1 Welcome to Ascend! If youre looking for a new ed leadership role - - PDF document

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Welcome to Ascend!

If you’re looking for a new ed leadership role in the coming year, you’ve come to the right place.

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I’m Justin Baeder, Director of The Principal Center. Today I want to talk about your path to the next level.

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If you’re here, I can only assume that you are looking for a new ed leadership role, either now or some time in the near future. And it’s my goal today to give you a detailed trail map to help you ascend to the next level.

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What We’ll Explore

• The two critical steps you must take NOW so you'll have strong

recommendation letters ready when you need them—without any of the hidden "red flags" that often sneak into mediocre letters.

• How to cast a wide enough net in your search, without wasting

time applying for "long shot" jobs that aren't a good fit.

• Exactly what should go in your résumé and cover letter, so they

make the case that you deserve an interview—and one thing you should NEVER list (virtually everyone gets this wrong...drives me crazy!)

• The key message you need to send in an interview to rank ahead
• f more experienced candidates, and how to prep for it (most

people don't practice, so doing this gives you a huge advantage).

• How to deal with bad interview questions and use them to make

the interview team love you—even if they're asking about experience you don't actually have.

I didn’t just pick these strategies out of a

• book. All of this comes from my client

work that I have done over the years. These strategies have helped move my clients from where they were to where they wanted to be. So what move are you planning to make? What role are you looking for? Whatever kind of change you are wanting to make, the situation is mostly the same.

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Once we talk about these 3 myths, you will have the framework you need to be able to apply the specific tactics and strategies that I’m going to share with you. The reason we are starting with these myths is that they’re what hold us back. People don’t apply for positions they would be qualified for because they believe these myths.

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The myth of meritocracy is the idea that

• nly those who are WORTHY are the ones

who will be rewarded and recognized. And certainly I want the best people to be in these roles in our schools. What I want you to understand is that being qualified— being the best person for the job—isn’t what actually gets you the job. It’s a prerequisite, but it is not enough to get you the job you want.

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The first thing we need to get clear

• n…

The admin job search IS a competition.

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It is not a meritocracy. You have to compete. No one is going to give you the job simply because you deserve it. You have to PROVE you are the best.

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When you are applying for a job, you need to give prospective employers the information they need to determine that you are the best candidate. Even in sports, it’s not the team that is technically the best that wins; it’s the team with the most points. It is the same in the admin job search process.

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I want you to realize that the potential number of competitors is in the hundreds

• f thousands.

You’re not just up against an internal candidate and maybe a few external

• candidates. If you are the best person for

the job, you have got to get out there and prove it.

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As educators, we have been trained to work together, so competition might seem like an ugly word. This may be your first truly competitive process in your adult life! Many of us stopped competing in high

• school. If you are a teacher, that hiring

process was likely not very competitive. The admin hiring process is a truly competitive landscape.

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In that competitive landscape, you are up against people who have no guilt at all about exaggerating or bragging about themselves. These people have a kind of unfair advantage, because the information available to the interview team is largely under their control. Hopefully these people get found out through reference checks and recommendation letters. But you ARE up against people who are not beyond tooting their own horn. But if you REALLY ARE qualified I want you to not hold back. I don’t want you to say anything untrue, but I don’t want this self-inflated guy to get the job because you were too humble.

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When you hold back, when you don’t put your best foot forward, students suffer. Often the best candidates don’t compete. When the braggarts win the job that you are more rightfully qualified for, that’s not fair to students.

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So I want you to be honest with yourself. Are you a fluffy bunny who refuses to compete? Or are you in full-on #beastmode? In order to truly compete, in

• rder to over come those who brag and inflate

their accomplishments, you do need to be ready to compete. If you just want to wait and let you record speak for itself, it won’t get the chance. That’s just not how the hiring process works. The hiring team is not all-knowing. They are going to go with what has been put out for them to see.

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If you’re the outsider candidate, if you’re trying to break into a new district, or if you know there is an insider candidate in your own district, here’s how you can make this work for you.

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I’ve heard this concern from a lot of

• people. They all say things like, “it’s

not what you know, it’s who you

• know. Many positions are filled by

friends.”

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Or they say, “The former superintendent and assistant superintendent had prepped me for the assistant sup job when she

• retired. Well, you guessed it...new

superintendent comes and brings his own person after former assistant sup retires.”

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Hiring Internal Candidates

“I have heard this more times than I'd like to admit: ‘You meet all of our requirements. Your interview was great and you have a wealth of knowledge and experience. Unfortunately we went in a different direction.’ Or ‘You were such a great interviewer! You are bright, knowledgeable and bring a lot of experience to this position. However, we decided to hire from within.’” —Central Office Administrator, Actual survey response, Nov 2017

And it can be disheartening, especially if you feel like the process was not authentic. If you feel like your interview was just the interviewer going through the motions, when they knew who they were going to hire all along—you are not alone if you feel that way.

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Hiring from within DOES happen

• ften, and for a reason. It’s a

perfectly rational choice for employers to hire friends and colleagues.

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Hiring internally typically is a lower risk for employers. They already know an internal candidates strengths and

• weaknesses. They may not be the best for the job, but at

least they are not a risk. So you have to either BE the internal candidate who is well known and gets the job,

• r be the EXTERNAL candidate who overcomes all of the

negative things about the internal candidate. Being the internal candidate is a double-edged sword—employers know both STRENGTHS and WEAKNESSES. The internal candidate probably thinks this is their race to lose, so they likely won’t put in the same effort to compete as you will.

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Taking Action to Build Relationships

“I am an experienced Principal in [], want to move to [], but applications there without local references have not lead to interview calls... So I enrolled in 4 leadership classes hybrid/online/live so that I can get an IN in the local networks

• f assistant superintendents there, and create LOCAL

references and recommendations. So we will see how it goes through this next hiring season. Question: Is it really WHO you know? Or WHO knows you?”

—Principal, Actual survey response, Nov 2017

The relationships that you have in your current district are somewhat portable in the form of recommendation letters. If you are moving to a new city, state, even country, your recommendation letters can go with you.

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See the hiring process as the competition that it is. And if you are an internal candidate and you’re also looking outside of your district, I want you to play both games. Try to win that internal role, but look

• utside. It will make you a better

competitor and, who knows, maybe there is a better fit out there that you’ve yet to find.

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People doubt their

• wn experience.

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Of course experience does matter, but I want you to think of your experience as you professional achievements and accomplishments, not just by how many year of experience you have.

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Your qualifications are not the number of years that you have been in your role. Experience matters, but not in the sense of raw numbers. It’s what you accomplish in those years that matters.

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The Experience Catch-22

“The single biggest challenge/frustration/problem that I am struggling with is the ‘catch 22’ experience requirement. Everyone wants X number of years of experience as a principal or assistant principal.”

—School Librarian, Actual survey response, Nov 2017

How do you get out of the catch-22 if you have to have X amount of years as an admin to be an admin? This tactic is just used to attract qualified people.

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The truth is, EVERYONE initially gets the job without ever having experience at that

• level. No one was born with experience.

You can go head to head with people who DO have that experience and get that job. Most of the time you will be going up against someone that DOES have experience at that level, and that’s OK.

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You have the experience you need from your current role to move to the next level. It can be frustrating when you keep getting passed over, and you might think you’ll never get to that next level. But let me tell you, everybody does. Being good at your job is not enough to truly compete in the hiring process. People tend to forget that there are intermediate roles that can be a good foot in the door. You don’t always go straight from teacher to principal. You might also look into different systems. For example, some rural areas might have a principal/ superintendent role due to the fact that superintendent is only a part-time position.

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Obviously if you are fresh out of college, you are not prepared to be a school principal. You do need experience in the classroom before you’re ready to move up to the next level. But I think there is a steeply declining curve of diminishing returns in the 4-8 year period. If you have been in a job for 8 years, you are eminently qualified to move on to the next level. Don’t let anyone tell you that 8 years is not enough and that you need to stay 20. That is ridiculous—it’s kind a holdover from when superintendent was basically just a fast track to retirement.

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You don’t need more experience in most cases. You just have to master the three games that determine whether you are moving up—

The Mental Game, The Relationships Game, and The Numbers Game.

So far everything we have been talking about is The Mental Game, believing that you have the experience you need. Understand that this is a competition, and being willing to put yourself out there and do the work that it takes to win that competition. We’ve talked a little about The Relationships Game with being an internal candidate. We’ll cover more

• f that in a bit. If you’re the internal candidate and you’re a shoo-in,

good, go for it! But most people are going to have to put themselves out their competitively and apply for multiple jobs. A lot of people don’t realize that this is playing at a new level, and you’re just not going to win every game.

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Let me tell you, the reason you are stuck is very likely something very silly that you can easily overcome. It is not a vote of confidence against your abilities. If you’re in a job and you hate the job, then that’s a sign that it’s not the right fit for you. But if you are not getting the job, it is probably something very simple.

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Here are a few examples I hear all the

• time. “I’m not getting interviews.” This is

not a lack of experience, but a case of mediocre application materials. Unless you are trying to skip levels or you’re applying for something you are just wildly unqualified for, your lack of interviews comes down to the quality of your application materials.

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The second common situation: “They never call me back. They didn’t even give me the courtesy of letting me know I didn’t get the job. I thought it went well, but I never heard back.” This could be one of two things. The most likely is competition. You aren’t going to get every job you interview for—that’s just a fact

• f life. The second possibility is that your interview was not as

good as it could be. And we’re kind of in a black box when it comes to interviewing, because we never can see anyone else interviewing for the kind of job that we’re looking for. So the more you can serve on hiring committees or interview people for other jobs if you have that opportunity in you school, the

• better. If you will volunteer to sit through the long hours of

interviewing for other positions, you will learn a ton.

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Another situation is “I keep making it to the final round.” That is a good sign—you’re on the right

• track. Don’t give up now. At this point you just have

to win the numbers game. Now if things looked like they were just about to extend a job offer and then they pull back at the last minute, what could be happening is that someone you’ve listed as a reference has given you a bad reference. They only call references for finalists, so if they seemed to have changed their mind about you overnight, an unsupportive reference could be why.

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There are a few other things that might have you stuck. It could just be the competition. It is totally normal for there to be a 1 to 100 ratio between positions and

• applicants. So you have to think, ”Am I competing at a

level where I can beat 99 out of 100 people?” It could also be that there is a defined pathway that you have to go through and maybe you’re trying to skip a step. Maybe there is a specific role that your HAVE TO HAVE before you can move on to the next role. And maybe the issue is that there are no fish in the pond, especially in rural areas. Sometimes positions stay filled in smaller districts for decades, so you may have to branch out to find an open position.

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Now we’re going to talk about some specific tactics to help you improve your application materials. First, your cover letter. Your cover letter is the first and most tactical area to focus on in your application

• materials. People often ignore the

cover letter and that is a big mistake.

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The cover letter is NOT a formality—

it is your single biggest opportunity to earn an

• interview. Let me tell you, if you are 1 out of 100

candidates, if your cover letter is too basic and doesn’t stand out in any way, it is going in the

• trash. You are not going to get called back over a

mediocre cover letter. Your cover letter is your foot in the door.

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Your resume won’t determine whether or not you make it through the paper screening process. Your cover letter will.

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You must customize your cover

• letter. The cover letter you write for

your first application should NOT be the same as the cover letter you write for other applications. You’ve got to customize it for every single job you are trying to get. You can’t just write it once and copy and paste for each application

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Do the work of revision. You have got to put effort into revisions. Your first two drafts won’t be good enough. Get feedback, revise, get more feedback, revise again. Your cover letter can’t just be your name, credentials, and address. You cover letter has to be a detailed argument that you are the right person for the job.

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As you go through the process of applying for different jobs, you want to be improving your cover letter more than just changing the recipient. You want your cover letter to be one page. Often the screener looks at the résumé first, so you want to surprise them with your cover letter. The screeners skip to the résumé because most people’s cover letters are all the same. You have to be the one to give them a reason to look at your cover letter. You want your cover letter to look professional and tailored to each individual school. Your cover letter can both share your background and show your vision to prospective employers.

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Now let’s talk about your résumé.

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The Résumé’s Role

Your résumé's job is to clearly highlight your professional accomplishments and qualifications.

Start with your most recent experience at the top, and go in reverse chronological

• rder, job by job. But don’t itemize your

duties in each job. If you are an assistant principal, don’t just list off what all an assistant principal does. All that does is tell employers what they already know. Don’t list your duties—list your achievements and accomplishments.

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You will want to use a combination of sentences and bullets. Make your résumé

• skimmable. At the beginning of the hiring

process, your résumé won’t be carefully

• read. Screeners will skim through a huge

stack and they will wind up with a short list and a full trash can. You want to format you résumé so the reader can go through them very easily.

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Let’s say you’re talking about your current role, maybe your current position is principal of a middle school. What you’re going to say in that section is, first, a very short paragraph (1 or 2 sentences) saying what you have accomplished in that role. If you turned around the culture, or test scores, or implemented a great new program, say that in a paragraph. Say what kind of leader you are in a short paragraph. And then use BULLETS. You’ll want 5 to 7 bullets per section. You want those bullets to be detailed or at least sentences. Don’t must put one word answers—those are not bullets. Your bullets should have verbs that describe your accomplishments. You want this to be skimmable and to paint a clear picture of what you did in each position that you held.

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Organization-wise, at the top is typically where you find contact

• information. You’ll put a personal objective, which you will

customize per position you apply for. You’ll put what you want to accomplish for students in that role. Then you will list your professional experience job by job. You’ll list your key accomplishments and responsibilities. Below your experience you’ll want to put your education and certifications, followed by any additional training. And at the end, you’ll put your

• references. As for length, I have rarely seen someone who is

applying for a senior position be able to make their full résumé fit on 1 page. That being said, if you’re going over 3 pages you’re probably going on too long. You want to have less information for your older jobs than your more current jobs.

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One thing I want to encourage you to be careful about in your résumé is to omit red-flag interests. Don’t put your “weird”

• hobbies. Screeners dislike anything that might seem like you

aren’t 100% focused on the job. I had a good friend who was a DJ and that was well known in his district, and it worked against

• him. So anything like that that might suggest you are anything
• ther a fully mature professional—leave that out. Also leave out

anything that might suggest you do any sort of side business, as this too can suggest you are not all-in and you might be

• distracted. If you are a teacher trying to move up to a principal

level, feel free to include the activities you’ve supervised, such as marching band or color guard. But if you are an assistant principal looking to move up, you might not want to list your activities you did as a teacher.

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I would never use the phrase “references available upon request.” All that says is “I hope you don’t contact my references because nobody is going to say nice things about me.” Nobody is going to contact your references unless they are about to hire you. Here is how those references can help at the screening stage: having your references listed is a credibility booster, even at the paper screening

• stage. Even though they won’t call them until after

they have interviewed you, having them on your résumé helps cement your credibility.

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Self-Assessment

How strong is your résumé right now? 1………………………………………………..10

ß Not started yet Rock Solidà

Now let’s talk about recommendation letters. What you say about yourself in your résumé is important, but it is bolstered incredibly by what other people say about you.

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This is where you can gain a huge advantage, because most people don’t submit a recommendation letter unless they are required to. Either that or they resubmit old ones. And the reason for that is that getting a good recommendation letter is tough. And often you’re applying for jobs before you really want to let people know, so it feels kind of awkward to ask current employers for recommendation letters.

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So here is a hack that you can use anytime of year, even if you have no intention of leaving your current position: you can ask your boss or colleagues to write a draft recommendation letter. This draft would be just for your own personal portfolio, so that you could know more about your strengths and weaknesses. Now, they might be surprised that you asked, but if they are going to give you a good recommendation, they’ll say yes.

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And you’re making their job easier. If you say, “I need a perfect recommendation letter by Friday and I won’t get the job unless you give me one,” that’s going to put a lot of pressure on your boss or

• colleague. If you just ask them for a draft

recommendation letter, you’re giving them permission to not try to be perfect, and this means they won’t be mad when you ask for revisions later. It also helps you to get information on what you do well and what you need to improve on.

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Now, once you get the letter, don’t feel like you HAVE to use it. I’ve read hundreds of recommendation letters and I will tell you, not every recommendation letter is a GOOD recommendation letter. Just because someone said yes to writing you a recommendation letter, that doesn’t mean that they are actually helping you. Some recommendation letters do much more harm than good because they have these little red flags.

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There are a couple of things you can look out for. One is a lukewarm endorsement, someone just saying, “This person is nice—they do what they are supposed to” and that’s it. Not a great recommendation letter. If someone says, “Please contact me if you are considering hiring this person,” that’s a red flag.

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You have got to catch those red flags so they don’t torpedo your chances of getting the job you deserve. If the person writing your recommendation is not a good writer, this could reflect on you. You can use track changes and reword a few things and run them back by whomever wrote the letter. You don’t want to ever put words in their mouth; you just want a clear, well written letter.

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One last thing to think about recommendation letters: You don’t want potential employers to position you in the junior role that you are already in. If you are looking to move to the next level, you want your recommendation letters to speak to your potential at the next level.

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Feel free to ask people for revisions if, in their first draft they spoke more towards your current position. If they accidentally put in a red flag, such as “punctual,” feel free to point that out to the person writing the letter.

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Ideally you want to end up with a letter that is in Microsoft Word format that is easily modifiable, with a scanned signature. If you get another format, ask permission to scan the signature, retype the letter, and share a copy with the author.

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Shoot for 10 recommendation letters, because if you get 10 and 4

• f them are terrible, then you still

have 6 good ones. Most people might not be able to get 10, but it’ll be worth it to shoot for it in the long run.

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Now let’s talk about some specific district application tips, so that you can win the numbers game.

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This can be a pain. It is a grind to have to go through the

• nline application process for every single job that

you’re applying for. Sometimes it’s all the same software system, but you have to reapply with a separate login and you have to have a password. I know, I hate that

• stuff. BUT that is what you have got to do. You can’t just

write one application, photocopy it and send it to 70 employers and boom, the job offers come rolling in. That’s not the world we live in. This is a competition. But the good news about that grind is that everybody else has to go through it too, and you can give yourself a competitive advantage by making yourself more efficient at the process.

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Tip number 1: Everything that you are going to paste into a website, save it in a

• document. Do your actual typing in a

document on your computer. And I say Word document, but you may want to do it in a plain text document to remind you that formatting is going to get lost. But do paste it into Word to do spellcheck and grammar check, because you can’t do that sort of thing in a plain text document.

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Word will also tell you how many words or characters are in a document, so you might want to check for word or character limits. Whatever you do, save all of your application writing offline. Don’t trust the website to save your work.

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And then, when you have a great résumé and cover letter in Word, do the online application, because you have to. But also send it in hardcopy, so that your name stands out a little bit. Let them know that you applied for the online, but you are sending them a hard copy to reach out even

• further. It is totally fine to send people paper. They

might not ask you to, but as long as you have applied online it never hurts to get your name out there ahead of your competition.

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And don’t be afraid to look at the district website. Look into their strategic plan, look at what their values are, because those may be things that come up in a potential interview or writing exercise.

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Time for some interview tips. How can you make the team love you, even if you don’t have all the answers? There is no international clearing house for interview question quality, so that could mean you get some off-the-wall questions from time to time. That’s just normal.

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Luckily, it turns out that you don’t have to know all the right answers. You simply have to develop the skill

• f interviewing well. You want to be

yourself, but you also want to put yourself out there. You want to demonstrate that they are looking for.

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You can, and should, practice and prepare for the interview. There is no way to predict the exact questions you’ll be asked. But the more you practice and prep for the interview, the better prepared you will be for facing the real deal.

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One question that I’ve had from my clients that I wanted to address, “Is it ok for me to refer to my notes in an interview?” For an admin position, I would say no. The interviewer might say it’s fine, but that is really going to reduce your credibility. I would definitely be ready to talk off the cuff and not have to refer to anything in writing. You can use those written materials, even bring them with you to the interview. Just avoid looking at them in the actual interview. It will send a message of unpreparedness that you don’t want to give.

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So, just as athletes begin training months and months before their

• fficial season begins, you must

begin preparing for interviews

• immediately. Whether or not you

have an interview lined up, now is still the time to begin preparing.

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I highly recommend that you practice with the 52 practice interview questions. I also recommend that you practice on video. And what I’d encourage you to do is, go to principalcenter.com/52q, and you can write those answers out in bullet-point

• format. Leave space for 4 or 5 bullet-

points per questions. And you have GOT to practice ON VIDEO.

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I say that, but no one will actually do it. No

• ne practices on video because nobody

likes to see themselves on video. But you can either be one of the weird people who is prepared for their interview, because they practiced on video, or you can be like everyone else and not practice because it was uncomfortable. That is one of my biggest pieces of advice.

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So practice on video, the watch the

• video. If you can, practice with a

trusted colleague. Get video coaching if you can.

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I have a couple of other interview

• tips. One reason practice helps so

much is, when you know what story you want to tell in your interview, you can look through the questions that they are asking you to figure

• ut where you can share what you

need to to send your message.

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You can also approximate how much time you have by practicing on

• video. Often interviews are scored,

and when you run out of time you get 0 on those points.

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And I recommend you don’t budget that time equally. I suggest you spend more time on questions where you really have a chance to tell them about yourself. If the first question in the interview is, “Please describe your qualifications for this position,” some of your competition is going to say something like, “I’ve been a teacher for 7 years and I have a Master’s degree,” and they’ll leave it at that. You are going to give them a 5 minute answer about who you are and what you would do for their school. Don’t be afraid to spend some time

• n those sort of questions and don’t hesitate to go

above and beyond what they are asking.

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But what happens when you have the opposite problem? If there is a tough question you aren't sure how to. For example, if they ask you a question about dealing with a Union when you come from a non-Union state, I’ll give you a 4 part framework. First, you affirm the question. Let the interviewer know that you are on their side. Second, if you can’t say specifically what your experience is in that area, you should start off with your beliefs and your values. Let them know that you are ultimately here for the students. Third, you can describe what you’ve done that is consistent with those beliefs and values. And lastly, you can state what you would do in that precise situation in the future. And if you do these 4 things, the interviewer won’t even notice that you didn’t directly answer their question. If you do these things you’ll be in great shape.

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What interview practice have you done? It could be that your Master’s program had you do some practice interviews with some classmates. Maybe you’ve practiced with a friend or mentor.

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Now let’s talk about the final phase. Win, your moral imperative to become the leader that you are called to be.

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I know you might not want this to be a competition, but it is. And to win that competition, you’ve got to compete. No one is going to crown you the winner unless you enter the competition and win. You’ve got to prove you are the best. Do NOT be our profession’s best kept secret. A lot of people know that they are their district’s best kept secret, and that is great. That means you have a

• gift. But that gift will not make a difference at the

next level if you hide it under a bushel. You are the

• ne who has got to put yourself out there.

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You’ve also got to play to win. Now I’m no fan of the lottery, but much like the lottery, this is a numbers

• game. When it comes to the admin

job search, the more you play, the better your chances of winning. The more you apply, the better your chance of winning. Don’t hesitate to apply for the admin jobs you want.

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I’ve heard from a number of music teachers who have heard things like this. I absolutely agree with these music teachers. I’ve had many non-core subject teachers come to me with this sort of issue. I think some of the best administrators come from the “non-core” subjects. Music teachers, counselors, band directors, and PE teachers can make GREAT administrators. I believe you can definitely be an excellent leader without having taught a core subject. The question is, how do you prove to

• thers that you have what it takes? It can be a challenge. One of

the things you can do is try and get on some sort of leadership

• committee. You need to get into a position where you can

demonstrate your potential for leadership.

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To ascend you have to master the Mental, Relationship, and Numbers games.

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Remember the admin job search is a

• competition. The job goes to the

best competitor, not necessarily the best leader. You have got to be both the best competitor and the best leader.

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As it is right now, I do not currently do private coaching. But over the past couple of years, I have worked 1 on 1 with clients who have gone from private school leader to public school leader. I’ve worked with a central office director who wanted to be a superintendent, and got the job that they dreamed of. I’ve worked with a classroom teacher who got her first AP job. I’ve worked with a principal who moved up after many years as a successful principal and had multiple job offers for director positions. So I can tell you with full confidence that if you will do what we’ve talked about today, these strategies will get results—so please take action.

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Like I said, I am currently not working with anyone 1 on 1. I would love to, I really enjoy it. But it tends to be kind of an open ended commitment because this is kind of a long process. I just have a lot on my plate these days, and I really need to focus on the research that I’m doing right now.

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But I will say this, if I can give you the instructional leadership perspective, vocabulary, and strategy I want to know if that would be helpful to you. If you are interested in more I will tell you what you can do to move on to the next level.

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So, here’s the deal. Like I said, I don’t have the time to work 1 on 1 with clients right now, but I do want to give you a competitive advantage. I want to give you a leg up especially if you’re thinking, “How can I improve as an instructional leader if I don’t already have the kind of job that I’m applying for? How can I prove that I’m ready for the next level?”

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Not too long ago, we launched a program called the High- Performance Instructional Leadership Certification program. This program is like nothing else in our profession. It was something I designed and put out there in response to a need in our profession. You may have heard of the pilot for the National Board of Certification for Educational Leaders. I was part of the pilot and in that pilot program, we learned what the process was going to be like. We had to do a portfolio and demonstrate our abilities as an instructional leader, but then the program was scrapped. The National Board said they weren’t going to certify principals and that they would only focus on classroom teachers. And I found that kind of heart breaking that the certification option wasn’t there for educational leaders.

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https://www.principalcenter.com/get-certified

So, over the past 5 years at The Principal Center, we have been doing what I think is the most in depth instructional leadership development anywhere to help administrators get into

• classrooms. We’ve helped administrators develop instructional

frameworks specific to their school, to develop the shared vocabulary with leveled rubrics they are using with their teachers to develop a habit of classroom walkthroughs to do evidence based teacher evaluations.

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So I feel absolutely confidant now that we have the best program out there to train instructional leaders beyond the initial certification. You should still go get your Master’s degree and your principal

• certification. But to take it to an advanced level, we

have this enhanced certification. It is called the High-Performance Instructional Leadership Certification. We have a rigorous process—you go through an 8-week course, and then you do a portfolio, just like you would for national boards.

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And that 8 week program goes into a great deal of depth. I’ve put hundreds of hours into creating this program including video clips from real classrooms and modelling how I give feedback and do formal evaluations.

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After you go through the course, you go through the

• certification. It is not an “everybody passes on the first try” kind
• f thing. It is a rigorous process that involves an assessment

portfolio, a collection of evidence that is submitted and scored with rubrics. And to my knowledge, this is the only thing out there like this. I really wish the National Board had done it, but they decided not to. To my knowledge this is the only international certification for instructional leaders. This is above and beyond the Master’s degree and your initial licensure you get in your state. It is not meant to replace those—it’s meant to be something in addition to those things that can make you stand out from the crowd. You can put in on your résumé; it can give you experiences that you can talk about in your interviews and in your cover letters. You will get a physical plaque that you can put on your wall.

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We wanted this to be a comparable, but easy, choice compared to say a 3-credit class. A 3-credit class at a university typically costs around $2400 for graduate credit. The portfolio review at the National Board costs about $2200. We don’t charge a process to reapply for certification, so if you don’t get it the first time, there’s not an additional fee to have it scored a second time after you’ve provided more evidence. With High- Performance Instructional Leadership Certification program, we include a year of Pro Membership, so you get access to all of

• ur webinars, recordings, and our Repertoire feedback app.

You’ll receive a copy of my book and a $500 discount on our Organizational Learning Intensive program. I really wanted to pack the value into this program and give you everything you need to really stand out in the process.

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If you are interested in that I have a special deal for you. This is a $5357.95 value, but on this webinar, if you are interested in going to the next level and doing that work, and you would like my help, you can get that entire package at PrincipalCenter.com/get-certified. You can get this full package for only $1495. I understand that is no small amount of money, but if you’re anything like me, I spent a great deal of money getting my Master’s degree. I spent a great deal of money on my principal certification program and my doctoral program. But as you saw on an earlier slide, there are over 100,000 people in the United States who have their Master’s in administration, but who have never figured out how to break in to that world of administration. This certification is my best recommendation to you to help you stand out.

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Because you are here on this webinar, and you are interested in the job application process, I want to offer something special I don’t offer on our website. If you sign up for the High-Performance Instructional Leadership Certification Program, I will personally review and help you revise your résumé and cover letter. This is exactly the process that I’ve used with my private coaching clients that I’ve worked with over the past couple of years to help them get their admin jobs. I will take you through that same process of revising your résumé and cover letter. There is a payment plan available, however…

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…if you pay in full today, I will do a full video practice interview 1 on 1, with immediate feedback and next

• steps. I will coach you through the

interview process. We don’t charge you any extra for the payment plan; you just won’t get this special offer

• f a full video practice interview.

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Even if you’re not applying for a job right away, this is a great thing to do in the meantime. The best way to maximize the amount of experience you’re getting is to engage in professional development. This is the only program that is available to work at your own pace that is SPECIFIC to the needs of instructional leaders who are ready to move to the next level. If you are already doing this program and you would like me to look over your résumé or cover letter, I’ll take care of that for you. As you can see, we have the payment plan there—you can break that up into 10 monthly payments of $149.50, and we don’t charge interest, OR a 1 time payment of $1495 which comes with the bonus of a practice video interview with me.

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If you taught for 10 years, that is more than enough time to be qualified to be an admin. 2nd year AP, are you going to have an edge in your 3rd and 4th year? Yes, but it’s not going to make that big of a difference, especially if you’re in an in between role. There are some roles where, if you stay in them too long, you seem like you’re stuck. For example, Dean of Students was designed in the Seattle Public School district to be a stepping stone towards the AP role. So if you’re a Dean of Students for 20 years, you were supposed to move up a long time ago. The only time I would say it is not quite your time yet is if you are in your 1st or 2nd year as AP, but I think by your 3rd year there is a very good chance that you are ready to be a principal.

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A couple of other situations people might be in, “I am a music teacher and I’m certified as a principal with a masters in education administration… I’ve served on [many committees]. I’ve applied for numerous Assistant Principal positions and still have yet to get an interview to be considered for the position. Please help!” If you are a great music teacher, that is great. That has given you the experience you need. What I would probably look at in your situation is what you are saying in your cover letter, because if what you’re saying in your cover letter is, “I’m a great music teacher,” that’s not the same as saying, “I would be a great Assistant Principal.”

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It was telling to me that this was from a classroom teacher, because I think this was a situation that a lot of classroom teachers find themselves

• in. You get good at what you’re doing, but the skills that you don’t have

the opportunity to exercise often wind up being the area of greatest weakness when it comes to the application and the interview. So that’s where this certification program can really make a difference and really give you that perspective of an instructional leader. This program was designed with practicing administrators in mind. If you are a principal, this program was designed for you. So what we’ve done with the certification program is, we have modified the activities that you go through if you are a classroom teacher or central office administrator and you’re not in an actual principal role. We simply modify it to give you similar experiences and to give you things that you can actually do.

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One of the things that I would say to look for, if this is the situation you are in, is the number of applications you’re putting out there. And I think a lot of times, if you are a great teacher and you’re happy being a teacher, it is easy to say to yourself, “Well, when the right opportunity comes along, they will place the crown upon my head and declare me promoted.” But that is not how it works. We know that if you want the job, you have to go for it. You have to compete in the championship if you want to win the championship. I would guess this person is likely applying for one job a year and they have been discouraged by not getting that one job a year. If you apply for one job and don’t get it what does that make you? It makes you totally normal. It is highly unusual to get 100% of the jobs you apply for. So focus

• n the numbers game. Focus on putting more applications out—finding those that

are the right fit and customizing each one. This will make a huge difference in your chances of getting the position you’ve been hoping for. 108

This is the norm in areas with significant population where it’s easy to commute from one district to another. Not so much the case in a more rural western state, but in a lot of places the application stack is thick. The pile that goes in the trash is a much bigger pile. So if you are getting an interview, that is awesome. Your application is doing its job. Really, the way to get better at interviewing is A: to practice on video ahead of time, and B: do more

• interviews. When I was in Washington, I interviewed for

a position in a rural area. I didn’t get the job, but I did leave as a better interviewee. And what I learned from that interview process definitely helped me land my position in Seattle Public Schools.

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A couple of other comments from people. “How can I be competitive? There are competent applicants and I wonder if I will be able to have that edge over other applicants in an interview.” It starts with a mindset game. It starts with figuring

• ut, “What is my gift? What is my uniqueness that I

will bring to this role and the difference I’ll make for students?” The next concern is, ”Being poised during the interview as well as articulate. I don’t want to ramble, nor do I want to feel flustered with possibly 5-8 people interviewing me.” That all comes down to practice.

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And if you would like help with that, we’ve got a special deal going on just for people on this webinar. Go to PrincipalCenter.com/get-certified and sign up. I’ll see you

• there. I will review your résumé and cover letter, and if

you pay all at once, we’ll even do a practice interview. So thank you for being with us today. If you would like to send me an email, you can do so at justin@principalcenter.com and I’ll be happy to get back to you as I’m able. Thank you so much for being here. If you are interested in the certification program, I would recommend you check that out, as that page goes away

• shortly. So go to PrincipalCenter.com/get-certified and I

look forward to working with you.

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