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Welcome to New Teacher Talk. My name is Tim Neubert,

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and I'm the Executive Director of the American Association

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for Employment and Education, also known as AAEE.

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I'm here today with Dr. Sam Fessich from Grove City College in Pennsylvania to

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discuss how to research a school to find a good fit.

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It's great to have you here today, Sam. Could you please share a little bit about yourself and your

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work and how you've come to develop some insights about

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today's topic? Sure.

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Thanks so much, Tim, for having me. Hey, everybody.

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Great to have you guys here and join in our conversation as

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we talk about finding not just a job,

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but the right fit for a job, one that fits you.

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So, my name is Dr. Sam Fecich, and I'm an Associate Professor at Grove City College,

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where I get to work with future teachers all in ed tech and

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special education. And I also get to oversee a few of our student teachers in

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special ed, which is a lot of fun. I'm also the author of Edumagic Guide for Preservice

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Teachers and a few other books for new teachers,

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like Crush It From the Start, 50 Tips for New Teachers.

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And I'm also a podcast host, the Edumagic Podcast,

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a podcast for new and aspiring educators.

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Today's topic really hits home with me,

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because I feel like whenever I was searching for a job in K

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-12, everybody else knew where to look and where to find postings

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and how to format all the things and stuff.

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I just felt so lost in this whole process.

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Then, when professors would say, Oh, research the school. What does that even mean?

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So I'm really excited to jump in and get into some

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practical content for today's episode,

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because I think today's episode is going to be a lot of

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great stuff to jot down and to take note of and maybe even

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go back and listen to a few times, because I'm really excited to just share the practicality

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of what does it mean to research a school and find a good

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fit. So tell our listeners, Sam,

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why is it important to find a good fit? Whenever you're looking for a job,

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you just don't want to find a job,

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you want to find the right job for you.

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And that's not just looking at the posting or what's being

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posted on the job description, but also looking at a school's culture.

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What's their support for new teachers? What's the culture like at that school?

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What kind of vibe do you get when you walk in the

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buildings? At the end of the day, like, okay,

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I can either find a job because I need a job,

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or you can find the right job for you. And that's kind of why it's so important to find a good

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fit, because it helps with your retention. It helps with your motivation.

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It helps with your connection to students and kind of going

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and thinking about your own teaching philosophy and how

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that relates to a school in a district, that's going to help as well.

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So finding the right fit is so important for your own

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health and mental health and support system,

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but also the school is making an investment in you.

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And it also helps them too, because they want to find that good fit between the teacher

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and someone that's going to fit into their school or their

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district. And how would someone find a good fit?

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What should be researched and where should someone look?

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Yeah, that's a great question. So kind of like when I went back to when I was first

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searching for a job -- research the school. Well, honestly, Tim,

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all I did was look at the first page of the website, like,

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Hey, I did it. Check the box. Now what do I do?

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But there's so much more than just looking at the homepage

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of a school's website. Obviously that's a great place to start,

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but it's not an ending point at all when it comes to

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researching the school. So I actually have a little freebie for the listeners and

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it's a beautiful spreadsheet that walks through what to

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look for in a school or a district. I'll make sure, you know, I send it to you.

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You can pop it into show notes, but looking at the school's vision and mission statement,

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not only reading it, but do you understand what it means and how does that

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reflect your own teaching? Plus, does that

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mesh well with your own beliefs about education students

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and learning? Looking at the information about the

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community and the students that are enrolled in that

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community. Looking at the school's values and beliefs.

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Do you align with those values and beliefs?

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Then you can find that information on the school's website

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or maybe even under their HR information or in a faculty

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handbook that might be online. So there's lots of different places to look in a website

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that on the homepage, also looking through their social media and you can be

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really like nosy with their social media.

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You can even turn on notifications. So,

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you get notified when that school or that district posts.

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Now they don't know that you turned on notifications for

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Instagram or X, but you know,

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and that's a great way to stay curious about the school or

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district because you can see what they're posting about

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what's of importance to them at that school or that

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district. And you can even use that in your research process.

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So you can bring that up. You're like, I noticed you did a Read Across America Night,

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or I noticed you did this type of activity with the

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community. Can you tell me more? That's something I'd like to be involved in as a new

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teacher. Now you can kind of use that information to leverage

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questions or comments during an interview process,

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looking through social media like LinkedIn, Instagram,

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I know Facebook's a little old school, but schools and districts do post there.

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Sometimes they even post job opportunities.

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So that's another great way to be looking through those

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types of social media pages. And if you're able to,

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some schools and districts have links that go to their

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either classified websites or teacher specific websites

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that give more information or resources that the teachers

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might be pushing out. You know, let's not overlook that because sometimes we can look and

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we can see, well, what kind of technology is that school or that district

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using? What kind of resources may they have subscriptions to?

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What are some things that I could be learning about?

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Maybe you see they use a lot of Google classroom.

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Okay, go check out Google classroom or go look at being Google

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certified, or maybe you notice there are more of a Microsoft school.

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Guess what? You can get certified in Microsoft as well, or even Apple.

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By looking through and being a little curious and nosy on

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specific pages, it's going to give you lots of information,

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but you just got to know where to look.

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Such great examples of ways to get insights into a school

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and/or a district. So how can candidates use this information to improve their

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application materials or improve their interview?

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Yeah, when you're looking at that job posting,

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you're going to want to dig through it.

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What are they specifically looking for in a candidate?

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And could you use some of that terminology in your cover

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letter or in your resume? And can you show an example of how you have done assessment

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or provided feedback, whatever they're looking for in a candidate on that

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posting? Could you pop it into your cover letter or your resume?

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And then looking through all that information that you've

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researched about the school, you can bring that as talking points into the conversation.

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So when they ask you, Do you have any questions for us?

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The answer is not, Nope, sorry, I'm good. Of course I do.

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And you can use that information that you've researched to

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springboard some questions. And you can also use that research to have talking points

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in that interview. Because you're not going to want to ask questions that you

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can find right on their website or that you can find just

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by Googling. But by doing that extra step,

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digging into that school district, you're able to really customize those end of interview

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questions for that school or that district for that school.

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It shows that you're interested. It shows that you're curious.

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It shows that you've done your research. You've done your parts.

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You're not just signing on the dotted line. I have this job.

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You're really investing yourself, your time,

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and that shows up in an interview. And that's really valuable.

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Sam, you shared some great tips, suggestions,

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and insights with us today, and you've provided some valuable resources that we've

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linked to the description of this podcast. And to our audience, thank you for listening.

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I hope you become a regular follower of this podcast

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channel.