On 6/16/08, Merrill wrote:
> I am not at all familiar with the online "ASAP" application--of
> course I didn't know what to expect when filling it out.
Well, you learn by experience. Online ASAP is the company/website
that administers the online application. It is tailored to the needs
of the district though and has a number of variations. If you apply
for many districts in the Chicagoland area, you will find a large
majority, maybe 95 percent of districts use this application.
I suspect
> that the application is used to screen candidates based on things
> like race and gender,
NO, NO, NO, NO. That would be a lawsuit waiting. Its very hard to
prove gender and/or racial bias lawsuits, but if you are able to
supena web records, that would be a way to do it. I use the system,
and there's no way to sort by gender or race. In fact, that info is
voluntary and there's a disclaimer on there about it not being used.
There is no way to sort by this. That's not to say some hiring
managers don't think about it, but there's no way to do it online.
> the school they went to,
Really, we can only sort by only the type of degree(s) they have.
Applicants type in the college's name, but we can't easily sort
through schools.
> how many years
> teaching experience, etc. So you better have 10 years experience,
Not if you want to get hired in my district. OUtside of the high need
jobs like sped or billingual, we seldom hire a teacher with that much
experience. I call and do 1st interviews for the sped dept. I have
to be darned impressed with someone with an MA and 10 years to send
them to the next stage because they're going to cost 20 grand more
than someone with a BA and 0 years. Like I said in a previous post,
an MA and 0 is OK, because that's only a few grand more, but 10 years
and an MA is going to price them out of the market unless they're rare
like Chinese Bilingual Sped with HQ math and I have a need for that.
Anyone else with 10 years plus would have to understand they're only
getting 2 or 3 years out of my boss and I would only send them on with
that agreement.
> have a degree from Yale, and you better not be a white male.
Actually anyone from Yale would probably get an interview. I don't
know anyone Ivy League in my district. They'd get an interview, white
male or not, and the job would be theirs to loose.
> *Or, if you are the daughter of the football coach, they will
> interview you without ever having to go through the database.
She'd have to go through the database, but she'd have a leg up, no
doubt about it.
>
> This of course leads to the question of why education programs are
> churning out teachers who will never find jobs?
They want your tuition check. Not too hard to figure out.
> If schools in
> Illinois are getting 800 resumes per position, it means that the
> market is completely flooded
The regular elem ed, English, social studies, and PE fields are
completely flooded. Not sure about fine arts and vocational jobs. I
know Billingual Spanish and some Asian languages, and SOME Chicagoland
areas have need of Polish and other East Europe languages and/or
ESL-ELL (ELL is an English speaking teacher, with a variety of
languages in the room, teaching in English), Sped, and Math are pretty
heavily recruited. Sped I can guarantee you is shortage and I know the
Math department head can't find enough interviewees to HAVE a decision
to make. He has to take the ONE applicant that comes in. Science
I've heard a mixed bag about. AT middle school, there's no shortage
for general science, but I think High School has a shortage of Physics
and Chem. Bio is not really a shortage field, but its not History either.
--where is the "teacher shortage" we
> keep hearing about?
North Carolina. Texas. Las Vegas. Other places. Never in Illinois,
not accross the board, anyways.
> The rational person is going to find a hard time justifying going
> into a profession that has this many headaches associated with it.
Yes. By all means. Do NOT go into the glutted fields I mentioned
above. Only headache and heartache are going to come of it. If you
think you could be a good one, go into one of the shortage fields
mentioned above and you'll find a job. Its not that hard to figure out!
> Highly qualified people are going to go into the business world
> instead (they are).
Well, good. There are no jobs for them in education. There are
plenty enough highly qualified people to choose from as it is.
So many people read one article in Time about a "teacher shortage" and
assumed that meant everywhere and every kind of teacher. They
probably didn't even finish the article, they just read the cover.
So, off they go to be a 3rd Grade teacher or a High School History
teacher. Trouble is, there are WAY too many History and Elem ed
teachers in Illinois, and many other places too. There are fields
that have need.
In computer programing, a field that is generally thought to be well
paying and high-need, I'm told that there is a language that is almost
never used and there are no jobs in it anymore. You can still major
in it in college. There are several other languages that ARE high
need. Therefore, someone would be foolish to pursue the obsolete
language and find themselves unemployable, when they could have
pursued a similar program that had demand in the field.
Likewise, there are teaching fields that, while not obsolete, are
beyond glutted. There are similar fields, however, that offer
identical pay and similar work experience that could net one a job in
Illinois. The thing is, people don't want to pursue the in-demand
fields, because they're not part of their "dream" of teaching 3rd
graders or HS History. Sometimes you have to wake up from the dream
and try to get a job...
>
>
>
>
> On 6/15/08, spedhead wrote:
>> On 6/15/08, Merrill wrote:
>>> I just filled out one for a district in Illinois--it was an
>>> absolute nightmare. Took close to 6 hours to complete. They
>>> wanted every piece of information imaginable, put me through a
>>> "teaching style" personality test that was timed, and they
>>> wanted me to upload letters of recommendation--as if I have
>>> those--they usually come from the person making the recommendation!
>>
>> No, in Illinois they don't. You have to understand every area has
>> different ways of doing things. I have filled out out-of-state
>> recommendation forms that came from a district and they expected
>> me to put them in the mail direct to them. This is almost never
>> done in Illinois. We write letters of rec and give them to the
>> candidate. They then give them, or a copy of them, to the
>> district they're applying to. PDFs uploded on the online
>> application are quickly becoming the prefered way to get this
>> info, along with college transcripts and certification documents.
>>
>>> There was no place to indicate that I am close to finishing my
>>> Ph.D. There was also no way to indicate that I had been in the
>>> private sector for a few years between teaching gigs.
>>
>> Most Chicagoland districts use the Online ASAP application. After
>> you've done one, you can import a lot of the info to another
>> application. There is room to put all experience in the work
>> force, teaching and private sector. There's also room to put all
>> school attended and the credit you have there. If you've done
>> something other than this application, it is not the norm.
>>
>> To be honest, I don't care if you've been in the private sector.
>> We usually consider teaching experience when making a call on
>> whether to interview. Non-teaching experience has to be something
>> special to even raise an eyebrow, like military experience in Iraq
>> or aide to a Senator or something like that (I've seen both of
>> those examples, BTW).
>>
>>> So it is safe to say that an online application hurts most
>>> applicants in a big way. It's just laziness on the part of the
>>> district--why not hire someone to look at our resumes and cover
>>> letters?
>>
>> Ummmm, because that costs money. School districts have many
>> things to do with their finite resources and being fair to job
>> applicants doesn't even make the list. If public schools in your
>> state have money to spare, I'd suggest staying there.
>>
>> I'll say this. Teachers in fields that are glutted, like elem ed,
>> English, Social Studies, PE, etc. do not get their applications
>> looked at "fairly." I know this for certain because collegues of
>> mine hire for those positions. There are many hundreds of
>> applications for each job. We don't have the time to look through
>> them and we don't want to. This is why we have the online system
>> to sort through the people we don't even want to consider. Is it
>> perfect? Nope, but its the system we have and its the system
>> you'll have to live with if you want to work here. I'd say 3rd
>> Grade teachers are a Dime a dozen, but they're more common than that.
>>
>> Now, I look at special education applicants and we have far fewer
>> than say, the English Dept. I have the time to look through each
>> application, because there might only be 8 apps for 3 jobs.
>> Towards the end of the summer, when fluke openings spring up,
>> there might not even be one app for a job.
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 6/15/08, Don't worry wrote:
>>>> Most applications have a question such as "How do your past
>>> professional and
>>>> personal experience make you an excellent candidate for this
>>> position?" Surely you
>>>> can fit it in there, and you can send cover letters to the
>>> principals as well.
>>>>
>>>> On 6/15/08, Merrill wrote:
>>>>> Many districts and schools require online
>>>>> applications--basically a database entry for the applicant.
>>>>>
>>>>> In my case, I have a CV that is much more comprehensive
>>>>> than this--it has publications, service work, private
>>>>> sector stuff, etc.
>>>>>
>>>>> I am worried that the online system is going to make me
>>>>> (and everyone else) look the same. I won't be able to
>>>>> explain why I was teaching in the mid 1990s and then took
>>>>> time off and returned to graduate school/teaching (I was in
>>>>> the private sector working). In other words, the database
>>>>> is like a shoe-horn.
>>>>>
>>>>> I am pretty worried about this--should I be?
>>>>
1996 - 2008. All Rights Reserved. Please review our Terms of Use, Mission Statement, and Privacy Policy.
