Your Career Path Options When Leaving Teaching

Oct 11

As your guide on this journey, I want to inspire you to dream big while being realistic. And realistically, there are five paths available to you when leaving teaching.

How do you know which path is for you?

If you're considering a career transition, the first step is to gather important documents about your current financial situation. This includes your budget, savings, pension, and retirement. Knowing your current financial state is crucial because it can impact your path.

It's also important to have all the information about your health insurance. After all, a good health insurance plan is important regardless of your career path.

Understanding the financial needs of your lifestyle will greatly dictate what path is most accessible to you. If you are single, childless, in good health, and have decent savings, your options may be severely different from someone who has dependent children, who has a serious or costly health condition, or who doesn’t have much money saved up to cushion them.

The 5 Career Paths for Transitioning Educators

Full-Time in EdTech

This is perhaps the most desired option for educators leaving the classroom. Landing a job with an education company is a very natural transition because you have personal insights from your target audience (teachers) and carry a number of transferable skills.

Because this job applies to your skill set, is full-time, and likely comes with good benefits, such as healthcare and schedule flexibility, it’s probably the most secure option. It’s especially good for those who need financial stability and don’t have a lot of room for risk.

If you’re looking for a career in EdTech, you’ll want to check out these job boards daily.

Full-Time Not in EdTech

While you, as an educator, do have many transferable skills, landing a job outside of the education industry can be a bit tougher. This is especially true if your degree and all of your experience lies in education. However, your education and experience is not worthless to these non-education companies. If you present yourself well and speak about your experience in a way that is relevant to the job you’re applying for, it is possible.

This is also a very stable option regarding finances and benefits, however it does come with the added risk of not being as easy to enter into directly from education.

Contract Employee or Freelance

Contract roles and freelance gigs can be excellent ways to gain experience in your desired field. Many of them can even be done on the side while you continue your education job, if you can manage it with your schedule. These roles do still require portfolios, resumes, experience, and possibly even reviews or recommendations. They may require a learning curve, or they might require you to upskill before taking your first role, but they can be very valuable experience.

Because these roles are often project-based or follow hourly pay schedules, they can be more of a financial risk. These roles also likely don’t offer any type of benefit, other than schedule flexibility. I would suggest these roles to someone who needs experience and has a decent savings to rely on. It can be possible to work for several clients at once and create a good income, but it may take time and may not be as reliable as some prefer.

Entrepreneur

Obviously, this path requires the most risk tolerance. Creating a business is always a risk and may take months or even years to get off the ground. Businesses also tend to require investment. If you don’t have a savings to cushion you or another career option as a worst case scenario, this might not be an option for you right now.

If you can continue your education job or pursue any of the paths above while creating your business, this is likely best, though you won’t have quite as much time to invest in its development, stretching out how long it might take for it to gain traction.

Ready to learn more about entrepreneurship and finding your focus?

Staying in Teaching

Changing careers is risky and it’s not for everyone. It can be a very challenging and potentially lengthy journey, and you need to be prepared for many ups and downs.

If the transition is severely overwhelming and you’ve exhausted your options, staying in teaching is not a bad path. It might even help you gain more experience that helps you transition in the future. Maybe you land a job as an administration, or even just take on being a coach - these experiences can be valuable, especially if you can frame them correctly on your resume.

Take a moment to think about these paths. Which one draws you in the most? Do any of them appeal to you?

Remember, it's important to dream big, but it's also important to be realistic. Your financial situation will play a big role in the path you take. So take the time to gather important documents and think about which path is right for you.