Okay so somebody told you hiring freezes in November.
Maybe a friend who got ghosted after Thanksgiving one year. Maybe a LinkedIn post with a very confident chart. Maybe it's your gut, which is tired and would LOVE an excuse to close the laptop until January.
I get it. I also read job postings every single week now, so I went and looked.
In my last few days of reading postings I pulled 117 companies that hire former educators and every one of them posted a remote role in the last seven days.
And listen, some of you are reading this a few days after a layoff. I'm so sorry. I want you to read the rest of this with the number above in your head. If you were the victim of a restructure, please know that a restructure is a money decision about one budget line.
The companies I'm about to show you are making a different money decision this month and it happens to work in your favor.
Why November hiring is a thing
Here's what I learned on the corporate side. Companies run on money calendars and most of those calendars could not care less that it's the holidays.
A manager with an approved opening has to fill it this year or sit in a January meeting explaining why the budget went unused. Customers who signed in October want to be up and running in January, so the person who's going to train them gets hired now. And a whole pile of government contract work kicked off with the new federal fiscal year on October 1, which means those teams are filling seats right now.
Me personally, I landed three of my many corporate roles in the Fall/Winter. It truly does happen all the time.
Where I'm looking
1. The companies that sell to schools and colleges
Second semester starts in January and spring is renewal season. The customer success and implementation folks who keep districts and campuses happy have to be trained and ready before then, so these companies hire in November and December. You already know them. Their logos are all over your classroom software.
Think: the teacher who rolled out the new platform and trained the whole staff on it.
Search: Customer Success Manager, Implementation Specialist, Professional Learning Specialist.
2. Government contractors
Yep, really. The federal fiscal year turned over October 1 and the contracts awarded this fall need instructional designers, training specialists and curriculum developers building courses for agency staff. Those teams are hiring this month.
One thing to check: some of these postings require an active security clearance. Skip those. Plenty of them say "must be eligible for a clearance" and most people are.
Think: the teacher who built a training other adults had to sit through and actually finish.
Search: Instructional Designer, Training Specialist, Curriculum Developer.
3. Hospitals and health software companies
Hospitals do not close for winter break. Every new scheduling system, patient portal and billing platform needs someone to teach the staff how to use it and the companies selling those systems hire trainers and implementation people all year long.
One thing to check: skip anything that puts a nursing license or clinical experience in the requirements. Plenty don't.
Think: the teacher who ran the training the year your school switched gradebooks.
Search: Implementation Specialist, Training Specialist, Instructional Designer.
4. Big companies with their own training departments
Retail chains. Logistics companies. Banks. Facility services firms. These companies train thousands of employees a year and the January rollouts get built in November and December. The titles are the same ones you'd search at an education company. The company name is what throws people.
Think: the teacher who wrote the onboarding for new hires in the department or chaired the committee that trained the building.
Search: Instructional Designer, Learning and Development Specialist, Trainer.
5. Software companies with onboarding teams
Software companies close a lot of deals in the last three months of the year and every one of those new customers expects to be live in January. So the onboarding specialists and customer success managers get hired in November, so they're ready.
Think: the teacher who took a new program from "the district bought it" to "every teacher is using it."
Search: Onboarding Specialist, Customer Success Manager, Implementation Manager.
Your weekend task
First, open LinkedIn Jobs
Next, type one title from each set above
Then, set Date posted to "Past week" or "Last 7 days"
Finally, set location to Remote. Save three postings you like.
Finish by doing the thing from my LinkedIn post Thursday night. Find the requirements paragraph and sort every line into four piles.
1. Already did it.
2. Did it and my resume doesn't show it yet.
3. Could learn it by spring.
4. Nope, don't have it.
Spend next week in pile two.
The people who get a December offer applied in November. Go forth and get hired, friend.
Still not sure which of these five is yours? My quiz reads your school experience the way a hiring manager does and names the title to search for: take it here.
Ps. Companies hiring for all five of these ran this morning in Jobs Jobs Jobs, my LinkedIn newsletter listing companies currently hiring former educators.
Reading this in your inbox? Hit reply, I read my own email. Reading on my website? Send me a message on LinkedIn.
Cheers,
Steph
Find me on LinkedIn | Career Change Accelerator | Get on my 1:1 Waitlist
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About Steph Yesil: Steph is a former K–12 educator who moved into corporate education companies in 2015 and built a career across curriculum, professional learning, content, and leadership. She founded Elevated Careers to help educators build successful corporate careers.
