How I Get Teaching Jobs

I'm not sure how it is where you reside but where I do it's not too easy to land yourself a teaching job.  I blame the fact that we have 3 universities here with education programs which means we get way too many graduates looking for jobs than there are jobs available.

Anyways, I have now held terms in 3 different school divisions and 1 private school.  In total I've had 6 terms... and nothing permanent.  So how did I get those 6 terms?

2 of them I interviewed for and was the best candidate for the job in the principals mind... those would be my position as a grade 4 teacher and my short term as a phys-ed teacher.

1 of the jobs I got because I was finishing up a term in the school and was available to start a new term.  The principal knew I had applied for the position and gave it to me.. this was the year I taught grades 5/6.

The other 3 terms that I got simply by being in the right place at the right time.

The first of these was a term I did teaching kindergarten.  The teacher was sick and just kept booking me for another full week every Friday... eventually it went so long that the division had to offer me a term contract.

The second time was last year when I taught basic French.  I had been subbing in the school frequently and one day the vice principal just asked me if I had any experience teaching French.  Luckily for me I had taken a teaching French program at a local university a couple of summers (and had previously taught grade 5 French) and so I had enough experience for the job.

Finally, this term I got by answering my phone and accepting a subbing job that was supposed to last just 9 days.  It was pure luck that the subfinder system had called me as I had never been at this particular school before and that no one else had accepted the job prior to me.

I have no idea what the likelihood of getting a teaching job in other provinces/states/countries are but where I live it's fairly difficult.  There are probably a lot of us that are fairly "seasoned" subs... my advice to you... do your very best as a substitute because there are people watching and you never know when your next term will come from.