# 5 Podcast Interview, Application Competition & Entrepreneurial Skills

Back to Balance?

A couple of years ago I was very pleased to be asked to speak on the #AreYouConvinced podcast on the topic of professional burnout.?

The debate was around whether or not professional burnout is inevitable.?

I speak a lot about burnout in education, especially in relation to understanding what is out of your control and about the unsustainable and unsupportive environment you might be in. However, I also think it's important as teachers to explore our relationship with stress and overworking.

We often have patterns which drive us, whether there's the need to please others (and through that avoid the discomfort of guilt), push ourselves to do more, perhaps from a need to validate ourselves or "get ahead" and avoid feeling unprepared.

We might procrastinate, feeling overwhelmed by the quantity of work we have, or perhaps more exhausted by a sense of the perfection needed to complete a task.

We may just feel that sense of demand avoidance, feeling resentment that our "free" time is being dictated. I could go on... the psychology of burnout is complex and understanding your relationship with your environment, team, beliefs about work and your value etc all contribute.

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve received lots of messages from teachers asking how they know if they’re burnout and the next couple of weeks are becoming the pinch point of the year for those seeking GP appointments for work-related stress.

In this podcast conversation, I talk about what burnout looks like in the education profession and whether I think the sector is set up to make us fail.?

This podcast episode is a really good debate!

Do you think professional burnout is inevitable? Have a listen and let me know in the comments. https://plinkhq.com/i/1454574227/e/1000565716000

Career Change Confidence

How do we keep motivated in the face of competition for an interview? With more and more educators looking to transition into other sectors, organisations are seeing more teacher CVs. We’re growing in confidence in our transferable skills (hurrah!) and are competing with those applying for roles in a similar organisation.

The whole process can really reignite a familiar flame of comparison and competition in us. You may not think of teaching as competitive, but with the greatest will in the world, when you’re weighed and measured against other schools, other years groups and even, other colleagues directly, it’s not all in your head.?

So when it comes to applying for jobs online, and especially on LinkedIn when you’re being told there have been over 100 applicants, the familiar feelings of defeat might weigh you down.?

Firstly, I want to reassure you that when LinkedIn says there have been 100 applicants, it doesn’t give us the full picture.

30 of these applicants might not meet the required skills or experience in any way.

30 of these applicant might be the result of recruiters putting clients forward for this (amongst other things).

If you know that you’ve put the work into evaluating your suitability for the role, written a skills-based CV and have translate your teacher experience to address the job specification, you need to hold your nerve.

Yes, there’s always a chance the organisation goes for someone with direct experience, that’s always a possibility, but don’t let the metric put you off.

Business School News

This week, for some reason, tech and I have not been on the greatest of terms… which is strange as usually we rub along quite nicely!?

What with wrong Zoom links, deleted web pages, videos with no sound - you get the idea. ??

Despite the bumpy start, we had a fantastic session on Tuesday about how teachers can set up Virtual Assistant businesses. If you missed the session, it was jam packed with info about the skills teachers have that VAs need, the types of businesses they work for, earning potential, and my new VA Startup Success Mentorship Programme. You can watch the replay back here.?

I’ve also been busy this week putting some final touches to the new www.teachertova.uk website if you want to have a sneak peek! There are 30 places on the new programme (we’re down to about 10 now) so if this is ticking all the boxes for you, get in quick. There are also some amazing bonuses for this founding cohort including my CV and LinkedIn course AND our Project Management Fundamental Programme (which you can attend live with the next intake)!?

If you’d like to chat about it, do send me an email [email protected].?

To wrap up, I want to just mention an interesting question one of the members asked on the Business School call - they asked if teachers can learn to be entrepreneurial…

I’ll share two related qualities that I think make teachers inherently good entrepreneurs - there are many more I’ll cover in the coming editions, but these stand out this week!

Firstly (thinking of the tech fall outs) we’re inherently tenacious. We pick ourselves up like a ninja coming out of a commando role. We have to - otherwise we wouldn’t cope with the variety of curve balls thrown at us on a daily basis.

We preserve when things are getting hard - adapting, pivoting and riding the waves.?

Leading us to the second related quality which is responsiveness. While I do consider myself a risk taker, actually on reflection, it's more about anticipating the needs of my clients.?

Yes, we can be organised and great project managers in business, but adapting to change is crucial.

Constantly evaluating what’s working, what’s needed, where the opportunity is - I’m not perfect and there will always be the need in me to do more - I’m sure this is all sounding familiar!?

The traditional image of an entrepreneur can feel intimidating, but actually when we consider an entrepreneur as someone attuned to their clients’ needs, you’re already doing this on a daily basis.

Have a great week. ??

Jo