Episode 27 – How to Get a Job with Teach First

August 5, 2015 Podcast

Welcome to the 27th episode of the Graduate Job Podcast. We focus down this week and explore one of the biggest and best graduate schemes, which is striving to end educational inequality, as I speak to James Darley, Graduate Recruitment Director at Teach First. We delve into Teach First and particularly its Leadership Development Programme, examining what exactly it is, how you apply, and how you can stand out. We discuss the application process in detail and also cover why even if you are set on the corporate life, why Teach First could be the ideal place to start your career. If you’ve ever thought teaching as a profession this is an episode you won’t want to miss.

You can download the podcast to your computer or listen to it here on the blog. Additionally, you can subscribe via Spotify, iTunes or Stitcher radio.

MORE SPECIFICALLY IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT:

  • What Teach First is and why you should apply
  • The importance of knowing their 8 competencies
  • How to make your online application stand out from the crowd
  • The secrets to impressing in your mock teaching lesson
  • Why you should be applying to Teach First even if you want to work at Goldman Sachs, PWC or Accenture

SELECTED SHOW NOTES:

IF YOU FOUND THIS USEFUL, CHECK OUT THESE EPISODES:

Episode 27 Transcript – How to Get a Job with Teach First

James:     I’m really pleased today to be speaking to James Darley. James is a Graduate Recruitment Director at TeachFirst. TeachFirst is a social enterprise and registered as a charity, and they’re aim is to address educational disadvantage by working to place young graduates in primary and secondary skills in England and Wales.

James, welcome to the Graduate Job Podcast.

James Darley:    Thank you very much for having me.

James:  So, James, you have a very long career in graduate recruitment. Before we dive in to talk about TeachFirst, would you like to tell our listeners a little bit more about yourself and how you became to be the Graduate Recruitment Director there?

James Darley:    Of course. I started in graduate recruitment about 20 years ago, looking after graduate recruitment for United Biscuits — so if you like your Hula Hoops and Jaffa Cakes, that used to be me — and then moved into the investment banking arena looking after graduate recruitment for Deutsch Bank and Credit Suisse. And about 11 and a half years ago, just as it had started, I saw TeachFirst and really thought this is, this is the first truly unique proposition that’s going out to the graduate market which is saying, come and do something for a couple of years. You’ll get skills. You’ll get experience. You’ll get qualifications. You’ll do something really good for the most needy children in our society. But actually, after two years you can just decide whether you want to stay or go and that was just so radically different from the usual graduate programs which ask you to kind of join them for life and kind of work your way up, as it were, that I just couldn’t resist the temptation of coming over. And I also just passionately believed in the vision of TeachFirst which is just trying to make it fairer. You know, at the moment United Kingdom is, I’m afraid, an unfair place for many that come from a low social economic background and anything we can all do to help those kids have an equal chance in education and in life, how could you not go to that.

James:  No, of course. And you talked there briefly just as a background to what TeachFirst is. Can you go into more detail about the scheme and how it works?

James Darley:    Of course.   So, the Leadership Development part of TeachFirst — TeachFirst is a charity and we run a Leadership Development Programme for two years.   And what we’re asking for is for great graduates to join us — who really do care about that vision — to join us for a minimum of a two year period where you will go into a classroom, either in primary or secondary, teach real kids and whilst you’re doing that you’re paid as a teacher and you also work towards getting your PGCE so that’s your qualified to teach status, and we partner with a number of universities who award those PGCE’s. At the end of the two years, it’s then entirely up to you. If you want to stay in school, you are employed by that school. So you just stay doing what you’re doing. But if, actually, after the two years you think, I’ve enjoyed my experience teaching but I now want to go into law or into banking or into finance or anything else, it’s entirely up to you and you can leave your school and move on to the next stage of your career. But we hope for a lifetime you will continue to engage in educational disadvantage.

So really, for TeachFirst we have a short term and a long term element of what we’re trying to do. In the short term we’re trying to get great graduates into the most challenging schools to raise the attainment, the aspirations and the access to opportunity; but in the long term we want a movement of leaders who have all experienced educational disadvantage at that grassroots level and then when they move into a position of influence, they do something about it. So we naively hope that in 20 years time we’ll have a prime minister, an education minister, heads of schools, heads of communities, heads of private equity firms, literally all across society who have done it and then they will do something about the problem because they’ll come together collectively.

James:  I think hoping for an education minister who knows how to teach might be a stretch too far.

James Darley:    One day, you’ll see, one of our ambassadors, I have no doubt, will be education minister.

James:  That will be awesome. That will be brilliant. And you mentioned there about the two years, the option to stay or to go. What percentage of TeachFirst applicants end up staying on longer?

James Darley:    Yep, and I’ll give you both sides of the statistics. So the numbers that stay a third year — because we do offer a part funded Masters — so a number of our participants, as we call them, graduates who are on our program, decide to stay a third year so they can get their Masters. So roughly about 66, 67 percent are staying a third year. But if you look at all of our cohorts in terms of who could have left — so we started in 2003, so if you added up all the ’03’s all the way up to the ‘13’s that are literally just about to kind of either stay or leave, it’s about 58 percent have stayed teaching. The rest have gone off to set up their own social enterprises, have gone into the kind of corporate world and particularly our platinum supporters like PWC, and Accenture, and Goldman Sachs have got very high numbers of our ambassadors because we work very, very closely with them.

James: Excellent. And you touched on some interesting aspects there. So maybe if we start first with the teaching side of the things. So what sort of applicants are you looking for to come and work at TeachFirst?

James Darley:    Honestly, it’s pretty much across the spectrum. I think, you know, all we look for is, we have eight competencies that are very, very important to us. So, competencies are things — some people call them skills — but these are, as we call them, competencies that we know if you’ve got a certain level of proficiency in these eight competencies — and I’ll list them in a second for the listeners –then we know that you have the potential to be an inspiring teacher and leader in those classrooms. So we’re looking for students that can show us leadership; that can show us that they can interact well with others and that they can problem solve; they’re good at planning and organizing and they have strong resilience because our program is very, very tough and I’m sure we’ll come onto that in a minute. Also they need self evaluation; they need humility, respect and empathy; and they need good strong knowledge. But really, we recruit into all of the national curriculum subjects. So all we’re looking for is a graduate that cares about the vision of TeachFirst, would like to be a leader for life and would like to kind of spend a couple of years not only giving back but also developing their own skills. So we’re looking for pretty much anyone out there that may be listening.

James:  And are there any particular requirements in terms of particular subjects or grades?

James Darley:    Certainly math and science are the two main subjects that the schools desperately need in terms of teachers. So I think that anyone that can align their A levels or degree to maths or science –and if it’s science it would need to be two, two of the sciences — is of real interest to us. But it pretty much goes across the spectrum for the other subjects. We do look for 300 UCAS points and a 2:1 degree but if you do have extenuating circumstances, we are able to take that into account as well.

James: And geographically, I know it originally started in London but now you’re spread around the country, is the geographical spread everywhere? Or does London still take the majority of the applicants?

James Darley:    No. I think the last couple of years now, actually, there’s been more outside of London than there have been inside of London. So we operate in 10 areas of England and in Wales. So, unfortunately we’re not in Scotland at the moment but pretty much Wales and pretty much all of England is covered with our 11 local areas, as we call them.

James:  And we have a wide variety of listeners from all over the globe. Is this scheme open to people who are able to work in the UK?

James Darley:    As long as you have the right to work in the UK and your proficiency of English is strong, then there’s absolutely no problem in applying to us and we’d love you to.

James:  And how many applicants did you take on last year, and how many are you looking to take in the next upcoming Milkround?

James Darley:    So our cohorts, as we call them, are literally in week five now of their six week initial training before they start the program and I hired 1,685; so just under seventeen hundred.

James: Wow.

James Darley: And next year I’m looking to increase that by about 11 percent. So I’m looking for, you know, anything up to 2,000 is what we’re looking for. But we very much kind of work on this throughout the year and see how many schools are interested, see how many graduates are interested and then we hone down the numbers.

James:  James, you’re going to be busy. It’s a big target.

James Darley:    It’s a big target but what’s hugely inspiring is when you see, you know, those seventeen hundred all together., they’re all together in Leeds at the moment for the last two weeks of our training because the first four weeks are done regionally where you’re going to be teaching and then the last two weeks everyone comes together nationally, and I think when you see seventeen hundred like-minded individuals from all ages, all backgrounds, being inspired around fixing educational inequality, it’s a hugely inspiring moment.

James: And you’ve picked a good place to put them in Leeds, as well.

James Darley:    Absolutely.

James:  And you mentioned there about age.   Are there any restrictions on having to do it within a certain number of years of graduating?

James Darley:    Not at all. We literally, we would like anyone to join us that is interested in making a difference in those schools. The only thing I would say is we do require, unless you have extenuating circumstances of care and responsibilities or mortgages, we do need some flexibility around where you’re going to be based because educational inequality, you know, isn’t in necessarily, you know, in Chelsea and Westminster and various other places that a lot of the graduates may want to live. So we do ask for an openness around where you’re going to be based but we will take, as I said, caring and other things like mortgage, other responsibilities that you’ve got into account. So for some career changes as we call them, we may not be the best route because we can’t necessarily offer them the school down the road because we may well not work with them.

James:  Thinking then about the application process, so what would the application process look like if I wanted to apply to you now?

James Darley:    So we’ve tried to keep the application process very simple because I’m, you know, worried that the industry that I love and have been doing for 20 years is becoming more about graduate rejection than graduate recruitment. So I don’t have online tests and all these other bits and bobs that many do.

There is an online application form that we ask you to fill in that will be around your background, your education and the attainment that you’ve had through that, and then asks you a few questions around some of those eight competencies that I mentioned before. That online application form is screened by two human beings, and it has always been very important to me since I joined 11 and a half years ago, that you in a way get two chances to come through with your application form. So, two of my team will read your application form. If they disagree, they get on the phone and they chat about you and they talk about why one has said yes and one has said no.

And after you’ve got through the application form there is a one day assessment centre where we will test each of those eight competencies a couple of times. And the things that will happen at this one day assessment centre are a competency based interview. So that will be lots of questions that I’m sure many of your listeners will have been practicing or if not that needs to be one of my tips that you do practice but you know, tell me a time when you’ve lead a team or tell me when you’ve worked with people that are different from yourself, something like that where you’re pulling on some of your experiences to answer some questions so that we can see whether you’ve got the level of proficiency in the competency that we’re looking for.

We then get you to do a case study. So this is a school base scenario, normally, where you’re with a number of other applicants and you’re in a room together. You’ve got a task to complete together and we kind of try and make it, you know, a little bit pressurized and a little bit more interesting throughout the exercise so that we really get to see how you interact and how you deal with others on different viewpoints.   There’s then a self-evaluation of that case study.

But then there’s the, the final big item is the, what we call a sample teaching lesson. So this is where a week before your assessment centre we will send you a list of titles — but all based around the national curriculum — you then chose one of those topics and you prepare a seven minute lesson and you come and deliver that seven minute lesson to us. And then once you’ve finished that you do a quick self-evaluation of that sample teaching lesson.

So there’s really three main junks: a competency based interview, a group exercise and a sample teaching lesson that you’ve had a week to prepare. At the end of that we make our hiring decisions and you are informed, you know, very, very soon afterwards.

James:  So breaking each of those down. What do you — You mentioned about the competencies within the application form and also the competency questionnaire, competency question. What are you looking for within the application form? How can people stand out?

James Darley:    I think you need to ensure that you answer the question. I know that may sound, you know, very, very basic but the amount of applications that we get where you read the answer and you go, you haven’t’ really answered the question. So my first would be, just think about it and once you’ve had your first attempt, maybe get a colleague or a parent or a friend or career service to have a quick look at it and just say, yes/no, you’ve answered that. So make sure you’ve answered the question but also give it some structure. So maybe give us the context, maybe give us the results and then maybe give us what you learned from it. But you know, have a think about the structure and how you’re going to articulate what you’ve done because I think sometimes as a graduate recruiter you just read a kind of, you know, verbal diarrhoea. You’ll literally just read and read and read and you think, goodness me, I’m not even sure I’ve understood what you’ve been telling me. So if you can give some structure to it, you know, if you’re answering a question, say, look this is my answer. This is what I learned. This is what I’d do differently. You know, whatever it is that the question is asking, think about the structure of it and what — students that stand out are students that have answered the question and given us what we’ve asked for.

James: Would that be the same, then, in the competency question at the face to face interview?

James Darley:    It would but you might be probed a little bit more. So my assessors are trained to really get to get out of you the evidence that they need so that they can then translate that to the level of proficiency of that competency that I’m looking for. So say you might be, all you might, want, need to prepare yourself there is that, you know, if you’re answering a question of leadership because you, I don’t know, been the captain of the hockey team, don’t just have that. You know, you might be probed further to go well, whilst you’ve been that captain of the hockey team, you know, have you come across any difficulties with team members. Oh, yes, I have, and boom, boom, boom, boom, boom and then carry on your answer. So I think, you know, just make sure that if you are going to use a scenario or you’re going to use an example, that you can be comfortably probed. And I think the reason I’m saying that is because I have had interviews where a candidate you just know have made up a little bit more than they should have done around actually what they have achieved.   So my, another tip would be, don’t lie. Don’t come up with a scenario that, you know, you didn’t do because if you’re probed, I’m afraid you will be rumbled.

James: That’s good advice. And I can imagine the seven minute mock lesson can be quite daunting. What advice would you give people to succeed in this?

James Darley:    I think, remember that you are — and we tell you this at the time when we send you the titles — that you are presenting to a certain age group of students. So imagine when you were that age, or if that’s impossible see if you can talk to someone that might be of that age because you know, what we’re looking for is, are you able to interact with students of that age group and what they might do. They may not necessarily be the most engaged. They may not necessarily understand what you’re trying to tell them and I think, you know, a lot of students just focus wholeheartedly on the content of what they’re delivering. I think my advice would be, yes, the content is important because you need to make sure that you’re getting across the elements of the national curriculum that you’re trying to, but do remember you’ve got an engaged audience in front of you who, that need to learn and need to — by the end of that seven minutes — learn something. So think about, kind of your audience, I think would be my tip there.

James: So a 50 slide PowerPoint deck for a group of five year olds might not be the best way for —

James Darley: Correct. Literally reading from a script, yes, that’s not going to work.

James: Then, just jumping in then, in terms of the age range, when you apply do you get a preference of whether you go for primary or secondary?

James Darley:   So we ask you for your preference but we also may well come back and challenge you if we think based on your application form and what we’ve seen at the assessment centre, if actually we think you could add more value in a different area but you’re very welcome to say to us no, I know I want secondary or I know I want primary. But — So we kind of ask for a little bit of flexibility, that you’re open, that we might challenge but no, we ask for your preferences when you apply.

James: And sorry, just going back to the assessment centre, what is the biggest way you think that people tend to let themselves down?

James Darley:    Not throwing themselves in. You know, if you’ve taken the time to apply, you’ve taken the time to come and visit the assessment centre, I think that the saddest thing is then when we don’t see your character because you know, the whole point of the way we’ve done our assessment centre is that there’s one bit on your own — and nearly everyone shines when they’re on their own — there’s one bit where you have to interact with others that you don’t know very well. Yes, you might have met them in the assessment centre, candidates suite that we have where you get to kind of chat to everyone else but you don’t really know kind of how they’re going to react, and are they going to suddenly want to be timekeeper when you wanted to, and whatever it may be. So we purposely have done things. But you’re on your own, you’re with others and then you’re also having to kind of read the room in the sample teaching lesson. So I think, you know, the biggest thing that I think is always sad is if there’s a student who comes down and then doesn’t just get involved. And don’t try and be someone you’re not. Just be yourself, enjoy it. Be inquisitive. You know, this is your chance to shine and TeachFirst, like I think nearly every other graduate employer, is not trying to trip you up. If all 30 of you that come on a day are brilliant, all 30 of you are going to get a role. If all 30 of you are not very good, none of you are going to get a role. So you’re not in competition and I think I sometimes see people being either very disengaged and not really enjoying themselves and/or they think they’re competing against everyone else when that is not the case.

James: I completely agree and it was always a frustrating part of looking at a group exercise at an assessment centre when you had candidates that you knew were great but they just didn’t speak.

James Darley:    Yeah.

James: So how can you, you know, mark —

James Darley:    You can’t score it.

James:  How can you give people a mark if they —

James Darley:   You can’t score it. If you haven’t given any evidence, how can I then tell my team, yes, you got that level of proficiency in the skill that I need.

James: How important is having previous teaching experience, on the application?

James Darley:    You don’t have to. Many do. You know, it’s the same question with, do you need to have worked with children before. You know, many do but many don’t. So I don’t think you have to. It’s about showing us those eight competencies. For some they’re able to demonstrate that through examples when they have taught but many are able to do and show us through work experience they’ve done, part-time work in supermarket, wherever it may be. No, so you don’t need teaching experience. I think as long as we’re seeing this passion for what TeachFirst is trying to achieve, that is much more important.

James:  And how much training do the applicants get prior to being in a school?

James Darley: So it is a two year program. So I think sometimes there’s a misconception there that you go to a few days training and then it’s straight into the schools. It is but you’re getting a two year’s worth of training as well. So the way that it works is that it starts with six weeks; as I said, four weeks are regional in the area of the country where you’re going to be teaching and that will be, of those four week, two weeks in schools and two weeks where we’re training you. And that will be around subject knowledge and professional knowledge and really getting you ready to understand how you can deliver the national curriculum and how you’re going to be able to, you know, work in schools and really helping you with the professional side of, and the pedagogy side.

You then come together nationally for what we call the national part of the two week Summer Institute in Leeds and you also get the opportunity to meet the previous year’s cohort. So next week our cohorts from 2014 come back and they present to our students the impact that they’ve had and that’s the final part of their teaching qualifications. So they then get their PGCE’s at the end. So you get your six week training. Then you go into school and whilst you’re teaching in the school you still have a university mentor and tutor who will be helping you to get your PGCE and observing your practice and supporting you to become better every day. You have a professional mentor and a subject mentor from the school and you also get what’s called a Leadership Development Officer from TeachFirst who comes in, again, to watch your practice and support you. So there’s an enormous amount of support.   At the end of year one the university element drops off because you’ve got your PGCE but you continue to get your subject professional mentor from school and your Leadership Development Officer from TeachFirst.

In addition in the second year you get the opportunity to do an internship with one of our supporters in between years one and two. In case you are thinking of leaving the classroom, it gives you an opportunity to try professional services or marketing or, you know, whatever it is that you’re interested in. We also give you a coach and that will be from our business and corporate network who will help you throughout that second year either on a coaching relationship or a mentoring relationship depending on what you want, and there will be other leadership events that our supporters help us with.   So that could be Women in Business or it could be Managing your Manager, whatever it is that we’re kind of hearing from our cohort that they need support with.

At the end of that two year period, that is when you finish the official part of the two year Leadership Development Programme but as I said before, we hope you stay engaged with the movement for a lifetime and we have a whole community and ambassador department that is supporting all of our ambassadors once they’ve finished the two years, regardless of whether they’re in the classroom or not.

James:  And TeachFirst has been going since 2002?

James Darley:    Yes, the first cohort was ’03 but yes, the charity was set up in 2002.

James:  So where are some of the former participants now who have gone through this scheme?   Are they talking heads of schools and the like?

James Darley:    Yeah.   We’ve got 19 head teachers. We have hundreds of middle leaders. A hundred are in PWC. Similar numbers are in Accenture. We have 37 social enterprises, would have been set up. Some of your listeners may have heard of Frontline which is a phenomenal charity that is doing what TeachFirst has done in education but in children social care. That was set up by one of our ambassadors. So they really are all over the place. As I said, kind of 58 percent still in teaching; the others either in social enterprises or they are in the business world.

James:  I know a friend who is currently working at TeachFirst and he said it has been one of the most difficult things he’s ever done.

James Darley:    Yep.

James:  But he said it is by far the best thing that he has ever done. I know he’s bounced around a few jobs before getting into TeachFirst and he said there’s nothing like it, just seeing, you know it’s cheesy – but seeing the look on a kid’s face when he suddenly, you know, suddenly the penny drops and they grasp the concept.   Yeah, he absolutely loves it.

James:  It’s so lovely to hear because I think, you know, it is tough in that first two years regardless, I think, whether you’re fresh from uni or if you’re 40 years out of university.   You know, going into the most challenging schools for those children won’t necessarily have had a stable role model or stable teacher who cares about every single one of them individually to reach their potential and that’s one of the things that, you know, we very much push towards all of our participants, is making them realize that every single child can achieve; you know, seeing that difference, seeing the impact on a day to day basis and it’s immediate. You know, you’ll have some good lessons, some bad lessons. You’re going to have to jump back, the transferable skills that you get from doing it will keep you for a lifetime and as I say, we really do hope in 20 years’ time that leaders of this country will have all experienced TeachFirst, would have learned from that experience, will be better because of that experience and will change things.

James:  You mentioned at the beginning of the interview about social mobility and there’s the stats on your website saying, is it one in 20, or is it 20 to one chance if you went to a private school of getting into Oxford or Cambridge, but a 2000 to one chance if you go to an inner city state school. So, the number just speak for themselves.

James Darley:    They do and what’s lovely for us as well, you know, this year 41 percent of our cohorts were first generation university; twenty-six percent were on free school meals themselves. So what’s hugely inspiring for us at TeachFirst is, you know, exactly the students that we’re helping are getting inspired to join TeachFirst and give something back as well before they either stay or go in teaching, which is just amazing.

James:  Wow, that’s brilliant. So, a couple of final questions because I know we’re running out of time. What sort of salary could applicants be looking at?

James Darley:    So it does vary whether you’re in London or not; roughly 20 to 22 in the first year. That does go up as soon as you are qualified in year two and if you stay a third year, certainly about half of our, of those that stay a third year are in a leadership position on anything between 30 and 45. It does depend on the school and the size of the school and whether it’s an academy or not. So it does start low but it does progress very quickly and obviously if you do progress to be a head, you know, you’re talking about kind of six figures in terms of head teachers of a large urban secondary school. So, you know, the potential is definitely there.

James:  Also those 13 weeks holiday is something to consider.

James Darley:    Right, and you’ve got the whole Leadership Development Programme. You get your PGCE. You get the connections with our corporate supporters. You get a mentor in the second year. You get an internship in-between years one and two. So, actually, if you add up all the different elements of what TeachFirst offers you, it’s definitely more than that initial starting salary.

James:  Excellent. And are there any opportunities for people to get involved before applying, with insight work experience schemes?

James Darley:    There are. I have an undergraduates programme in my department and there are a number of initiatives from being a brand manager, where you can help us on your campuses if you are at university to spread the word of TeachFirst. If you’re interested in connecting with TeachFirst schools and fundraising for us, there are 18 universities now that have a TeachFirst society which are independent student led societies connecting volunteering work with TeachFirst schools. I have an insight programme; so that’s a two week paid work experience if you’re in your penultimate year. I also have taster sessions if you’re in your first year. And don’t despair if you’re not at university, I have many other opportunities for career changes as well that are held on weekends and evenings so that it won’t encroach on yourself working. So if you head to our website there’s lots of information there about the events that we’re running near you.

James:  And all the links that we’ve discussed will be in the show notes. So, check out graduatejobpodcast.com and you’ll be able to find all the links to everything that James has mentioned there.

So, James, time is unfortunately running away with us. So, if we move to the quick fire question round. So what one book would you recommend that our listeners could read?

James Darley:    I think just because of where the industry is going, go to Smiths or go to Amazon and get yourself How to Pass a Numerical Reasoning Test, or How to Pass a Verbal Reasoning Test. So many of these are fine once you practice them. You just may not for a long time have worked out if a boat leaves a dock at this time and takes this amount of time… so it’s purely kind of, you know, I think if you practices these things that could well help you in some of the graduate jobs that you’re doing.

(Note: Check out episode 35 on how to pass psychometric tests, with Ben Williams for more help

James:  Practice certainly make perfect with those. What one website would you recommend that our listeners can visit?

James Darley:    Oh, goodness, there are so many. I think one of the leading ones is certainly our feedback tells us is well read it would be the target job site.

James:  Excellent. It’s good site. It’s got tons and tons of great information on it.

And finally, James, what one tip would you give our listeners that they can implement today?

James Darley:    I think it would be confidence. I see too many students that look incredible on paper and when I see them you don’t get a handshake, the head is bowed down; already you see a defeated person. So, you know, please, have confidence. You’ve applied because you’re interested. You applied because you’re special and you want to make a difference whether it’s to TeachFirst or to any other graduate employer. Believe in yourself, have that confidence and just go and enjoy yourself. It is nerve racking because you’ve never done it before quite often but if you can have confidence you will perform to your best and then the right decision will be made.

James:  That’s great advice. As they say, if you think you can, you think you can’t, you’re right.

James Darley:    Exactly.

James:  James, before we finish what’s the best way for people to get in touch with you and TeachFirst?

James Darley:    So certainly if you look online, you know, that is the best way. Anybody that registers with me gets a phone call from a member of my team. So you will then get to speak to a human being who will kind of take you through the process and kind of help you with what you’re thinking about and is TeachFirst right for you. So the best way is definitely by registering on our website or for one of the events that we’re running around the country.

James:  And as I mentioned, everything will be linked to in the show notes. So you can check out everything there.

James, thank you very much for your time. It’s been a pleasure.

James Darley:    Absolutely. Good luck, everyone.

James: My many thanks to James Darley, Teach First is such a great scheme and doing some brilliant work in the some of the poorest communities here in the UK. Which leads me onto the first of my three takeaways from this episode, namely that Teach First, is a great cause. Through working for Teach First you will be able to really make a difference in people’s lives, and be remembered forever. No one ever forgets a good teacher. I don’t care how good you at PowerPoint or spreadsheets, if you work in banking, insurance, consulting, sales, marketing whatever it is. Is anyone going to remember a report you gave or some slides you put together in a weeks’ time, let alone in a few years’ time. We talk a lot about values on the show and making show that you put time into thinking about what your values are, so that you can see if they are in alignment with what you want to do. What you want to do. Not what everyone else is applying for so I suppose I should really apply as well, or what has the highest starting salary. If your values revolve around wanting to make a difference, helping people, giving back, helping those who are worse off than yourself, leaving a legacy. Ask yourself, are many other of the big graduate jobs going to help you do that? Maybe yes, maybe no. But if those are some of your values, Teach First will allow you to meet them and to make a difference. And if you’re meeting your core values at work, ultimately you’re going to be more satisfied than in a job which doesn’t but which pays you an extra £10 grand.

The second point for me is how the Leadership Development Scheme will help you to grow and develop some amazing skills. I’m trying to think back to what I did in the first 2 years of my grad job and it was alot of sitting behind a screen fiddling with word and PowerPoint documents that no one probably read. At same time you could be in front of a class developing brilliant public speaking, interpersonal, listening, planning, problem solving, coaching, counselling skills, in some of the most challenging schools in the country.  it won’t be easy,  but it will push you out of your comfort zone and develop you in ways that the average Graduate scheme won’t. And as all the motivational pictures on Instagram will tell you, Outside of your comfort zone is where the magic happens. As James said, these transferable skills which will keep you for a lifetime, and which is why Teach First graduates are so attractive to the corporate world.

Which leads me on to my third point. Teach First only ask initially for 2 years of your time. They are tying you down for ever, if you don’t like it or it’s not for you then they will actively help you find another job. Not many other grad schemes can say that, or offer you the option of help getting an internship in the summer of year 1, or coaching and mentoring in years 2 with the likes of Goldman Sachs, PWC, or Accenture. If you do decide corporate life is the place for you, then you will be ideally placed to make the leap, freshly armed with your array of amazing new skills and experiences. If you can handle teaching and controlling a class of hormonally charged 15 year olds I’m not sure there is much in the corporate world that is going to daunt you. James is looking for nearly 2000 graduates this coming year, make sure you apply at http://graduates.teachfirst.org.uk and you could be one of them.

There you go, episode 27 finished. Check out www.graduatejobpodcast.com/teachfirst for links to everything we have discussed. Do get in touch with us on Twitter @gradjobpodcast and let me know what you thought of the episode. If you’ve enjoyed the show please leave a review on ITunes or Stitcher radio, as I say every week it’s the best way other than sharing us with your friends to show appreciation for the podcast and it helps massively in the ranking on iTunes. Also if you’ve not already subscribed via your podcast provider of choice you need to sort that out, it’s the easiest way to get each episode delivered to you for free and to make sure that you don’t miss a thing. Finally a big congratulations also this week to listener Jesse over in Wollongong in Australia. Jesse got in touch a few months ago on Twitter and I’ve been giving him some informal advice over that period, and Jesse has been smashing it with the interviews, and has had not one but 2 job offers. Well done Jesse, very well deserved. If you’ve been finding the show useful as well please do reach out and let me know. Next week, we have a special guest in Chris Delaney who will explain how you can go about using psychological tips and tricks to influence the interview. It’s a goodie. But back to today, I hope you enjoyed the episode but more importantly I hope you use it and apply it. See you next week