3 things to do before writing your personal statement

Do you ever just wish there was a guide to life? An index of situations that you might experience and you could just flick to the right page? Or a set of instructions that just take your hand and guide you through every process you'll ever experience?

I know for a fact I would. It would have helped me avoid many mistakes and maybe I will have accomplished certain goals in a quicker timeframe (who knows?). The silver lining from being deprived of this resource though is that having learned things the long way, I can now confidently share them with you.

The job application process, for example. Where do you start? What do you do? Where do you look? How do you go about even starting? Lucky for you, with [primary] jobs starting to trickle onto the internet from March onwards, I'm bringing my blog back to life to help fill this "guide gap" in your life.

If you're about to start job-hunting, here's 3 things to do before even starting to write your personal statement.

Are you here for the journey?

Vamos!

1) Recognise your self-worth

I shan't go into this too much as this is what my last blog post was about, but in job hunting requires a clear understanding of your unique qualities. This means recognising your strengths, skills, capabilities, passions etc. If I were to ask you right now, put you on the spot, would you know how to answer? Should you jump the gun and start writing a personal statement having no idea of the "selling points" you want to demonstrate, it's going to be harder than you think and your statement won't be truly representative of your abilities.

Furthermore, you want to be certain of what you can provide the school. Once you want to apply to specific schools, research them and see where you can show off.

I've written more details about this in this blog post.

2) Be smart in your job search

I'm sure you're sick to death of reading "Work smarter, not harder." Some would say that this is just the corporate way of allowing us to do and achieve more in less time, but trust me, this is actually saving you time and effort.

You have two options with your job search:

• Option 1: You can either have several tabs open 24/7 and sit there glued to the screen, constantly refreshing in the hope of being the first to find a vacancy.

• Option 2: You bookmark a few websites that provide teaching job listings and you set up notifications so that they do the searching for you and you reduce your workload by just checking emails

A website I would highly recommend is Teaching Vacancies*.

It's a very user-friendly site, allowing you to filter out roles based on different criteria such as subject, location and hours. This video* has lots of tips on how to best navigate their website as well as providing additional application tips too. 

Independent or private schools may not post their vacancies on these websites, so if there are any local to you that you would like to work for, I would check these websites semi-frequently in case something comes up.

3) Understand the personal specification

Once you have found a job that you would like to apply for, you need to understand the three things that you are going to find. This will be a job application form ( fill out with personal details, qualifications, experience and your personal statement), a job description (highlighting the specific role) and a personal specification.

The personal specification is what you need to write your personal statement. If you're a regular follower, you'll know that I recommend writing out a draft before finding a specific job, but as you always have to adapt to each school, this will be what you'll base that personalisation upon.

The personal specification highlights specific skills, experience and personality attributes that the school is seeking in their ideal candidate. Sometimes, you'll find that this can be multiple pages long and it can feel overwhelming. As you are limited in your personal statement to a max of two pages, it can feel impossible to address everything.

Here's my expert tip: carefully review the personal specification and look for points that are similar, with overlapping skills . This helps you focus on the core requirements and reduces the number of points you need to address.

For example, if they say that they're looking for an enthusiastic individual and there's a separate point saying that they encourage hands-on, engaging lessons, I would join these two points together and ensure I use these key words so it's clear I'm addressing both points.

This is a big skill though, so do comment below if you would like me to do go into this in more detail.

As always, any questions, drop me a comment below or contact me if you need any support.

Lots of love,

Annelies

Founder, Petite Primary

* Disclosure: this video is a previous #ad, but it does provide useful general application tips too. I have been paid to share this information.