easier to get your foot in the door after being able to put other things on your resume as well?
Brittani:
Yeah, I mean, just listening to different people on post on the TCC community, I definitely felt like I was getting more interviews maybe per application than others. I feel like that had to have come from just having some roles on the top of my resume that weren’t specifically just working with students. Because I know like you’ve said, “Try and leverage those leadership positions,” or different things like that. And I feel like having these part-time roles really did make me stand out, and I’ve had many people mention that in interviews. So I think that was definitely an asset. Will you remind me of the question? I feel like I’m on a tangent.
Daphne:
So how long were you actually in those contract positions? I also think that people are scared to take something if there’s not like, “Okay, well I need to make sure it says two years on the resume, that I worked somewhere for at least this long or else it’s not even worth it for me to take that part-time position.” So were you there for a really long time?
Brittani:
No, I think it was six months. Yeah.
Daphne:
When you were interviewing for this position, did they start to ask you about that part-time experience or were they asking more about your teaching experience or kind of both?
Brittani:
With this particular one, I think just because an education company, they did ask a lot about my teaching experience, but I think it was a mix. There was definitely a mix where I could give interview answers from either experience. They didn’t really specify.
Daphne:
Were they looking for people who had subject matter expertise in a certain grade level. And did that help you stand out whatsoever for this position or just someone who was tech proficient? What types of skills were they really looking for from your classroom experience for it?
Brittani:
Yeah, it was definitely the tech stuff. And then they did really want to hear about my experience training other teachers, which I had some experience. And then obviously in my consulting role, I was also training and onboarding teachers, so they definitely asked most of their questions about when I was teaching and then training teachers in that consulting role.
Daphne:
Did you take the interview module and practice it prior to actually going into these interviews?
Brittani:
Oh yeah. Like I said, I had a lot of interviews and I don’t feel like that is one of my strong suits. Felt like my resume was really strong, but I definitely needed the practice interviewing. So yeah, I took everything you had to say to heart and practiced, and especially a lot of my interviews were on Zoom, so I’d have notes all over behind the screen with just the points I wanted to hit. But yeah, this was actually my first in-person interview, so I was glad I had all those practice interviews under my belt.
Brittani explains her experience interviewing for multiple positions
Daphne:
So it does sound like even with your experience outside the classroom, there were still a few rejections in between part-time work and finally getting this position. Do you mind sharing a little bit about the other roles?
Brittani:
Sure. So I probably had six or seven different companies that I interviewed with, and many of them were second round, third round. A lot of them, because they were in curriculum or the education space, had big projects that I had to do to present. So yeah, lots and lots of rejections after a lot of time invested in the interview process. Yeah, but kind of a variety of roles. I was all over the place trying to figure out what I wanted to do.
Daphne:
Were you able to get any feedback from any of the hiring managers during those processes?
Brittani:
No. There was one particular education company where I had interviewed with the CEO, and so I had emailed her just asking for feedback specifically, and her feedback was basically, “We had basically 2,000 applicants be really happy you made it to the final round,” and just some really vague feedback. So I definitely asked for feedback and rarely got it. I got ghosted at that point most of the time.
Daphne:
And that’s the hardest part. And it also is why we have the course in general is because a lot of people are not going to give you feedback, and there is a lot of times that you did really, really well and someone maybe just did a tiny bit better than you, and it sounds so terrible to say, but it’s almost like flipping a coin of, they may have been looking at two sheets of paper and saying these people are equally good, and then nitpicking of, “Okay, I guess this person is a little bit stronger because of this thing.” And then when someone comes back and says, well, give me feedback, and you don’t really have anything clear like, “Oh, you cussed in the interview,” or something that’s easy to say what it was. They don’t want to give you unnecessary feedback when there isn’t something there.
And then that vague, “Someone was more experienced than you is not helpful.” Like I said, that’s why we wanted to create something from a hiring perspective of, “Here’s what you can do to keep elevating your answers each time.” Because I think the first few times you go into these interviews, it’s so common to make some of the easiest mistakes. Someone says, “Why are you leaving teaching?” And you’re like, “Because I’m totally burnt out.” And it’s like, okay, that’s not necessarily the right answer for this scenario. Or “Why do you want this job?” “Oh, well, I looked and everyone works remotely.” That’s not going to be the answer that really stands out. Do you feel like when you went into the first few interviews you may have made any sort of missteps where you thought, “Okay, shoot, next time I know a better answer for that question when it comes up?”
Brittani:
Oh yeah, for sure. Definitely. I think that’s just, I don’t know, I tend to blank and it’s like nothing is coming to mind and it’s hard to sit there quietly while you think of an answer. So it just pushed me to prep and prep and prep and type out possible answers and all of that. But yeah, there was one time in particular where it was such an easy thing to talk about. They just said, “Tell me about something that’s not on your resume.” And I was just like, “I’m not ready for this.” I just blanked. Anything I thought of was on my resume, which is like I have a million things about me that aren’t on my resume, and I just couldn’t think of anything.
Daphne:
Oh no. You just get so nervous. And I think we talk about that in the course too, strategies of how to get through that. Were you ever able to spit out like, “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m just really excited about this role. I’m a little nervous,” or any of those tricks?
Brittani:
Yeah, I think I just kind of said, “Oh, of course.” It’s like when you say something that’s not on your resume, all I think of is what’s on my resume. I think I just kind of buffered with that. And then just I think I went into something like, “Oh, we had some really cool projects in my first job,” and it’s kind of related to my resume, so it’s not that great an answer, but I at least had something I could say.
Daphne:
During that phase of rejection for full-time roles, were you starting to feel like it might not happen for you?
Brittani:
Yeah, I actually accepted another part-time job, just thinking I needed something else to supplement and was definitely feeling discouraged about that. I thought I would’ve had a full-time role by now. And so yeah, I mean just even the months before that, I just didn’t think it’d take as long as it did. So when I did finally get the full-time role, I was ecstatic. But yeah, it was discouraging for sure throughout that.
Daphne:
Was there anything that helped you stay motivated during the process?
Brittani:
Yeah, lots of things. I mean, being a part of the community was huge, just being able to post where I’m at and connect with other people, heat where they’re at. I put up a lot of the affirmations that you had in the course. I have them on post-it notes over here reminding myself I can do this. My husband was super supportive of me, always encouraging me, telling me how impressed he was and proud of me that he was for all that I was doing. So yeah, lots of different things keeping me going.
Daphne:
I have never been an affirmation person and, probably people are going to be like, “Who’s this snake oil salesman selling a course with affirmations?” But I was always too cool for that until I full on needed it. Until I 100% did not believe that something was possible, that objectively looking outside at other people like, oh, it’s possible for everyone but me in this situation. And I had to write down those words. I had to tell myself daily like, “Hey, you’re smart. People are going to like you. This isn’t about you. This is just a numbers game. It’s a strategy game and it stinks for everyone and you’re going to get through this.” And so I’ve heard from so many people who were similar. I thought it was cheesy, but I needed that part to help motivate me through the times where I really wanted to give up.
Brittani:
Yeah, well, and I think teaching was so much of my identity, so I just needed those reminders. That’s not who you are. You have worth not just as a teacher, not just as serving others at all times of the day. I have worth and I can bring value somewhere else. So just having those written out, visible where I’m working every day was a big deal.
Brittani talks about how she felt supported by the TCC Community through the transition process
Daphne:
I know that you mentioned that you struggled with self-confidence through the process, and you also are brave that you took part-time work and that you were taking that kind of leap of faith, but you really didn’t have a choice, you said. But do you feel like having the community or the steps in front of you helped you with the confidence of, “Okay, I have this plan?”
Brittani:
I mean, yeah. Just seeing that other people had done it and I think especially when it was like, yeah, it took me six months or it took me 70 applications, seeing people pave the way before us was really encouraging. And then just honestly sometimes commiserating with the other transitioning teachers or getting advice from them or just encouraging each other, that was really helpful.
Daphne:
And I always have to say commiserating in a private forum. It does not have to be in the Teacher Career Coach course community. That is where she’s talking about it. But please don’t put it on your LinkedIn posts. Please don’t do it where it’s showing up on your LinkedIn profile because that is not doing you any services. But it definitely is an important part of the process for sure. When you were working in your part-time roles, was there any benefits that you were receiving from the companies or were they all freelance positions?
Brittani:
Yeah, they were all contracts. So no benefits. So that’s another reason why they were definitely temporary. And I left teaching with savings knowing that those part-time roles were not going to be enough. While they were super helpful in helping me get the full-time position, it was, yeah, no benefits.
Daphne:
And then during that time, did you sign up for benefits or go through your husband or what was your strategy with losing health insurance, is a huge one that people worry about.
Brittani:
Yeah, so my husband works for a university, so he has really good healthcare, so we’re paying extra for me to be on his. Same with some of the other benefits. So that was just the plan, and I’m lucky to be able to do that because less expensive than trying to go out and find it on my own, at least for the quality of healthcare that we got.
Daphne:
And now when you’re moving to the new full-time position or when you moved over to there, are there perks of that position and good benefits?
Brittani:
Yes. Yeah, there’s really good benefits. I don’t even know where to begin on some of it. I don’t know all the details completely. But yeah, they’re definitely really great perks. I mean, even just little things. They have a health clinic on the campus that you can go to, they have free lunches. There’s a lot of perks if you’re working in person. So plus all of the big benefits too.
Daphne:
And so you will be working in person.
Brittani:
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Daphne:
Were you looking primarily for remote work or were you always open to working hybrid or an office as well?
Brittani:
I was looking at both. I think my main priority is I did want to stay in education somewhat, and so there weren’t a ton of options in my area, but a lot of my applications were for remote positions. But I think partly writing curriculum at home and doing that consulting from home, I was excited to have at least a hybrid position.
Daphne:
And it’s definitely, once again, not for everyone remote work. Some people absolutely need it depending on where they live, there are not a lot of opportunities there or depending on their situation at home or health concerns, remote is their non-negotiable. But it’s so good to open up to in-person jobs because it really greatly limits the amount of competition. Do you feel like with those six or seven interviews that you got when you were looking, were the majority of those hybrid positions in office or were quite a few of them remote as well?
Brittani:
I think most of them were remote and yeah, there were 1,000 applicants for some of them. One of them had 2,000, and then this job was significantly less, so less competition for sure.
Brittani explains what she is most excited by in her new full-time position
Daphne:
What are you the most excited about learning in this new position? What about it do you feel like is going to remind you of what you’ve loved about teaching?
Brittani:
Yeah, so this job I think is going to take some of the aspects of teaching that I really like. So taking complex material and breaking it down for people still feeling like I’m helping the education system, being able to work with educators, that’s really exciting to me. But just from what I’ve heard in the interviews and things like that, there is a lot to learn on this software. And so that is definitely going to be the challenge is just to learn their software. And then I think maybe the other tough part is a lot of the trainings are on Zoom, and so if you have someone who’s not that tech savvy, I have to explain the technology to them through Zoom. So I think there’s going to be definitely some challenges there. I’ll have to reach back to the pandemic days to figure out how to do that.
Daphne:
Yeah, I love that. And do you know, looking at the company, this is very early on, but do you know if there’s room for growth inside this company? This is a long-term move for you.
Brittani:
Yeah, there’s definitely room for growth. I think the company’s like 500 people, so there’s definitely other positions, but I think for me, I’m just excited to do this and try something new and I’ll be making significantly more than I did teaching. So for now I’m like, “Yep, this is the plan and we’ll see where it goes.”
Daphne:
And that is after 13 years in the classroom.
Brittani:
Yep.
Daphne:
And that’s also something that I feel like obviously we talk about how to calculate it and think about it in the course strategically. It shows, hey, you might start at this position, but here’s the natural trajectory with this type of position. But I think it’s one of the hardest things for people is taking a step back. Obviously you have a safety net, not every single person has that safety net. So I’m not saying, “Hey, everyone who’s listening take a pay cut. Even if you can’t afford to make your mortgage, you’ll figure it out because in the long run that’s what’s best for you.” But in this situation, you did take a risk and you did take less money and less stability. And then how long were you outside of the classroom before you earned significantly more?
Brittani:
Like six months.
Daphne:
And that’s not going to be every single person’s story, but it usually happens much quicker outside of the classroom than it would like the growth when people are getting salary increases, when they’re getting promotions at their new roles, that just happens so much faster than it does inside the classroom, which is unfortunate, but it’s part of also, I think why so many people start to feel stagnant in their teaching position is because there’s not a lot of incentive financially to do a lot more.
Brittani:
Yeah, for sure. I mean, part of it is I don’t have my master’s, and so that was putting me down further on the teacher pay scale on the increase. And then most recently I was teaching at a private school, so we were making even less than the public schools around us. And so yeah, it was definitely me looking at where I could be in 15 years and it was like, “That’s not as much as I want to be making.” So yeah, it wasn’t my main reason for leaving, but it’s definitely nice making more now.
Daphne:
100%. And even to the master’s point, I was thinking teaching was going to be my long-term career choice. My last year teaching is when I finished my master’s, or no, I think the year before. I finished my master’s had about 30 grand in debt just from the master’s program. And then I calculated it. I’m like, “How many freaking years was I going to have to teach to even pay that back before I even earned any additional income on paying it back?” And matched my teaching salary within a few years of leaving the classroom, just working at different ed tech companies. So it’s very rare for other careers to have such a heavy correlation to pay for degrees for you to get compensated. There are definitely other careers that do it. Obviously if you’re in the healthcare field, they’re going to want you to have degrees in order to have different jobs. But other positions are really, it’s based on merit, performance, seniority, and I think that that’s really surprising to teachers.
Brittani:
Well, and I just don’t understand how teachers have time to do grad school. I was working all the time, and so the thought of, “Wait, I still have undergrad loans and I’m going to go back to grad school in what time? What free time?” And then have to pay that on top of my undergrad loans. It was like, “No, I’m good.”
Daphne:
I was just very single and very lonely and very determined to make money in the career long term. But I want to end with one of my favorite questions for former teachers, and that is what did you learn about yourself in this process?
Brittani:
I think probably what I mentioned earlier, just that I have worth outside of teaching, I read a really good book, and I’m not going to remember the name of it, but it’s something about burnout, unlocking the stress cycles. I can’t remember the name of it.
Daphne:
That might be the name of it.
Brittani:
Okay. It’s something like that.
Daphne:
I think the name of it is Burnout, I think.
Brittani:
Yeah. And I’m actually rereading it again because it’s so good. And they just talk about how we are human beings, not human doings, and we just get worth from existing. And I really love that and clung onto that. And so I feel like that is probably the biggest thing that I learned and grew into is just separating my identity from teaching.
Daphne:
Yeah, I feel like so many people will relate to that of however long they’ve been in the education system, they just feel like they are doing, but they’re not able to just exist and relax and have hobbies, have free time with their family, and for anyone who is interested, the book is called Burnout: The Secret To Unlocking The Stress Cycle. So you did, I feel like you got it right.
Thank you so much for being here. This has been just such a pleasure and I’m so excited for how much you’ve grown and just the fact that you were able to leverage these part-time positions into a full-time position that you love. And also you’ve been such a great community member in the Teacher Career Coach course, so it’s just been such a pleasure to meet you, Brittani. Thank you so much.
Brittani:
Yes, thank you so much for having me. This was fun.
Mentioned in the episode:
- Teacher Career Coach Podcast Episode 112 with Kevin Gray on Contract Positions In EdTech
- Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle Hardcover
- 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.)
