How do you get your first job? What does it take to eventually get that dream position?

Before you interview, music educator Esther Redding suggest that you

1. Make sure your resume is professional in appearance [have a friend or colleague read it!]. Online programs offer suggestions as to format and content. Redding adds: “This piece of paper is your first contact with the school district. Strive to make a good impression!”
    
2. Include all information about your employment, experience, or volunteer work with children.  Even if you worked in a shop in a mall, tell about your demeanor while dealing with customers, your work attendance record, and your responsibilities and how these would help you in a new position. Include mention of private lessons you’ve given. A job as a sports coach shows that you can manage a group of youngsters--an especially helpful item if you have no previous teaching experience.
    
3. Wear professional attire for your interview.  If a woman, you should wear hose and close-toed shoes—no sandals or flip-flops. Guys need to wear suits. Although what you say is most important, as Redding says, “If the position is a close call between two candidates, your clothing is noticed.”
    
4. Shake hands firmly, use good eye contact.  Good manners are critical to success, and can make or break your interview for many potential employers, especially older ones.
    
5. Control your technology.  When interviewing, please sure to:
   
   (a) Turn off your cell phone, Blackberry, or other electronic device. It is extremely unprofessional to receive an auditory signal with an incoming voice mail, text, or e-mail during an interview. If this should happen, apologize and turn it off immediately. This could easily cost you the job. Don't even bother checking who called you.
   
   (b) Be mindful of what you post on social networking websites. Savvy employers will check out your site for potentially harmful links before you are employed. Eliminate all questionable photos. After the interview, be mindful of what you post on your wall.
   
   (c) Make sure your e-mail address is professional. Sexy or cute nicknames do not have a place on a professional resume.
    
6. Bring a portfolio.  Redding suggests including “information about your educational philosophy, sample lesson plans, your cooperating teacher’s observations of your student teaching experiences, college transcript, music you arranged, programs of your performances, state police background check, etc. One candidate even included his TB results.”
    

Redding also advises, “Check the school district’s website to see their current philosophy and teaching practices. We are currently focusing on LFS (Learning Focus Schools), and it helps if candidates have a knowledge of what that is and how to implement it in their lessons.”

MENC member Esther Redding is a music educator with the South Western School District in Hanover, Pennsylvania, where she teaches 6th- and 7th-grade general music; 6th-, 7th-, and 8th-grade chorus; and show choir. This article was adapted from “So, You Want to Be a Teacher … ?” Winter 2002 PMEA News, p. 12.

Succesful Teaching Interviews, Part 2

Helpful Links:
MENC Career Center
A Career Guide for Music Education 

Books (available by calling 800-462-6420):

Great Beginnings for Music Teachers: Mentoring and Supporting New Teachers
Covers the challenges faced by beginning music teachers, district and state -sponsored mentoring and induction programs, alternative certification, and ideas for ongoing professional development. Includes first-person accounts written by beginning music teachers and a state-by-state list of mentoring policies and programs. Edited by Colleen M. Conway, assistant professor of music at the University of Michigan.

Teacher to Teacher: Music Educator’s Survival Guide
Strategies and suggestions for coping with the challenges facing teachers today. An excellent resource for beginning teachers, it includes chapters on classroom management, relationships with colleagues and students, setting goals, curriculum, training, working with parents and the community, and the importance of staying musical.

--Ella Wilcox, December 8, 2010, © MENC: The National Association for Music Education (www.menc.org)