Reframing Your Identity

So … let’s talk about resumes.

My friend N is a career coach and resume writer. “Why,” she asked me, “is it so hard for teachers to understand how to write a resume? Why do they need so much hand-holding from me when they come to me?”

And if we’ve connected through the Facebook groups for transitioning teachers, you know that one thing I often help those folks with is … how to write a resume. “Why am I not hearing back when I apply?” they ask. Or “Is there something wrong with my resume?” Or “How do I revamp my teacher resume to apply for a job as …?”

“Resume – Glasses” by flazingo_photos is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

If you’ve been a teacher, you know that a teacher resume lists every imaginable job duty and every possible extra thing … because (so we’re told) that’s what the Principal Who Will Hire you is looking for.

(Principal friends. is that actually what you’re looking for these days? Latin friends, do you appreciate the “lorem ipsum” text in that image? Non-teacher friends, did you know this about teacher resumes and the Story that teachers are told about them?)

But if you haven’t been a teacher, you may not know this about teacher resumes. You may assume that they’re pretty much like the resume that anyone would write in 2020, the kind that focuses on what makes you a great candidate for the role.

But teachers don’t really see the job as a role.

Teachers see the job as a calling and mission, and the job (as we observed yesterday) overlaps with the professional identity in a way that’s true of other calling and mission focused jobs (like ordained ministry in many religious traditions, or academics, especially in the humanities and social sciences, or some parts of the legal and medical professions). But most jobs aren’t like that. Most jobs are roles that you pick up at the beginning of your workday and leave behind at the end.

Of course you can have a calling and mission and a strong sense of professional identity in a role-job. Mr. N, the custodian in charge of the third floor at That Last School of mine, saw his work as part of his ministry – but he also saw the specific role (custodian for the third floor of That School) as distinct from his professional identity and his professional identity as only one facet of his overall identity. At church on Sunday, at the grocery store in the evening, he wasn’t “Mr N the custodian,” he was Mr N the person.

But for teachers, it’s so easy – so terribly easy – to get the role and the professional identity fused together. We talked about that yesterday, too.

With role-identity fusion, it makes sense to ask, “How do I apply for This Job as a Teacher with the following degrees and experiences?”

But you don’t! You don’t apply for This Job “as a Teacher” at all! You apply for this job as you, a person with this specific set of knowledge, skills, and experiences that will make you a great candidate for the role. You include the ones that are relevant to the needs of That Job Posting, and you don’t include the ones that aren’t.

But that is hard to hear when your professional identity is “Teacher with the following degrees and experiences” … or “Teacher of This Subject in This Room at This School.”

T and I connected recently, and we’re meeting soon to reframe her professional identity as she develops a resume and cover letter for a Job After Teaching that caught her eye. One important thing we’ve already done – even though the position is adjacent to education in important ways – is to name, frame, and claim the Story of what drew her to teaching, the Story of why it seems like time to leave, the “IT” that has her pretty sure that the time is near, and the Spark that wants to blaze back up into flame in her next right job. With that foundation, N can step out – at least temporarily – from the professional identity of Teacher and write a resume that isn’t “all about me as a teacher” but “all about the things that make me a great candidate for this particular role.” And N will be learning a process, too – a process she can use as she applies for other jobs and, eventually, when she finds herself called to create a role for herself.

What do you think? And do you find that you’re suffering from identity-role fusion at all?