Resume Detox for Burned-Out Teachers: Career Transition Tips That Actually Work

Burned out and job hunting? Vanessa shares a powerful story, a time-saving hack, and a no-fluff resume detox to help teachers transition careers with clarity. Learn what to keep, cut, and reframe for your next chapter.

In this episode of Teachers in Transition, host Vanessa Jackson tackles two traps many teachers face when planning their exit strategy:

1. The ever-rising bar of expectations that leads to chronic burnout
2. Resume overload—how to cut the fluff and showcase what really matters in a non-teaching job search

Vanessa shares a powerful story from her college days, a time-saving planning hack for overwhelmed teachers, and a resume-cleaning framework called Keep / Translate / Delete—designed specifically for educators shifting careers.

Whether you're just starting your job search or staring at a resume full of "teacher speak," this episode delivers clarity, direction, and a few laughs.

Keywords

teacher burnout, resume tips for teachers, teacher career change, resume detox, teacher transferable skills, teacher job search, education to corporate, ATS resume help, leaving teaching, job search tips for educators

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The transcript to this podcast is found on the episode’s homepage at Buzzspout

Transcript

Hi and welcome back to Teachers in Transition, the podcast that doesn’t sugarcoat the burnout - or the brave leap it takes to walk away from a career that was once your calling.

Today’s episode is part pep talk, part resume intervention, and as always, a hack to help your day. 

We’re going to tackle two things that are quietly, persistently draining teachers every day:

1. The way the “bar” just keeps getting higher, no matter how hard you work.
2. And what to actually take off your resume when you're ready to get out of the classroom—and into a career that fits who you’re becoming.

If you’ve ever felt like, “I’m doing more than ever and still not enough,” or you’re staring at your resume wondering if “guided reading groups” is supposed to impress a hiring manager at Google… then friend, you are in the right place.

I’m gonna start with a story.

When I was in college, the first semester I was in college Leonard Bernstein died.

And if you don’t know who Leonard Bernstein is he was sort of the Lin-Manuel Miranda of his day. The man was a genius. He composed West Side Story, Candide, and shaped shape an entire era of American music.  If you’re a Looney Tunes fan and you remember the episode where Bugs Bunny is the conductor with the guy who kept singing “figaro, Figaro, FIGARO!”, that was – not so much a parody, but that was an homage to Leonard Bernstein. 
 
 
 

At the time, I was in the wind ensemble at UT–San Antonio. And when he passed, the music department decided to put together a tribute concert. All Bernstein. All in less than a week.  We had a Tuesday concert series and they dedicated that next tTuesday to… Berstein.  
 
 It was Thursday.  That gave the Wind Ensemble two rehearsals before the concert. 

Eh, You know, that’s just bananas. Usually, professionals and academic music ensembles will spend spend a month or so preparing for a concert. But everybody was determined and we practiced Friday, Monday, and performed Tuesday.

And we nailed it.

Like, it was one of those performances where everyone has that moment of quiet before they start clapping. We were proud. Our director was proud. We were all sitting there the next day, basking in the glow, feeling like musical heroes.

And then he said the words that stuck with me for decades.  He looked at us all and said:

“Now that I know you can do that, I will expect that.”

And there it was – a little bit of a trap there.

What was supposed to be a one-time feat? It instantly became the new bar. No more weeks of prep. No more room for error. Just… higher expectations. In that instance it worked out for us because the music got more exciting and more challenging, - which was great -  but that’s also the education system in a nutshell.

You go above and beyond once.  You really put yourself out there, you go without sleep, you get the job done.  And instead of being supported, or promoted, or even just thanked meaningfully... the system absorbs it. Digests it. Expects it.

Suddenly, your superhuman effort becomes standard.

And worse? It’s invisible the next time. No parades. No thank-you notes. Not even a sticky notes sayin “I gotcha”Just a new set of expectations stacked on top of the last ones.

My dad used to call it “putting the big pot in the little one.” You know—when you pour something massive into a container that clearly can’t hold it, and somehow you just make it work.

Teachers make it work all the time. Teachers do the impossible because we have to.

And here's the part no one really tells you:

The pot  - the big pot - keeps getting bigger. And the little pot keeps shrinking.

That’s how burnout sneaks up. Not because you’re lazy. Not because you’re not “resilient” enough and not because you’re not spending enough time in your district-mandated self care. 

But because you’ve spent years doing heroic work that no one was ever supposed to sustain.  

So if you're sitting there wondering, “Why am I so tired all the time?” This is why. And please hear me:

You’re not broken. You’re not failing.

You’re being burned up and burned out. And you don’t owe anyone your ashes.

I’m gonna segue over into our Teacher hack – these hacks are designed to save you time and/or brain space so that you have more time in your life to do what you want – like upskill for a new career or fill out a job application.
 
 Todays hack is all about planning.  I am SUCH a fan of planning. I very fervently believe in the antimetabole, “A failure to plan is a plan to fail.” I heard it a lot growing up.  I’ve said it a lot to my own children growing up. We deeply understand this in our house.  The hack is simple: Make your To-Do list for the next day on the day before.  As a reminder, there is no way to finish a teacher’s to do list, so it’s OK to stop your day and carry some things over.    Here’s the math: 

Every minute you spend planning saves about 10 minutes in the execution. 

So here’s what we’re going to do;  here are three things we’re going to do:
 
 #1 brain dump all the things racing around in your brain. I swear at the end of the day, all the things I still want to do are jumping in my brain like squirrels at a rave!  A brain dump allows the brain to relax knowing that none of these things will be forgotten – because they’re written down!  This can help you go to sleep. 

 #2 Check the schedule to see what appointments are coming up.  This helps prevent nasty surprises. I also advocate for getting things ready the night before that the schedule has told you is coming. Nighttime Vanessa is always much more optimistic about what Morning Vanessa can handle, and Morning Vanessa gets pretty resentful at Nighttime Vanessa for not getting things done.  Besides, getting things ready the night before helps when weird things happen – like the dog catches a skunk or the coffee maker expires noisily.  It’s just easier to deal with these little crises when you don’t have to ALSO run around trying to remember everything you wanted to do or to have for the day. 

And lastly, the secret sauce -
 #3 Schedule time for procrastination or…nothing…

Make room for chaos. The mind has a penchant for meandering and if you don’t let it, it can result in burnout and stress. Make time in your day to do anything else other than something “productive”. Maybe engage in a creative activity to enjoy like writing or doodling. 

You’ll be happier and you’ll be much less stressed. 

And next up is the segment on Career Transition and Job search.  
Today we are talking about Resume To-Don’ts. 
 
Most teachers have too much on their resume that just doesn’t matter. It doesn’t. It just doesn’t belong. 
 
  Let me start with a story: my husband was interested in applying for a different job that paid more and asked for my help reviewing his resume and helping making sure it was ready to go. So of course I was very happy to help with this project for my Sweetie-Pie.

I start going over it and making a few formatting changes but further down I start highlighting big sections of text and entire bullet points. He's standing behind me the entire time while I work, and he asks, “why are you highlighting those things?”

“Well,” I replied, “these are all the things that I would delete entirely from your resume”

He was quiet for a moment.  He thought about that. He looked at what I was doing and when he replied his tone was a little dejected because this was a lot of that was his work from his military career, and he said, “I was kind of proud of those things.”

And my response was, “Oh, I am proud of them too, Sweetie! It's just that they have nothing to do with the job description.”

And then I turned him loose to work on his resume and to do what he felt he needed to do. He deleted the things that I highlighted and he went with my changes I am very proud to report that he did get that job which resulted in a 10% raise and what he had been previously making.

You have to be careful about how much weight you put in your resume. If you’re trying to write a resume while still carrying the weight of everything you used to be, then  you’re going to write a resume that apologizes for your past instead of selling your future.

Let’s fix that.
 
 Instead of calling them Resume to Don’t’s, we’re going to call this a Resume Detox—and friend, we’re about to declutter and detoxify on a large scale. 

Most teacher resumes I see fall into one of three categories: You have

1. The Overachiever Diary: Lists every role, responsibility, and committee since 1998.  Really it’s a CV.  Those are great for university jobs, but the exact opposite of  great for a corporate job. 
2. The Jargon Soup: There is too much education-ese, too much lingo that is specific to education.  Every acronym from IEP to RTI thrown into a bullet point blender.
3. The Saintly Martyr Letter: You can practically hear the violins playing in the background at all they have sacrificed for education. 

So, we’re stop that. You are not writing your memoir. (although you could, but that’s a separate thing) You are not writing a eulogy.
 You are writing a sales document for your next chapter.

And that means cutting anything that doesn’t help you get where you want to go. We call this tailoring the resume. Even if it’s cool stuff that you were proud of.  As I’ve said often, no one really cared that I won best-mannered teacher two years in a row from the Junior Cotillion – except my parents – they were really proud of that!  But certainly it doesn’t belong on a resume.

✅ KEEP (But Only With Context)

These are the pieces of your teaching experience that can shine—if you frame them right.  The TLDR (too long; didn’t read) here is: Avoid all the teacher words.  Education is very much it’s own language.  I think that is isolating in and of itself and makes it difficult for teachers to leave teaching.  It’s an entrapment mechanism. 

• Classroom Management is one of these phrases. Think group leadership, team dynamics, or conflict resolution.  All of which fall under classroom management, but what a person who had bad experiences in school is going to see is “mean teacher” when you say classroom management. 
• Differentiated Instruction? That’s personalized user experience. It’s valuable in UX (user experience), training, and customer service. It means nothing outside the world of education to say “differentiated instruction”
• Data-Driven Instruction?  I apologize for saying that – some of you may have had an eye start to twitch when I said that.  But instead, it is  “analytics-informed decisions.” The corporate world prefers analytics over data even though technically they’re kinda the same thing. 

But you notice the pattern? This isn’t lying – this is a translation of your skills into a language and a framework that makes sense in a  non-educational environment. Translating. You’re showing how what you did fits in their world. Never ever expect the corporate world to understand the education jargon.  I might even say that a couple more times before we are done with this segmen.t

And please, add results. If you say you implemented a new strategy—what happened because of because you implemented that strategy?  What were the results?  And try to work in a number or a percentage into the bullet point.  The computer gatekeeper also known as the applicant tracking system or ATS, likes it, a recruiter/reviewer likes to see the impact you’ve made, and an actual number or percentage makes it a quantitative result.   It lends it more credence.
 
 

The next category is 

⚠️ Things to TRANSLATE CAREFULLY (Or Let It Go)

Now we’re in a little more murky territory.

There are some terms that could help… but only if they’re relevant to the job you're aiming for. You know – the differentiated learning and personalization instruction that is all over education these days – your approach to tailoring your resume to a job application has to be just as carefully considered.

• IEPs & 504s? Only if the role touches neurodiversity, DEI, or education services.
• State Standards? If you’re going into policy or compliance, fine. Otherwise, meh. Odds are this is a big NOPE. 
• Lesson Planning? Unless you’re pivoting into curriculum design or training, it doesn’t need to be front and center.

Ask yourself: “Would someone in this field that I am aiming for know what this means and care about it?”

If you have to explain it in an interview – translate it or cut it from the resume.

❌ Things to DELETE. Seriously. Just Delete it. Let it Go: 

These resume lines are doing nothing for you. In fact, they hold you back.

• When you talk about student activities like Guided reading groups
• Behavior charts
• Bulletin boards
• Report card comments
• “Planned and implemented grade-level curriculum”

These things are great for classroom resumes  - but they do not translate into value in most corporate settings.

You don’t need to bring everything with you. You’re not fleeing a war zone.  OK, so maybe, in a sense you ARE fleeing a war zone.  But it’s all the more reason to pack light. 

This is why it’s SO important to get a second set of eyes on your resume or a third set. Fortunately, in the education world, most of us have an English teacher buddy who might be willing to check it over to typos and readability. Or perhaps we have a spouse or friend outside of education who might be willing to read it over and be honest enough to say “That’s too much education lingo or education-ese. Re-do that!”

Here is the litmus test for every bullet line:
 
 “Is this resume line helping me get where I want to go - or just describing where I’ve been?”

Because if it’s not helping you move forward? It’s probably pulling you backward.

Let it go.

I help teachers all the time to learn to write their resumes and to write resumes that work. I can help you fix that. 
 
 If you like to talk more about that or if you would like to share your story with me, you can email me at vanessa@teachersintransition.com or you can even go to teachersinTransition.com, click on the calendar and book a discovery session at no cost.  

In my work with my clients we explore more than just the resume – we look at careers that meet their interests, and we find the pathways to make that happen! And yes, with the resume, we tighten it up - no jargon, no guilt, just strategy.

And now, I am asking for your help. If you know someone who might benefit from hearing this episode -  Share it. You probably do know someone who needs it.  The teacher who’s stuck trying to write bullet points wondering if they should include the time they organized the book fair? Send this to that teacher.

You’ve given enough. Now it’s time to build a future that gives back.

Take care of yourself. I will see you next time.

Did I mention I’m on all the socials?  This is also in the show notes! Here’s where you can find me:
 Email me at Vanessa@teachersintransition.com
Leave a voicemail or text at 512-640-9099
Schedule a free Discovery Session with me: https://teachersintransition.com/calendar
Follow me on Bluesky @beyondteaching.bsky.social
Find me on Threads and Instagram  even a little TikTok @teachers.in.transition
And on X at @EduExitStrategy
Follow on Facebook: search for Teachers in Transition and look for the blue phoenix.
Or? Join the Teachers in Transition Podcast Club on Facebook

I can’t wait to connect with YOU and hear YOUR story.  every teacher has an important story to share.