Leaving the Classroom: A Transitioning Teacher Podcast

Leaving the Classroom 49: From Classroom to Project Coordinator with Jill Kelly

In this episode of Leaving the Classroom, host Kristi Oliva interviews Jill Kelly, a former teacher turned Project Coordinator. 

Tune in to find out:

• Jill's 12-year teaching experience and why she decided to leave the classroom
• Her journey from teaching to becoming a sales development representative (SDR) at an edtech company 
• What a project coordinator does and how her teaching skills transferred to this new role

 Listen to the episode here:

Connect with Kristi on LinkedIn

This podcast is sponsored by IDOL Courses and is the only authorized vocational school and implementation program of its kind that not only shows you exactly how to create your job application assets and build a portfolio from scratch, but also includes credentials, mentorship, expert coaching, and paid experience opportunities in corporate instructional design and online learning for life! Learn more about the program here. 

Enjoy the podcast transcription:

Kristi Oliva 

Welcome to Leaving the Classroom. This is a podcast for teachers who are ready to transition out of the classroom and into a new career. Each week, I'll share stories about what I've learned moving from education to the corporate world. I'll answer the most common questions and share my best tips to help you get started. If you are considering leaving the classroom, this show is for you. Hello, everyone. Welcome to Leaving the Classroom. I'm Kristi Oliva. I'm so glad you are here and today, I am talking to Jill Kelly, former teacher turned project coordinator. Welcome, Jill.

Jill Kelly 

Thank you so much for having me.

Kristi Oliva 

Yes, I'm so happy to have you here. We met by chance on LinkedIn. Which is so funny. I meet so many people just by talking on LinkedIn. And people approach me about my mission. And so I think that's how we met. And so it's so exciting. And what I'd love to talk about today is what your teaching experience was like, how did you get out of teaching, and then where did you head after that? Because I know you mentioned in our pre talk before this, that it wasn't straight to project coordinator. So I'd love to hear that whole journey.

Jill Kelly 

Yeah, of course. So I was a teacher for 12 years. So I was in teaching for quite a while. I started teaching in North Carolina, teaching first grade for a year, and then fourth grade for a couple years and then my family and I moved back to New York. So when we moved back to New York, in 2017, I taught sixth grade at a middle school for five years. So and then I ended up leaving, and my last school year there was 2021 to 2022. So I've taught just about every subject across first, fourth and sixth grade. Really, really loved my sixth grade position. I didn't think I would, but I loved it. I loved the school, the administration. It was the middle school where my own kids would go one day, and I had a great team. I loved the subject areas I taught. And still just with all of that, I still just couldn't make it work. And I really, really wanted to and I tried so hard. And then I eventually realized, like, I have all these things in place, like all these good things going for me, you know, in terms of like my position and my environment and I just still couldn't stay. I couldn't stay in teaching. So I made that decision, I would say it was probably the fall of 2021 is when I knew I did not want to return the next year. But I had no direction. No guidance. I had no idea where to even start. And so yeah, so then I ended up I mean, I'm sure we'll talk about this later, but I ended up just doing some research and out of the classroom that August. August 2022 I started as an SDR for an edtech company. Did that for about a year and a half and then-

Kristi Oliva 

What is SDR? Tell us.

Jill Kelly 

Yeah, SDR is a sales development representative. Where I first started, it was an account representative or account management representative. And then when I went to another edtech company after that one, it was an SDR position. So very similar in what my roles and responsibilities were. And then after doing that for a year and a half, then that's when I transitioned to this project coordinator role that I've been in for a couple of months.

Kristi Oliva 

Ok, so how did you make that jump from teaching? Like I know a lot of people- because you said you went into an edtech company, right?

Jill Kelly 

Yeah.

Kristi Oliva 

That's one of the top things people tell me they're interested in and I'd love to hear your perspective on that because I always not that I discourage people from that, but I always tell them, it's not your only path. Like I feel like teachers feel like they have to go into that because they're like, that's all I know. So I'd love to hear like what your thought process was, and just how that jump was made for anybody who, who does want to do that.

Jill Kelly 

Yeah, no. And I totally agree with you too because up until recently, I was thinking, oh, I have to stay in edtech because that's, that's like my background, my education, my experiences is in education. So that's where I need to go, and then only recently realized that that is an option. But that is not the only available fields for me. So, when I was first doing some research, I really didn't even know where to start. I wasn't on LinkedIn. I didn't know about like all of these other resources that may have been around a couple years ago, but are really around now as you see on LinkedIn. There's just so much out there. It's a little overwhelming. But I really didn't know where to start. And so I was just searching, you know, positions jobs for former teachers and just started compiling a list looking into what all of these positions meant because I never had to look outside the classroom. I didn't know what these fields were, I didn't know what these roles were because I had been in my bubble, my classroom for 12 years. And so, I just did a lot of research as far as like, what are these roles? What do these people do every day? And then from there took my teaching resume, tried very hard to make it a little bit more generic, take the teaching jargon out of it, but also at the same time, make it stand out. And so that was really tricky and I feel like the resume is when I kept coming back to and I kept tweaking, as well as the cover letter, because I was so used to just, you know, writing my cover letter, my writing my resume for another teaching position. And so I really had to kind of like just step out of that box and think of what I've done in the classroom and how I can make it seem like, well, this role of what I did in the classroom I can also do it in this field in this role. And that was really hard. So I focused a lot on the cover letter, but with a lot on my soft skills and kind of I had looked at some like job requirements and job postings, and looked at some commonalities among them and said, oh, they all are talking a lot about you know, being an effective communicator, or an effective presenter, whatever it was. And so like, I just looked across a lot of different job postings in a certain field, and pulled some common language from there and said, okay, this seems to be like a top trait that they're looking for. I settled on, I think, three, and then I just inserted those in my cover letter, and then took, you know, examples from my teaching and how I showed that trait and then I just kept searching. I did that, what do they call it the spray and pray method, which is not effective. But I didn't know where to- that's just where I was starting. I had no idea that you really just had to, really, it's a better idea to focus on what is it you want to do. Okay, what are some are those, what are some of those roles and focus on what's going to make you happy, what do you want to do every day. Because I think that's something it's not just like, get out of the classroom and go to the first job. You got to make sure it's going to be a fit, it might not be your forever job, but it should be something that you've looked into and you know, like, this is one of your strengths and this is something you're going to enjoy. And so, I was just applying, looking really just edtech companies at the time, because I thought, well, I'm coming from education, that's going to be the only fields I can go into. So I really looked at edtech companies, I don't know that I applied outside of edtech that first round. And I got a couple of interviews, some I completely bombed because I just I didn't know, I hadn't prepared, you know, really for how to do an interview in a non teaching role and then how to make the hiring manager see how my teaching experience translates into, you know, an, like, what would be an asset on their team. And then I met with a manager at this edtech company that I ended up working for, she was a former teacher herself. So we had a lot in common, most of the company was made up of former teachers so that immediately put me at ease just that like okay, all these folks have been in similar positions, they've been in you know, in the shoes of an administrator or teacher. And she and I really clicked and then she offered me the role as account development representative on her team. And so when I switched the job search later, I definitely did a lot of things differently when I was leaving that SDR role. But right off the bat, I just, I just kind of went in blind and I felt like I just took some, some shots in the dark. So definitely a different experience, this time around when I went from the SDR role to this one as project coordinator.

Kristi Oliva 

Okay, so let's talk about I don't know much about what an SDR does and so I know I kind of thought edtech would be one of my routes too. I never ended up going that way, obviously. So tell us what is transferable from teaching to SDR and what does an SDR do if people are thinking that that is a route that they want to take? Tell us more about the day to day?

Jill Kelly 

Yeah, so the SDR role, so you are the first point of contact reaching out to well, if you're in edtech, you're reaching out to schools central office. But you are reaching out trying to generate some interest in your company's product, your company software, their service. So my role my day to day I was assigned to certain territory, and it's mostly cold calls and emails. Some to some warm leads people who have shown interest in the product or service in the past, but maybe never quite committed to a demo. And then some were I would say majority were completely cold. Those are the harder calls to make, because you only have their attention for a really short time, and you just need to get them, you need to let them know hey, this is what we do this is how we can help you make it relevant to them and you have to do that in a very short amount of time, and just generate enough interest to get them to agree to see a demo of the product. So it was just a lot of cold calling, emailing.

Kristi Oliva 

Would you be giving the demos too?

Jill Kelly 

No, so in my role, my job was to book the demos for our sales reps. So I worked under a couple of sales reps or account executives. So my job was to call basically, on behalf of all of them and try to book demos for them. I know in some roles, some sales roles there's the cold calling, as well as giving the demos, but this position specifically was just the cold calling, setting up the demos for the account executives, follow up emails, personalized emails and email sequences. And then really just keeping track of your leads your warm leads, who's opening emails, who's showing a little bit of interest who's clicking around on the links you sent. And yeah, so that was a, it's very, it's a very exhausting job. It's very, like, I give SDR so much credit, because it's just you got to get on the phone and you have to be on and you have to be enthusiastic and ready to go. And it's exhausting. It's a very, very taxing taxing role for sure.

Kristi Oliva 

Okay, so I'm already starting to hear like, what kind of teacher would like that? I wouldn't be that teacher. Even though I am bubbly and stuff.

Jill Kelly 

Yeah.

Kristi Oliva 

I get exhausted easily from that. Okay, so I can see that a certain teacher type would transfer well to that. So then now tell me about those next steps. You were an SDR? I mean, I'd love to hear if you liked it? Or Is that why you moved to project coordinator? Tell us more about like the transition from there?

Jill Kelly 

Yeah, um, so I was terrified when I first took the role. But I was like, okay, but it's- I had to keep looking at it as a stepping stone and not necessarily my next my forever job if you know, because you go into teaching, thinking, that's your forever role.

Kristi Oliva 

Right.

Jill Kelly 

And I was terrified, like making cold calls this I just don't know about this. I worked with an amazing team of former educators, a couple other folks were brought on when I was, we're on the same boat. I feel like the team and our manager really just carried us through. And we had such a good rapport. And I was excited just to learn something new and just try it. I would say after a year, though, I was starting to burn out from that just I wanted something more, I wanted a little bit more, I guess, responsibility. I wanted something where I just wasn't on the phone, cold calling all day. I love work interacting with people, and all of that but it's you know, it's a lot and you have to keep up that excitement. And some days, you're just like, not in that mood and it's hard to get in that place sometimes. But I didn't know what other roles from there that I wanted to go to. I know, you know, some tracks, it's SDR, your sales development rep and then you can be on track to be an account executive and be the ones giving demos and closing deals. And I didn't want to do that. I just I realized that like sales itself in those types of roles just wasn't for me. And so I knew I wanted to be doing something still with people, but just not in that, not in that sense. And then also, I really liked instructional design. I looked into that. I wanted, you know, the chance to do something where I could be creative, but again, just didn't really know where to start. And then I felt like I was kind of starting over but I still- I had this year of experience under my belt too.

Jill Kelly 

Okay, great. So tell me more about a project coordinator because there's so many names like I'm a program manager, there's a project manager, there's project coordinator. Are those the same? Are those different? Tell me more about what a project coordinator does?

Jill Kelly 

Yeah, so in my position as project coordinator, and you're right, there's so many different titles, and some of them are some of the responsibilities are very similar, and some are very different, just depending on the company. But what I do is I'm in a position where once the sale is made, the customer comes to me or the client comes to me, and then I help them. I teach them the software and I get it configured for them to work for them. So, when clients come to me, I don't need to sell them anything they've already bought the software. I meet with them for a couple of training sessions and really just organize our trainings, make, you know make sure we're on track we have all of our all of our trainings take place when we schedule them and we hit the deadline that they want to hit. So I work with them for about, I'd say about like four to five weeks or so depending how fast we move. For trainings, make sure they're set to go. And then when they're ready, they go live with our software and then I have new clients come in. So I'm working with them on building those relationships for those several weeks. And then once they're ready to go, I transition them over to client success, and then client success is their long term contact for, you know, any, like account related questions or things like that. So I really liked it, because I'm not- I don't have to do the selling, I'm not doing the cold calls and I'm still teaching, I'm just, it's just different. It's teaching in a different way. So I so far, I mean, I just started in January, but so far, I'm loving it and I think this was just the change that I needed because I'm still interacting with people, but it's not all day long. And it's you know, I'm teaching them the software, and I'm finding out what their needs are and how to, you know, problem solve for them. So, I can go a little bit deeper and get to know, I guess, to get to know the folks on the teams a little bit better.

Kristi Oliva 

Do you think it would be possible for somebody to skip over that SDR role? Would somebody be able to land the role you have now, without having that other experience in the other roles?

Jill Kelly 

I think so. Yes. I think my year and a half as an SDR definitely helped. But I also think just in my interview for this position, our hiring manager really values teachers, and he knows what teachers do every day, like, members of his family were teachers. So I feel like when you I mean, you never know who you're going to be interviewing with. But I do feel like if you are really taking the time to think about what your strengths are, as a teacher, what those soft skills are, and then how you can take your experiences, and apply them to the role that you're interviewing for, you know, and like I did this in the classroom and for you, this means I can do this and really make the hiring manager see how valuable you are because us as teachers, like we know what the day to day looks like. We know we can handle just about anything, but people outside of the classroom don't necessarily know that. And so I think you can go from teaching to a position like this, if you're doing it the right way and if you're very intentional about your resume, your cover letter, your interviewing skills, and really putting the time in to prepare for that, and not just going in blind, but just being really intentional with all of those things. Then I think someone definitely could.

Kristi Oliva 

Yeah, thanks for bringing that up because I do think that's so important. Like you said, you don't know which hiring manager you're gonna have. They might have never experienced life at all with a teacher, whether it be a friend, family member, or whatever. So, that's where your resume your interview skills come in, you have to be able to translate that and a lot of people struggle with that because they think that they're pulling the wool over their eyes or lying. But really, we're not denying that you're a teacher, we're just translating those terms, because, like you said, at the very beginning, the teacher jargon that we use is not it's not what other companies use. And it's the same as corporate language. If a corporate person wanted to move into being a teacher, they'd have to do the same thing and translate well, how did being a project manager, how does that make you a good teacher? And so on and so forth. So-

Jill Kelly 

Right.

Kristi Oliva 

I think that's really important that translation piece.

Jill Kelly 

Yeah, absolutely. Same thing with like students like on your resume, if you're using the word students, when I was applying I switched out students for learners. Or if you're talking about something with like, test scores, that's data. You're analyzing data, you know, and just so taking, like those very specific things we do as teachers and looking at how you can, like you said, translate it to whatever that role is that you're applying for. I think that's super important.

Kristi Oliva 

Okay, so let's just go straight to what are the top three skills that you took from your teaching experience that have served you the best in this new project coordinator role?

Jill Kelly 

I would say one would be communication and just having to be a clear communicator, with clients, with your colleagues. Because you know, as teachers you are communicating with students, parents, administrators, other teachers. I mean, there's a ton of folks that you communicated with all the time. And it's the same thing with this role. You have to communicate both verbally and in writing to your clients and really make sure you're on the same page. So I would say definitely communication. I would kind of lump presentation in there too. And presenting, knowing how to present the content breaking it down just like you would in the classroom using visuals as much as possible things like that. I would say also organization, having to be organized as the teacher and know where everything is at every moment. And then it's the same thing with this knowing how to block out your calendar, when are you going to build in time, you know, prep work for each session, each training session that you hold. Keeping your clients and all their information in their own folders, knowing where all those documents are, and really just coming up with your own system and having just you got to know where to go for which client at anytime. And so being able to stay organized, I think would be another one. And then I would say as well, just that flexibility, just being flexible, having a plan in place. But knowing that at any moment, anything can change, you know, if a client can't make it to a meeting, or you're sick, or if in the middle of a training, the software has a bug and it doesn't work, you know, and just kind of having to roll with it because we did that every day with teachers with, you know, as teaching with fire drills. And no, we don't technology today, you know, all of that, or I'm sick, and I didn't have time to write sub plans. So I think that's the same thing as you go in with a plan and what you want to get done that day. But you also have to be flexible that you have might have to move something, you might have to shift it. It might not go as perfectly as you want it to go. And you just have to, you just gotta roll with it and work with the client and making whatever adjustments you need to make. But so I think just going in with a plan, but being flexible at the same time is super important. And I feel like that definitely in teaching prepared me for this as well.

Kristi Oliva 

Those are really good ones. And you know, what's funny is I always ask that question in these interviews of former teachers and not only I do see similar threads that run through, but what's so cool is that every role picks out, like what you are good at as a teacher and so it's funny how to see how teachers go into all these different roles that fit. I'm sure that you are the best at those three things. And so that's why this project coordinator role like fits you. And but that might be completely different for a different style teacher who maybe struggled with communication and organization. And so maybe that's not the right role for them and that's what I love about teachers is we can be so many different things. And you have so many options. A great spot for us to wrap up. Thank you so much for coming on. How can people get in touch with you if they want to learn more about your journey or ask advice on how they can get into similar roles?

Jill Kelly 

Yeah, absolutely. So I'm on LinkedIn. Just Jill Kelly. So I've had people have messaged me and I've talked to other teachers now looking to leave the classroom. I've had phone conversations with them and zoom calls, just letting them just ask me what you know, whatever they want. So I just love to be able to pass along whatever I've learned to others, because I know how daunting it can be. So I'm happy to chat and just pass along whatever information people need, or if they want advice on anything. I'm happy to talk with them. But yeah, just LinkedIn is probably the best they can just send me a message or a connection. Just under Jill Kelly.

Kristi Oliva 

Love that. Well, thanks again for joining us. It's so great to meet you.

Jill Kelly 

Yeah, of course. Thank you so much. This was fun.

Kristi Oliva 

Do you want to leave the classroom but you're not sure where to start? You don't have to settle. There are so many places you can go. So you can start by taking my free Career Clarity Quiz at idolcourses.com/leavingtheclassroom, and then you'll get an email that breaks it down for you and helps you pick the right role for you. It's time to take control and make the career change that will change your life. It changed mine. See you next time. That's all for this episode. But you can find more at idolcourses.com or subscribe to the podcast. And if you are ready to leave the classroom, use my code classroom100 and get $100 off enrollment to IDOL courses Academy.

Send your stories or questions to [email protected] or share them with me on Instagram @leavingtheclassroom.