Sure you can print out dozens of copies of your resume and mail them all over the United States only to wait months to hear a response. Or you can click. The Internet has become an incredible resource for job seekers who can utilize it to research companies, network, and search for job vacancies. It’s fast, easy and convenient, so why not click away?
To use the Internet effectively in your job search you need to realize it’s potential. With a few clicks of your mouse you have the potential to reach thousands of employers. Take the initiative to explore this great tool and contact and research as many companies as you can. One of the best ways to job search is by checking job boards. You can sign up through job boards and have specific jobs e-mailed to you as well as searching these sites. These boards make it easy to sift through hundreds of sites daily.
Don’t forget to visit corporate websites. Sometimes they have jobs posted on their website that they haven’t released to giant job boards. You can find out contact information, research the company, read about different positions, and e-mail key personnel about open positions. Make sure when you are clicking away that you stay dedicated to the online job search and check important sites every day. You can bookmark certain employment sites and job boards so you can continuously search for new openings. Take a few minutes every day to make your rounds to these sites and see if anything has changed that could be to your benefit. Also, don’t forget to utilize the career advice and articles that are posted everywhere on the Internet.
Make the Internet your full-time job seeking tool. You can cut down on the hours you spend clipping from the newspaper and replying to flyers if you can learn how to use the Internet effectively. I’ve gotten my last three jobs from the Internet. It takes some time and some digging but there is always a diamond in the rough in the vast Internet world.
I was reading an article about the ten best jobs to get into for the next ten years, one of which was teaching. What was remarkable was that they cited the age old reasons to go into teaching, i.e. that it doesn’t pay well but it’s rewarding.
Well, I taught in public schools, and I can tell you the stress FAR outweighs the rewards.
For starters, even if you did student teaching, the first part of your school year will be about classroom management. There’s lots of theories regarding how to properly manage a classroom, but it all boils down to tell the kids to sit down and pay attention. Every impulse in their little bodies will scream to get up and not pay attention, and as a teacher you spend 80% of your day settling them down and getting their attention.
Second, you’ll get little or no support from the parents. Every parent thinks their child behaves at school the exact same way they do at home. They don’t. They’re completely different people when their parents are not around.
Third, you’ll only get a handful of students who actually bond with you, which is supposed to be the source of the “rewards.” When I say handful, I mean it. Out of 120 students a middle or high school teacher sees in their classroom every day, that teacher will be lucky to see 5 vocally appreciate the effort. That’s, on average, 115 students who will forget your name the second that bell rings dismissing students for summer.
The same goes for being a doctor, or a lawyer or whatever.
We as a people love to romanticize. Typically I’m all for that, but it can also paint the wrong picture of certain jobs and lifestyles. Just because it looks good on TV or in a book, doesn’t mean that it’ll be good in real life. TV shows and books have editors that take out the dull, stressful parts of life.
That’s not to say that teaching should be avoided. For some people, it can be a wonderful career. But not everyone. It wasn’t for me.
