The Ultimate Guide on What to Wear During Your Next Teacher Interview
Apr 07, 2024Season 1Episode 88
Helena Hains
Curious about what to wear during your next teacher interview?
These teacher interview tips will help you confidently prepare for your upcoming teacher interview, by putting together a practical and professional teacher interview outfit, and knowing with confidence how to stand out during your next interview from other candidates.
I’m Helena, a coach for new and first-year teachers sharing knowledge on how to have a thriving career and personal life.
The Present Teacher Podcast is a resourcefor teacher interviews, classroom setup, classroom management, and time management. Follow along and learn how to thrive in the classroom and in life.
Subscribe to The Present Teacher Podcast to get inspired by new weekly podcast episodes!
Curious about what to wear during your next teacher interview?
These teacher interview tips will help you confidently prepare for your upcoming teacher interview, by putting together a practical and professional teacher interview outfit, and knowing with confidence how to stand out during your next interview from other candidates.
I’m Helena, a coach for new and first-year teachers sharing knowledge on how to have a thriving career and personal life.
The Present Teacher Podcast is a resourcefor teacher interviews, classroom setup, classroom management, and time management. Follow along and learn how to thrive in the classroom and in life.
Subscribe to The Present Teacher Podcast to get inspired by new weekly podcast episodes!
Speaker 1:
Congratulations you've gotten the interview and now you're wondering what are you supposed to wear to an interview? I had this exact same question six years ago when I started applying for my first teaching position, and can I say I was extremely nervous. You would find me scrolling social media, scrolling Pinterest, looking for all the cute teacher interview ideas on what I should be wearing, and I had about a million questions on what my outfit should look like. Since then, not only have I completed and accepted numerous teaching positions, but I've also been a part of the hiring committee for my different districts. Now, while it does matter where you are flying to or from which country, state to state and even town to town no joke the apparel that teachers wore in Oregon, where I am originally from, is drastically different than New Mexico, but that's beside the point. Here are some general guidelines on what you should wear for your next teacher interview. Hey, teacher bestie, my name is helena and I'm the creator of the present teacher podcast. I'm a first year teacher coach and in this podcast you are going to learn everything from simple, actionable classroom management, social learning and teacher wellness strategies. You know that impact you want to make in the classroom. We're going to make it happen here.
Speaker 1:
Now, a good general rule of thumb is you want to wear clothes that is a slight step up from what you would wear as a teacher. The first thing you might consider wearing during your next teacher interview is a dress. Depending on if you are somebody who likes to wear a dress or not, a dress might be a good choice to wear during an interview. Now, I tend to recommend conservative dresses that cover your shoulders, aren't too short, or you can wear a cover or a cardigan over. But, with that being said, something you want, something that you're confident in and you feel like you're best. Now here are some pros to wearing a dress during your next teacher interview, the first one being you don't have to worry about putting an entire outfit together because you already have that with the dress. It has the top and the bottom and there's not much else to think about other than shoes if you need to cover your hair, makeup if you wear makeup, and jewelry if you want. So it really takes the guesswork and piecing together different articles of clothing out. It also helps you save time and it's easy to look put together and prepared for your interview when you are wearing a dress. Now here's some things to keep in mind if you are considering wearing a dress during your interview.
Speaker 1:
In general, I personally don't wear a dress to an interview, especially if there's a mini lesson involved, as I am mostly a primary teacher. So during my mini lesson I might be asked to go on the floor, help students, and I'm not going to want to worry about a wardrobe malfunction while people are observing me during my mini lesson. So that is something that I'm always conscious of and I recommend that the teachers I work with be conscious of if they are going for their interview. Ask yourself if you are going to be doing a mini lesson and is this something that you're going to feel confident moving around the classroom if you have to teach a mini lesson?
Speaker 1:
The second article of clothing I recommend wearing during your teacher interview is a good pair of slacks. I love a good pair of slacks, especially if I'm going to teach a mini lesson. What I love about them is they're formal and they're pretty easy to wear and move around in. This is a great option, too, if you're like me and you're not particularly a dress person or you don't like to wear dresses every day. So here's some overall pros to wearing slacks over a dress. The first one is it's a great option for people who don't like dresses but want to dress formally and business casual. Now here's something to keep in mind if you wear splacks is it can be harder to figure out what to put, how to put an outfit together. It can be slightly more expensive because you're buying two articles of clothing as opposed to one for your outfit. But if you are tight on money, a hack I recommend is to check out your nearest secondhand store, like Goodwill Salvation Army. Here, where I'm at, they have a thing called Savers. You can also check out Ross or TJ Maxx. These are all the places I looked for, and I found a great pair of slacks for my first interview that were less than $20.
Speaker 1:
The third article of clothing I recommend wearing is cardigans or blazers or some sort of cover. I like to put these over a blouse, especially if you're wearing a top or a dress with straps or strapless. This is a great way to make the clothes that you already have seem more formal than they actually are. In general, like I said, I like to wear clothes that I would teach in or dress up in to teach in, maybe on a dress up Friday or my Mondays, where I like to dress up. But why I love to wear cardigans or blazers is I get to wear my favorite tops and I don't have to worry about them not being within dress code. I can already use what I have and just throw a cardigan or blazer over it and I'm good to go.
Speaker 1:
Here are the general pros I have in regards to cardigans and blazers when it comes to your interview. The first one is it opens your options to wearing more tops, and the second thing is it actually covers your tattoos. Now I know, again, this depends wildly on where you are applying to, but I actually have several tattoos that are visible unless I wear long sleeves, so that's why I particularly like this option. It's easy for me to cover up my tattoos when I am doing this, and also it's great for cooler weather, because you can wear a short sleeve or wear a tank top under and you don't have to wear this super long bulky sweater to try to cover everything. Overall, I just like a good cardigan or blazer.
Speaker 1:
Now, here are some things to keep in mind when you are choosing a cardigan or a blazer, the first one being it might bring the cost of your overall outfit up because, again, it's just adding an additional thing you need to add to your outfit. Plus, it might be a little warmer or tired depending what kind of cardigan you get. As I mentioned earlier, make sure, if you're worried about costs, to check out your local secondhand or TJ Maxx or Ross. Like I mentioned earlier, there is absolutely no shame to wearing secondhand clothes. In fact, my first three years of teaching that's all I wore and I got several compliments on my outfit outfits, whether it was my teaching outfits or my interview outfits. Either way, check out your local hand secondhand store and you can find a lot of great clothes for a really good deal.
Speaker 1:
The next article of clothing I recommend wearing are closed-toed shoes. Now story time. My first teacher interview, I wore heels and I instantly regretted it, and here's why. Now a little fun fact about me I walk on my toes and, yes, my kids like to point it out all the time. So actually wearing heels tends to be a little more supportive for me than flat toed shoes, because I don't tend to walk with flat feet. As I said, walk on my toes. But regardless, it was an absolute nightmare wearing my heels because I had to do a mini lesson lesson and by the end of it my feet were killing me. And, of course, after the mini lesson, the lovely interview committee wanted to give me a tour of the school, which I was absolutely grateful for, but it was a nightmare to walk around in those high heels and the poor admin had to wait on me because I couldn't take these long strides because I was wearing really high heels. So, with that being said, I recommend wearing flat, comfy shoes that are still formal, semi-formal, business casual In general. I don't recommend wearing open-toed shoes like flip-flops or super high heels, like I did my first interview. Make sure, whatever shoes you wear, they're going to be something you're going to feel confident in, that you can walk around in easily and they won't kill your feet, especially if you're going to do a mini lesson or if there's a possibility you might get a tour of the campus.
Speaker 1:
The last recommendation I have when it comes to your attire for an interview teacher interview is to hide your piercings and tattoos. Now, I know this might be considered old-fashioned and it greatly depends on where you have an interview for. Depends on where you have an interview for. Like I said, in Oregon it was highly expected that you didn't have color hair. No piercings, especially face piercings, and tattoos had to be hidden Therefore, like my nose ring, for example, would have to be removed. However, in New Mexico, a lot of teachers here actually wear jeans Monday through Friday. So the attire for your interviews going to be different depending where you live, like I said, country, state and even town or district. But in general, when I am going to an interview and I'm not quite sure what the climate entails for the attire for staff, I tend to dress up and remove any piercings and cover any tattoos. That way they are hidden during the interview if possible. So, for example, I have a tattoo behind my ear that many people don't know about. So I like to, when I do an interview, wear my hair down. Like I said, I'll remove this piercing and then I have a tattoo that says Forte, which is strong, and it's got a green ribbon that says it's for mental health. I like to either wear my watch or I make sure that's covered. That way nobody sees it during my interview. So that wraps up the ultimate guide on what to wear during your next teacher interview.
Speaker 1:
If you want to dive deeper into the whole teacher interview process. I have a couple of next steps for you, the first one being make sure to subscribe where you're joining us from, because in the upcoming weeks I'm actually doing a teacher interview series. This is part two of the series and I don't want you to miss out on any content I'm sharing this month about how to land your upcoming interview or to land your next teaching position. The second resource I have for you is to download the Ultimate Teacher Interview Guide. So over the course of a couple of years, I've received several questions about how to prepare for your upcoming interview and I noticed a trend that a lot of these questions were very similar or the same question on repeat. So what I did is I took the top questions I get about the interview process and I put it into one single place. That way, you can get all your questions answered in one single spot. So that's the other resource that I recommend.
Speaker 1:
The next resource I recommend you check out is to check out the Land your Dream Job mini course. So this mini course is five lessons. That walks you through everything you need to know, from researching or dream districts to preparing for your interview, to following up after your interview. The whole goal is. I know oftentimes teachers who are applying elsewhere are either A first-time teachers who are undergoing student teaching and applying while they're in college, maybe have a second job, or B teachers who already are teaching and don't have time to dedicate hours upon end towards the teacher interview process but still want to find a career or a district that they are in line to and that they'll love. So I created this mini course to walk teachers through in an entire weekend, everything they need to do, step by step, to prepare for their upcoming interview. Now, over the year, I've gotten a lot of positive feedback about this and I've decided to actually revamp this mini course to add some bundles and some templates for writing your resume and your cover letter and some grab and go templates. So for that reason and all the positive feedback I've gotten, I'm deciding to raise my price on the mini course and I'm going to do that at the end of this month. So make sure you join that mini course if you're looking at landing your next teaching position this summer, before the first of next month, so you can get in when the prices are still at what they are at now. So that wraps up everything you need to know about landing your upcoming teaching position.
Speaker 1:
As always, remember, we are stronger together. Thank you so much for joining me and I will see you in the next one, teacher Bestie. Bye, thank you so much for joining me on today's episode. I hope that you were able to take away some value that will help you thrive inside and out of the classroom. It would mean the world to me if you could take five seconds right now and leave a review on this podcast. And if you found this podcast especially helpful, make sure to take a screenshot of this episode right now and tag me on your socials to let me know you're listening. As always, remember that we are stronger together. With all the love in the world, helena, aka the Present Teacher. See you next time, teacher Bestie.