# of teacher applicants

[aladams2]

I applied for two open positions at a local school and found out today that 700 and 800 people applied for each of these positions!!! Holy crap!! That many for 1 job!?!?! That is crazy. I'm hoping to just get an interview and then see if anything goes from there. I've been subbing in the district for 6 years so hoping I have an edge over some other. Is it this crazy for some of you other teachers out there??

 

[daughtersrus]

I applied for two open positions at a local school and found out today that 700 and 800 people applied for each of these positions!!! Holy crap!! That many for 1 job!?!?! That is crazy. I'm hoping to just get an interview and then see if anything goes from there. I've been subbing in the district for 6 years so hoping I have an edge over some other. Is it this crazy for some of you other teachers out there??

That's the way it is here as well. One of the reading specialists at our local elem school quit last minute. They had over 1,000 applications for the job.

DD was hired last May for a SpEd position that started last week. During their new hire meetings, they were told that they had over 5,000 applications for the 27 positions that the district was hiring for.

DD applied at over 200 districts in the surrounding Chicago area. She will be driving about 45-60min each way for the job but we're grateful that she was hired before the last school year ended. She's replacing a teacher that retired and the district is building a new high school so we're hopeful that she will have the position again next year.


I wish you the best!

 

[golfgal]

That is pretty much the state of the economy these days across all occupations. I would really hate to be in HR right now

 

[monsterkitty]

Yes, that is what is happening here as well.

I would also like to add that for our Literacy position that is open, we had about 600 applicants. Of those, only about 100 were actually certified in our state to teach. About 350 had emergency licenses, meaning they have a college degree but don't have a teaching license in our state. The rest only had high school diplomas and/or a few years of college. These applicants will not be interviewed.

For our principal position, we had about 100 applicants. Only 17 of those actually had the Type D license. Some of these applicants have applied for every open position in our district, from cook, bus driver, Para, and teacher.

Times are tough. People are applying for any job that is open.

Good luck!

 

[Pixiedust34]

When we graduated with teaching degrees in 1991, some positions had 1000+ applications for one job opening. We applied to teach in several states, but couldn't find teaching jobs at all for our first year out of college. The following year, dh was hired and we did have to move out-of-state for him to accept the position.

I wish you the best of luck! What is hard about getting a teaching job is that if you are not hired by fall then usually (unless you luck into a long term sub position that opens permanently) you have a whole year to wait for the next hiring period. I hope that you are able to find a job this year.

 

[jen0610]

DH goes to school with a lady that works in the county HR office. They posted a part time job with animal control. It was posted as open applications til filled. It went up Monday 8 am. By 4:30, they had to pull it. They had over 5000 applications and their system was on overload. It could not handle the number of people applying.

Trying to get that position - finding that one application that works out of 5000 - is as easy as finding that needle in the haystack. DH knew that the posting was going up. He was online and applied early in the morning. Has his confermation number that the application was received. The lady from class has looked for his application and even with his confermation number, she can't find it. She has taken it to the HR director and the IT people. If this happened to him, how many others did it happen to and they aren't aware of it. It's been 4 weeks and they are still weeding thru everything to find someone to fill the position.

 

[MushyMushy]

Oh yeah, that's the way it is here too. Also, people are willing to drive longer and longer distances for those teaching jobs too. For as much as I feel like it's my life's dream to teach, one of my biggest regrets right now is spending money on that degree that I can't even use.

 

[kamik86]

Wow... and then my company was trying to hire 12 first year Engineers and would be allowed up to 14 (but 12 was the goal). The position would pay for your masters up front. pays 60K a year, and offers good job security as its a special 3 year program that no one has been laid off from yet in all the years they have been doing it.

We didn't make the goal... I think we maybe got 10. I wasn't part of the recruiting team just someone in the program a year ahead so I don't know all the details but they couldn't find too many qualified people and although they did give more then 14 offers this was all that accepted. 1 did have clearance issues too (its a job with a gov. contractor)

 

[paintnolish]

*puts fingers in ears* La,la,la! I can't hear you!
Good luck! I am student teaching this fall and will too soon be in your position. A lot of the young, unattached people I know were able to find jobs in other states, bu I don't have option. I am married with two children, own a house, and dh has a great teaching job which is almost tenured. Luckily, I can sub and have serving job to fall back on which sadly pays almost the same, if not more, than a teaching job.

 

[daughtersrus]

Wow... and then my company was trying to hire 12 first year Engineers and would be allowed up to 14 (but 12 was the goal). The position would pay for your masters up front. pays 60K a year, and offers good job security as its a special 3 year program that no one has been laid off from yet in all the years they have been doing it.

We didn't make the goal... I think we maybe got 10. I wasn't part of the recruiting team just someone in the program a year ahead so I don't know all the details but they couldn't find too many qualified people and although they did give more then 14 offers this was all that accepted. 1 did have clearance issues too (its a job with a gov. contractor)

Really? !

My nephew is graduating (mechanical engineering) in Dec and doesn't seem too hopeful about finding a job.

Are you anywhere close to IL?

 

[Carly_Roach]

Wow... and then my company was trying to hire 12 first year Engineers and would be allowed up to 14 (but 12 was the goal). The position would pay for your masters up front. pays 60K a year, and offers good job security as its a special 3 year program that no one has been laid off from yet in all the years they have been doing it.

We didn't make the goal... I think we maybe got 10. I wasn't part of the recruiting team just someone in the program a year ahead so I don't know all the details but they couldn't find too many qualified people and although they did give more then 14 offers this was all that accepted. 1 did have clearance issues too (its a job with a gov. contractor)

That doesn't surprise me at all. From what I'm seeing it's a vicious cycle. They get so many applications that they attempt to automate it. Within the automation are checkboxes that, if not checked, will drop the candidate regardless of whether or not they have most of the requirements.

It's not that you can't find qualified candidates, it's just that you can't find the one person who has 100% of every single thing you're looking for which, in and of itself, is a million to one possibility. Or, in your case, a million to 10 possibility.

Of those 10 who did find jobs there, I'm willing to wager that most of them likely knew someone somewhere in your company who was willing to go to bat for them and that's why they got the jobs.

 

[Pembo]

Teaching applicants are that way here in NE Ohio too.

 

[kamik86]

That doesn't surprise me at all. From what I'm seeing it's a vicious cycle. They get so many applications that they attempt to automate it. Within the automation are checkboxes that, if not checked, will drop the candidate regardless of whether or not they have most of the requirements.

It's not that you can't find qualified candidates, it's just that you can't find the one person who has 100% of every single thing you're looking for which, in and of itself, is a million to one possibility. Or, in your case, a million to 10 possibility.

Of those 10 who did find jobs there, I'm willing to wager that most of them likely knew someone somewhere in your company who was willing to go to bat for them and that's why they got the jobs.

Nope because we interviewed more, many more. Also the system and the people doing the hireing were the same people as when I got my job, I didn't know anyone from the company. We found a bunch that were doing huge red flags (telling the interviewer that the question they asked was stupid and instead of answering it, talking about being burned out from school and not wanting to do some of the requirements of this program which does include some extra work, that kind of thing) however we also put out several offers in waves... I think over 20 offers were put out. As I said one had clearance issues so couldn't be hired the rest didn't want to live in the area (Western MA, not exactly your best night life location) or had other offers they perferred.

I'm not saying our recruiting practices are great (they aren't we had a few meetings to tell them some improvements to that) but I'm just pointing out that there are some fields that are still having hireing problems. When I graduated almost everyone in my class had jobs. Those that didnt were the ones with really bad gpas and/or were holding out for a job in a specific city.

As for the one with the Mech E son, our facility doesn't hire too many mech Es (Software, Systems, and Electrical are our big ones) because we don't do alot of building (we work mostly for the Navy and if you look at a map I'm sure you would get why western MA doesn't build much lol) however there are government contractor locations that do. I'm not sure if they have IL locations though but it could be worth checking out.

 

[tvguy]

Around here, with a sharp drop in enrollment, and the economy, a lot of teachers have been laid off . Those teachers have first dibs at job openings per their union contract. It will be a while before they even think about accepting applications.

 

[linnylu]

Oh yeah, that's the way it is here too. Also, people are willing to drive longer and longer distances for those teaching jobs too. For as much as I feel like it's my life's dream to teach, one of my biggest regrets right now is spending money on that degree that I can't even use.

I agree with this. I just spent at least $4000 to renew my license, but probably won't get a teaching job in the near future. I applied for 3 teaching jobs for this fall and got only 1 interview. I did not get the job. I know so many unemployed teachers right now. DD wants to major in education in college. I feel like she'll be throwing 10s of $1,000s down the toilet.