Step 5: Next Steps After Your FE Teaching Interview
The interview you’ve been prepping for is over and you can (almost) breathe a sigh of relief.
While you wait to find out if the FE teaching job is yours, you may want to think about a few additional steps you can take – whether that’s to set your mind at ease or simply prepare you for any future interviews if you’re unfortunately not successful this time around.
What to do when you get the job offer
Congratulations! Getting a job offer to become an FE teacher is definitely cause for celebration. However, don’t forget that there will be a few more crucial steps to take before you officially begin your new role.
Firstly, you should very carefully review your contract and salary offer before formally accepting your new FE teaching job.
It’s also worth asking about any prep work that you might need to do before your first day, as well as when your teacher training process will begin if your new role involves some sort of training on the job.
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Handling rejection and preparing for your next opportunity
Remember: it’s rare to be successful straight away in securing a job, especially when you’re moving into a new career.
If you didn’t get the job you wanted this time, don’t give up. Jobs become available all the time and you’ll likely come across plenty of other suitable FE teaching roles to apply for soon after. Persistence is key when changing careers, so it’s important to keep going and not get disheartened.
If you feel like you need more FE career support, contact one of our friendly advisors for tips on how to improve your application. You should also try to treat every interview you do as valuable practice and a way to familiarise yourself with potential FE teacher job interview questions you might face in the future.
Request feedback and turn it into a learning opportunity
Even if you don’t get the job, it’s important that you see your college teaching interviews as opportunities to learn and improve your skills.
Make sure you always ask a few questions of your interview panel and request constructive feedback at the end to identify any areas you can improve upon – whether that’s gaps in your experience or your specific interview technique. You can then use these answers to refine your skills and give you a better chance of securing a job at your next interview.
Interviews are also a fantastic way to build up your self-confidence, so having to do multiple interviews will only help to keep you calm and collected for the next one.
Building experience to strengthen your application
Even if you’ve got the role, some of the feedback you might receive after an FE job interview could relate to your lack of experience in a certain area. Instead of taking this to heart, use it as an opportunity to think about areas you may want to improve upon as you continue your application process and prepare to begin your new role.
Perhaps you could take practical steps such as shadowing a current FE teacher at your new college or by applying for a volunteering role that gives you leadership experience. Similarly, there may be short courses you can complete that will help fill in any gaps in your skillset.
Recognising and using your transferable skills
No matter what type of job you work in, you’ll likely learn a variety of key skills. While it might not be immediately obvious how these skills translate to another role in a completely different sector, we guarantee they will in some way.
For example, if you have experience mentoring junior staff, this will likely help with your day-to-day teaching practice. Similarly, any prior experience leading meetings will aid you with classroom management. You can learn more about other transferable skills for teaching on the National Career Service website, too.