Evidence not philosophy: what school leaders look for in teacher job applications

Bartholomew Oswald, Principal of Learning & Teaching at Mickleham Secondary College in Melbourne, has reviewed more than one thousand job applications for his rapidly-expanding school and says those aspiring to land a teaching role should avoid flowery and overly theory-laden language that says little about their skills as a classroom practitioner.

Too many responses to Key Selection Criteria fail to grasp this fundamental point, Oswald suggests.

“I think we just want to understand the teacher’s practice, not just their philosophy.

“So the ones where they essentially just give us the adjectives (miss the mark).

“They’re full of ‘I’m passionate’. ‘I’m committed’. ‘I have strong work ethic’.

“They use the kind of key words they think that all schools want to hear: ‘I believe it’s really important to differentiate and so I do that in all my planning’.”

These less impressive applications fail to offer any specific example or potential strategy that the applicant would use to differentiate their instruction, leaving school leaders with scant evidence to consider, the school leader flags.

“They’re trying to provide us with a sense that they know what teaching is about, but not actually showing us how they go about it or even telling us how they might do it in the future.

“Probably the most important thing, to be honest, is to be able to show us – not just to tell us – how you actually can ensure kids are learning and getting the best out of what you’re doing with them.”

Many applicants fresh out of teacher training can seemingly struggle to fully capture the depth of their teaching skills and knowledge in writing, Oswald says.

“I think it’s just a lack of understanding of what schools need to know about – whether that’s maybe just something they’re not learning about through their studies or their practice at universities.”

This is not something that’s unique to education, he clarifies.

“When I talk to people who work in the corporate space, it’s not [uncommon] for them to have similar issues, too, where people are very confident to talk about their philosophy about why they want to do something…

“But they don’t back it up with helping people understand how they’ve done it before or how they might do it in the future, and talk through the process about what evidence they have or what data they’ve collected or what the outcomes actually looked like at the end of what they did,” Oswald reflects.

“It’s really obvious when someone’s pretty much just submitted the same application across lots of schools and maybe just done the ‘ctrl-F-replace’ on (key) words," school leader Bartholomew Oswald says. 

There are some green flags within a given application that school leaders look out for which can be the difference between landing an interview or not.

For starters, the application process starts well before anything is submitted online, Oswald points out. 

“What really stands out is when someone has genuinely taken the time to understand the school, its community and its priorities – obviously going to the website is a starting point.

“But I’d say the candidates who stand out the most to me are the ones who [for example, might have] come to visit the school. If we’ve offered a tour, they’ve come and had a look and asked questions and then they’ve used that to help write their key selection criteria to help tailor it,” Oswald says.

Noteworthy cover letters might mention certain aspects of the school’s strategic plan, for example, demonstrating the candidate has done their homework and is keenly aligned with the school’s instructional goals and overall ethos, he adds.

A lack of thought and effort on this front is usually quite noticeable on paper, Oswald emphasises.

“It’s really obvious when someone’s pretty much just submitted the same application across lots of schools and maybe just done the ‘ctrl-F-replace’ on (key) words.

“And its devastating, probably more so for the school, when you can see someone hasn’t actually properly changed things or whatnot, or they’ve included something for another school.”

These kinds of errors have been a huge red flag for all the panels the educator has sat on.

“I think a lot of schools are like this, where we want people who want to actually be at our school and know about what our school’s about and what we’re trying to do here.”

People underselling themselves on the whole is another common mistake that Oswald has seen play out in both applications and interviews. Now is the time to go all out, he suggests.

“I think [some people] don’t give enough evidence to help back up what they can do.

“And that just might mean that when you’re looking at about 20 different applicants, if someone potentially has left something off the table, and they haven’t sold themselves well enough, they might miss out on an interview and then potentially miss out on the job.”

Oswald recommends using the Situation – Action – Outcome (SAO) method when responding to Key Selection Criteria, even for leadership roles.

He says it’s one of the simplest and most effective ways to show your impact as a teacher:

Situation – What was the context? What was happening with the class, cohort, or curriculum?
Action – What did you do? Be specific.
Outcome – What changed because of your approach?

ITE graduates and early career teachers might not feel they have a weighty trove of examples to draw upon, but often this is not the case, Oswald says.

“Even if it’s just one example with one student from one of your classes about how you might have adjusted what you were doing in teaching the class to make sure that child had a better opportunity to learn from you – that’s evidence and you shouldn’t discount that.

“But even talking about potentially when you did try to do something and it didn’t work, and then next time you know you’re going to do something differently, that’s all evidence for a panel.

“Just to hear how someone learns while they’re working, helps show a panel that maybe this person has potential…”

If you find yourself applying to a school that is using a particular pedagogy or approach you don’t have experience in, there’s no need to cover this up, Oswald advises.

“Don’t lie about it, just be honest: ‘I don’t know how to do it yet but I have done some reading and some research and I understand that if I was to go about it, this is how I might approach it’.

“If you know enough about the school and that’s the school you want to work at, then … showing the panel that you are wanting to learn and to apply that and that you’re learning about it will help them take you more seriously.”