Transition Tip #3: Focus Your Resume
I am going to talk about Instructional Design specifically because resumes should be by role, though you don’t necessarily need to customize for every single job ad much or even at all, if you understand and focus on a role!
When you’re writing an Instructional Design resume, here is what I would prioritize:
Staff Training/PD you have designed (eLearning or live)
Leadership (Department Head, PLC Lead, Committee Chair, etc.)
Curriculum Resources Developed & Used by Others (whether your PLC, multiple schools, district curriculum, or TPT)
Staff Training/PD you have delivered (attended a workshop and brought back to deliver at your school, vis a vis a Train the Trainer district/external system)
Technology Support to Other Teachers (usually this shows some leadership or training skills, but unofficially, like you taught all of your PLC to use Nearpod better but it wasn’t an official training)
Gap Analysis and Outcomes (SIP ties to PLC data, etc.)
Video editing/graphic design skills (i.e. edited together videos as a choral teacher, taught graphic design to students in an art program, etc)
Depending on what you want to do 5-7 are actually a three-way tie or may rise in importance. Almost none of those are just day-to-day classroom things, but they are the best things I’ve seen on teacher resumes.
Alt Text: (Decorative) A zoom in to the top of a resume. A pen rests on top.
From the classroom, this I would put on a resume with strong outcomes:
SPECIFIC Classroom Implementation/Innovation or Development of Resources to Address a Specific Problem (connected to Gap Analysis/Data Analysis above, when you saw a need and solved it creatively to benefit your classroom in a way other teachers might not see)
Impact/Outcomes (test results 30% above your peers/state averages/expected growth/whatever because you implemented X curriculum or used Y strategy)
Technology Integration Beyond the Norm (you can briefly work in what you did that others did, like virtual teaching, but try to think about what you did that stood out)
Accessibility-focused Accomplishments (teachers can often shine here, since we have to use accessibility strategies and have been trained on them directly usually)
The first 2 things are probably connected, but I’ve seen them separately too. I’ve also seen all 3 together!
Things I would leave off a resume for instructional design:
Alt Text: (Decorative) A comical stock photo of a goofy 5th/6th grade class where two boys are horseplay fighting and girls are making faces in the background. The teacher’s face is twisted admonishment and shock as she tries to stand between the “fighters”.
Classroom Management (classroom management is a teacher thing, though some of the skills translate to facilitating to any audience, I see statements around discipline and I promise neither IDs nor trainers are judged on their referral count or ability to break up fights)
Relationships with Students (while your staff/parent relationship-building may be impactful as SME/stakeholder correlations sometimes, most IDs aren’t working with learners as directly)
Basic Tasks Reworded Fancy (calling home about concerns isn’t “managing stakeholders”)
Educational Jargon (doesn’t matter which standards you wrote to, what certifications you have, etc. UNLESS it applies to the specific Edtech role or something, and then throw it back on for those jobs only)
Other Random Duties (decorating the classroom, budgeting for that field trip, etc.... I have seen so many random things that maybe were hard on resumes, but cut the fluff—-if it’s about the role you want, it doesn’t belong)
Awards like “Teacher of the Year” (these can have a mention at the bottom if you want, but it’s not really adding much so don’t spend priority space on it at least)
Finally, I would also keep but minimize the facilitation aspects, especially facilitating to students. Facilitation is an interrelated skill but a slightly different one.
A lot of people think teachers primarily facilitate (and some who use canned curriculum because they are forced to maybe do, I don’t know, I always wrote my own, but I have heard other teachers say they mainly DID facilitate, so I know it’s varied) so you have to balance that with things you designed and developed if you are trying to fill in those gaps AND have those experiences to share.
Don’t lie or exaggerate, but I have seen people bury the lede so to speak and throw the faculty training they did as department head for 30+ staff every month that brought up school wide reading scores last because they didn’t think it was that big a deal compared to managing 180 struggling high schoolers in their own reading classes. Or seen them put he schoolwide gap analysis they conducted to the last bullet because the bulk of their “day to day” was teaching, developing curriculum, and grading in their classroom!
Your resume isn’t what you do most as a % of your day. It’s what you’ve done that most connects to the position.
