The Transition from Education: Finding Out What Was Right for Me with Raven Wilson

Luis Malbas  
Hello, everybody, welcome to our next session of the day, the road to L&D. From teaching to instructional design, I have a fantastic session for you here with Raven Wilson. Heidi Kirby just did such an excellent job with bringing Raven in as part of this program, because there are a lot of you out there teachers, educators that are interested in getting to an instructional design. And it may not be the right thing for you, it really might not. And Raven is here to talk about that. And I'm so glad that she's participating because it is a message that needs to be heard. Raven is a former teacher, now a partner Success Manager at elevation education. She's going to be talking about the transition from education, finding out what was right for her. So with that Raven, I'm going to go ahead and minimize hide myself from the screen and I'll let you take it away.

Raven Wilson  
Yes, hello, everybody. Before I get started, I would love to know where you guys are from. I am from Newport News, Virginia. So if you're familiar with like Virginia Beach, or Williamsburg, I am right in the middle of that. Today, we got a whole whopping inches of like, half an inch of snow and everything to shut down. So my two year old is here. So if you hear him in the background, that is what that is because everything in Virginia closes when we get baby snow. So it's nice to meet you guys. I'm going to go ahead and share my screen. All right. Okay. So like I said, my name is Raven Wilson, and I live in Virginia. And I just kind of want to talk to you all about my path and where I started with instructional design. And as you know, I am not an instructional design. Today, I am a customer success manager and how I got here. So the first things first is I a former elementary teacher, I taught k one, two and three. And then I became a math interventionist. And I just recently left the classroom of April 2020. Yes, you heard it right, I left during spring break of last year, or 2020 2021, I get the years mixed up, I left in Spring Break of 2021. And so a few things about me as I was teaching for about five years. And in that total of five years, you know, you get the feeling somewhere in your life. It's gonna be something more for me, like, is it? Is there something else? And I felt that way, probably after a year or two. And I was like, oh, gosh, I don't know if I want to sit back and be doing this for 30 years. And then I started doing my research just like all of you have, it's like teaching what googling what other jobs can teachers do. And boom, pop instructional design. That was like the first thing that popped up, right? And I'm like, Oh, I can do that. Create lessons. I do that every day, literally every single day. And I went down the rabbit hole of instructional design. I started buying courses, I did all of the, you know, storyline rides or everything. I even went as far as to go to grad school, not for my masters, but for certificate and instructional design, because I just knew it was for me, that was my passion. But like, you know, hindsight is 2020 When you think back, I just really wanted to get in the classroom. So anything was my passion at that point. So I think I spent about a good eight months on my journey to become an to do instructional design. I was in mini courses, which is how I met Heidi, right? Because she was one of my mentors when I was talking to her about instructional design. And one time in one of the courses, I was talking to someone and they said, Well, we're going to create a course about something that you're passionate about. And it's going to make it so much easier to do it. I was like, Okay, I love fitness. So I'm going to create this rice course about fitness, and it's gonna be so easy. It was the hardest thing I ever did. Like, I knew all the things in my brain. I was passionate about it, but I could not actually create the course because I did not like it. And so that is how I realized one day I'm like, wait, maybe this is not for me, you know. And I think back to teaching, I did not like creating lessons. I did not like writing lesson plans. Like I was the type of teacher who showed up. Don't judge me guys, you know, we showed up in the lesson just came to me like I know what I was supposed to be teaching. But when I got there, I'm like, Okay, this is how it's gonna roll out. Why did I think I wanted a career that came with planning and like really designing and marking those things out? I did not that was not for me. And I think the fact that everybody was doing it, and everybody was pushing it in my face. I thought it was for me. But that was not me. And I had to be true to myself. So that's really how I figured it out. Like I it just was not it wasn't for me. So then it led me another path. What in the world can I do? Like all of my plans just got ruined? Like I'm in this grad program, which I hate it by the way, right? I'm in this grad program. I'm meeting all these people. I'm doing all these things I'm applying to all these jobs. I'm spending so much time Yes, I'm putting so much I'm on my resume for a career that I don't want to do. So it really took a lot of I was in Laura's last session is like finding your niche, it really took that for me. And I'm gonna be perfectly honest, finding your niche is hard. I still don't know my niche. It took a lot of time of finding what is going, what is right for me, what do I love? Right? What do I love about teaching? Not just love, because I love a lot of things. I love sitting on my couch. If I can find a job doing that, that's perfect. But no, what did I love about teaching? And I had to think past students like Laura said,

I like teaching other adults, and not like clicking through PowerPoints showing them like I like truly working with adults. Okay, so I'm like, How can I do that? Like, what is that I also love delivering information. I love I love I love actual teaching the content getting up there in front, my students putting on that show. Um, I like talking to my principals and admin. I like those meetings, though. I bring in the data like, this is what we had, this is what I did, showing them. This is how hard I worked and getting up and presenting if I'm most people's those, that's the reason why I like that, like the adult part of teaching and adult learners. So okay, I'm like, yes. How can I find that job? Like, what is that? Because and that's like a mini job. I do that anywhere. So how can I find that but in tech, because I wanted to work in tech, and we'll get to that later. Okay, after I made my peace with leaving education, right, because we all know, that's the hardest part. Every, like, there's always the teachers in our building, it's like, Are you sure you want to leave? You know, Wow, can we do leave the kid so all that all that once I got past all of that, because, you know, I can still go back and volunteer, I'm never going to lose, teaching kids how to read, I can still do all those things. I made that peace with myself. And then I figured out what I liked. I researched like crazy. Because I was still connected with a lot of those of interesting design groups. I was meeting with Heidi. And I told her one day I was like, Hey, I don't like construction design. Can you just kind of talk to me about like, anything else, like tell me about interviewing processes, like tell me other stuff, I want to other things. And I started Googling, training, you know, jobs for teachers, Ed Tech, I wanted to go to Ed Tech specifically. So I started Googling jobs in there and started reading those descriptions. So that is how I found customer success. And I'm like, this is perfect. But again, remember I said I thought instructional design was perfect also. So we'll talk about my job now and kind of what I do and how I feel about it now. So for me personally and for you. I'd like to say this again, finding your niche is hard. And it is okay. Even if you get in a job and it's not your niche. And you're like nothing. Yeah. Oh, this is not really what I thought it was. I'm finding a community is huge. LinkedIn is huge. I if you're on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tik Tok, any of those social medias, you can be on LinkedIn. And I'm not saying you have to post every day because if you're connected with me on LinkedIn, you know, I do not post a lot. But I am on there connecting with people. I am I beginning of my transition. I was messaging people. I like to call it like the coffee chats or the zoom meetings, I call them blind dates, because you never know who you're going to meet. Because then Greg could have been like, so I was going on those blind dates, often with people and asking all of the right questions and not like, hey, how much do you make? And I was researching genuine questions like, can you tell me a little bit about X, Y, and Z doing my research prior to and coming ready to meet these people with questions. But my biggest and final thing is when you figure out what it is that you want to do, if it's customer success, if it's training, if it's instructional design, project management, do not limit yourself to one field. I limited myself to EdTech because as a teacher, I you know, that's just for me. I'm like, of course, of course, why not at Tech, I use a tech tools every day. I use Google Chrome, I use Nearpod I use, you know, the sky's the limit. I use Dreambox I use all of these things. Why not go to Ed Tech, because I'm a teacher who uses the product. They're gonna hire me that I had that. Like, of course, they're gonna hire me. I'm a teacher and I use the product. Let me tell you right now I applied to like 50 places. They didn't even give me an interview. Okay, so no one is no one's going to hire you just because we use their product, especially as teachers. No one's like them up. Oh, this is a teacher. Let me pull them let me pull their resume. That is not it. They will. They will. When you get in. If your resume is all corporate, they will be like, Oh, you didn't use our product. Let me X, Y and Z. So don't just limit yourself to EdTech they're more fields out there. There's regular tech, there's finances, there's healthcare. There's many other companies many other parts that you can go into but sighs tech, and there are so many jobs out there that you can do. And I'm not pushing you guys later. interaction design. I am here to talk to the people who are like, Is this for me, I'm just kind of trying to figure that out.

Okay, so I want to talk salary because I know, for me interesting design was salary was a big reason why I was going into instructional design. It was what I thought made the most money. very candid, like, just be very clear. People told me like, if you want to do instructional design, and if you want to go out, you're gonna make the most money in this field. And I live in Virginia, like I said, you live in Virginia, like me, you already know, our teacher salary is not the best. So I'm like, okay, yes, well, your teacher, so you already know, salary. But I'm like, Yes, intrapreneurs, I'll make six figures coming out the gate, I can do it. And that's, that's really one of the big reasons. And because I thought I'd like lessons that I wanted to go into instruction design. And the more that you do your research, like, like Laura was saying, there are other paths and LMD and other careers that you do not make entry level salaries coming up the gate, you can truly make great salaries without the intersection design, without having any experience, taking any courses just coming out with a well crafted resume. And you can make you know, 85 to 90,000 coming into this position, it still may be an entry level position, but it's not that entry level salary. So a lot of you're thinking like, Okay, well, what are those positions? Like? What can I find? How can I find them? The we have to go back into knowing what do you like about your job? What do you like about yourself, if you do not like sitting at a desk all day answering emails, then you may not like customer success, right? If you if you constantly want to be in front of an audience, that maybe training is more for you. Or if you're like, I don't want to be true. I don't want to be in front of people. That gives me anxiety. That's what I don't like about teaching. So that's the very first thing make that list about your likes and dislikes. And and if you do not know, one of the best things I did is I asked my co workers, I said, What am I good at? Like, what am I did that I was a team lead. So I asked my you know, my teammates, hey, what makes me a good leader? And they said, X, Y, and Z. Also I use those same things when I was applying for jobs when they said like, what are your strengths, the things those people told me, I would do generate those back out when I was interviewing, you know, they said, I'm a good leader, because of x y&z It is very humbling, because you never know what you're going to get. But I really wanted to know, like, you know, what would you say are my best things as a leader? What would you say are my best qualities or worst qualities as a teacher, to my colleagues, because they know me best. And they see us in a different light than VCR, we don't see ourselves. So that is a first start a second, take one of those tests online strengths finders, both of my companies, the two that I have worked for, we I had to take those Strength Finders, and that was nice, too. And it kind of reaffirm what other people are saying about me too. And I'm like, okay, great. Like, I'm funny, but I'm not putting that on my resume, you know, but still, like those that helps. So it really does promote growth. So I highly suggest you ask your colleagues, they know you better, like they see you in the light that you don't see yourself. So I want to continue talking about salary a little bit. Because here's the thing, I've worked for two, I told you guys, I just transitioned in April 2021. And I've already worked for two companies. Why do you ask is because I worked for one company at the very when I first got out in April, beautiful company, I loved it there. I quickly realized that company was not my niche. Maybe the job was great, but the company was not for me. And that's that's humbling in itself, right? As teachers, we feel like we have to stay loyal to our building to this to that to this and I thought that for a little bit. And I'm like, if I'm not teaching what I thought I was gonna do until I was like 75 I can leave this company for many reasons, like the pay is not really what I want it to be. I took one of those positions just to get out and I was making 50k and I knew I could make more in the company. It just wasn't a right fit for me. I just felt bad in my soul. So I was after six months at that company I was like it's I think it's time for me to go and I left or I started applying and it just leave the door. I started applying I started looking for jobs I have some experience now right before I didn't have any experience cuz I was fresh out the classroom. I have some experience. Let me get a LinkedIn. Let me find other companies. Let me connect with other people. That's the beauty of connections because some people say hey, this company is hiring. I'm going to apply right now. And I found my current company and I'm like, This is great. Their salary was in my range of what I want it for a salary right.

Got and I got that position and not not only was it a better fit for me like the culture of the company, the salary is what I wanted. The manager fit my lifestyle or she had a she has a one year old, I had a two year old, everything about it was perfect for me. And it just gave me that reflection moments like it's okay to leave when you feel when you feel like your time is up somewhere. And it's okay to feel that and go, we have to be loyal to ourselves. And if you want more money, having the biggest advocation is for you. If you want to make, you know 90k You are your biggest advocator and you go find that salary and you go make it. So a few websites that we all recommend. Of course there's Glassdoor, but there is more than just Glassdoor there is payscale.com. And there is salary.com. Always, always, always look up. Always, always, always look up salary look up salary ranges. So you know, but before that, you need to have a number in your heart like, I will not take under this because I can't live this way. Right? Like this is my, the lowest amount of salary that I'm going to take this is the highest well not. There's no additional capital highest. But this is the lowest amount that I will take, I'm not going to go through this. If it's lower than that, have that, research that and then start applying for it. So you have some sense. And if you do have great connections on LinkedIn, it is not it's not a bad thing, in my opinion. Because if I have a great connection with someone that I talked to recently, and I'm like, can you tell me the range for this position, and they know it, they don't mind telling you that, like a range for a company that I know, they make the customer success manager, my position makes 85 to 90. And I asked I asked one of my connections that I talked to all the time, it was not a blind connection, I didn't just messaged this girl and say, How much money do you make? This is someone I really built a connection was we had many zoom chats and said, Hi, I was just wondering, this is the position I was applying for. And do you know the range of the salary and she said this is the range and that's perfect. I didn't ask her for a full number. I just wanted to know the range before I started really going through that process. So if you're thinking, okay, Raven, that's all great. You said you do customer success. What is that, um, a really good way that I like to look at it. A really, really, really, really good way that I like to look at customer success. And what I do, the name is the what I do is in the name, I make sure the customer is successful at using our product. Because we work for SaaS, Software as a Service, I'm making sure our customers our clients are successful at using our software. Why is that important? Why in any customer facing position is that important? If the customer doesn't like the product, will they not they won't come back. That's not good for business. So you have people like me, who are making sure they are successful. Because I work in edtech my clients are principals, I work for an email company so that usually like email specialists, and add them back that way, not just teachers, they're usually like whoever's purchasing the product is my are my clients. And so my whole purpose is to onboard them, get them to come on to the company, right get their data, what si s are using, what's your student information system, I want to know all the details about your school, and then after that, you can offer a training. So, some people may some companies may offer trainings my company we have a whole training department, so I do not I do not train this is not me go back, this is not a sales position. So the sales person has already sold it. And then they come to me, I cannot sell a brown paper bag. I knew sales was not for me, right? So this is after they have sold it and then it comes to me and now I am taking care of this product. You are my client and I had build a relationship over their subscription. So anything like you have Netflix right? They have customer success agents most likely

and so over your subscription time to yours, you are going to be working with me to make sure you are using successful Hey, I see that your teachers have not been logging into the product let's talk about some ways we can do that. Do you need a training X y&z You know, I can show you my emails, I'm going to share my calendar because show you like a day in the life and what that looks like for me. But for me why I knew this job was more for me and not instructional design was because I am teaching adults how to do things every single day. I am problem. I am problem solving. I am looking for that depth. I'm walking into meetings, zooming into meetings, hey, this is that this is this data. This is information. This is this research that I found. Let's now let's see how we can work with this. Right? I am doing something walking in my passion. I love talking to adults. And it's former teachers. So it's great. So you know, they're like, oh, Raven, you know, got canceled our meeting, we have a snow day. I'm like, Oh, I miss those, you know, so we can I do. I do that now. And that's more for me. I'm client facing I'm not creating anything which I don't like to create anything, a slide deck, this is all that I want to do. Quick little slide deck, I don't want to create anything else. And so finding your niche is big and I'm going to say that I will say that till the cows come home, figure out what you like to do. Write it down, write it down, ask other people and then your job will come easy to you. But again, so once you hear this a lot Different companies require different things customer success in my current company was nothing like it wasn't my other company. I also loved it there at my last company, I did a lot of training, customer success and training. Were one of the two. I love training, printing. It's also my thing. I was talking to my manager the other day. And she was they asked you your career goals. Can you believe that? Right? A company ask you like, hey, what do you want to do when you grow up? What are your career goals? We want to make sure we align with that. And she's like, What do you like reading? Like, what do you like about this? What do you like about that? I'm like, I love training. I got this training. I don't get to train anymore because our company has a department. I was like, I when I grow up, I want to I want to be a training I want to do X y&z And she was like, Okay, well, let's align this to see how we can better fit. You know, maybe it's not a position yet, but it will be in the future. These are the conversations that you have, once you transition out. I didn't know that existed yet. It is nice right to be asked my goals when she said that like and when I'm eating, I was like, This is real. Um, so that was beautiful to me. So that's, that's, that's when I knew that I was in the right space, company wise and the right space career wise. And even though that I even though I love my job, it may not still be like my niche, I am good at it. Just like we're all good at teaching, right? Like, everyone says that, like, why are we teaching You're so good. I'm like, just because I'm good at it doesn't mean I love it. I do love my job, and I am good at it. But it's not, it may not be the one and only thing that I want to do forever. And that's okay. All right. Okay, so I say this quite often. I'm not sure if I've ever connected with anybody on here before but if you have connect with me, and we did a zoom chat or something like that, I'll tell everybody that I am not an expert at anything yet. I have been out the classroom for a total eight months, and you are going to connect with so many people you are going to Google you're going to get so much information at all times that it's going to overwhelm you truly overwhelm you. And so a piece of advice that I tell anyone that I connect with is they're like well, you know, she told me this about my resume she said no skill section and you said skill section, or XY and Z. I say this is a bulletin board at one of my schools. It's take what you take what you need, when you're talking to someone when you are connecting when you are getting information take what you need from that and leave the rest everything that someone says to you does not have to be the end all in all, because I said customers omit instructional design was not for me does not mean that for you because customer success is my current position and for me does not mean it's for you just know that there are other paths out there if you are considering I really don't know what I want to do, I just want to do something, consider something else. But take what you need and leave the rest it is it is okay to like to nod and smile and kind of walk away when you're connecting or getting all that information because it's overwhelming as an educator, especially when you're still in the classroom and trying to like okay, applying to jobs or a full time job I'm networking which is another full time job and I'm still doing my full time job. It's overwhelming to us. So I want it to exit out of this really quick and kind of show you guys a day in the life

and I feel I think this is true for most people who work in in trucking non corporate we eat sleep and breathe and live by Google Calendar. Eat sleep, breathe live by Google Calendar. So like if that's not something you do yet or now try it like start mapping out your day. This is next week for me this is how we really plan out our week at my company this is how we plan out a week with our clients they have we send them a calendar link and this is kind of what my day looks looks like. As you can see like I can block off I don't know if you guys can't see that this far away but um I can block off time like when I'm dropping my son off these blue things are my cast because this is for me right like I am personally task based so these are some things that I need to do even have my son step up here right like I need to remember on Tuesday to cancel something for him. Here I have a meeting I always block off lunch because I like to pick an hour lunch if I want to I have another meeting another meeting and this here for most of the day I don't have much to do really like this says focus time I don't have any meetings this is for me to get work personal work done like just focus please no one from the outside or inside block meetings with me. I'm so so like this whole time again, this is my time to block off because I need to work because I have a lot on Friday my like I had two meetings back to back then I'm like, I gotta prep for so this is really how we plan our week and some weeks literally you'll see nothing on my calendar like Monday I just have one meeting and not next week. I have nothing. That doesn't mean I have nothing to do because you always like I said my position is client facing. So you will always have someone in your your inbox. We're teachers we know that we have a problem. We're going to email Somebody immediately, please help me like, especially if you're an admin, right? Your teachers are coming to you. They're like, hey, I need this. They're quickly clicking, they're emailing you and I'm problem solving, I probably fall more than half of my day. But yeah, this is, this is like kind of a day in my life. I, I block out my day. 30 says, I started 830. I start from sometimes start at 930. I prepped my day just going through my emails kind of cleaning up. I have meetings, I block time for lunch, I have another meeting. So really kind of pushing out and planning out your day planning for the calendar. That is how you do that. Okay, question. What is Slack? Slack is think just giant group chat. Slack is infinite like Slack is I think I closed it out for for hear sentiment, you guys hear my slack a lot. I'm like, it's all the time. It is a group chat that goes off all the time. So that's more so internal. That's me responding to my coworkers. I'm remote full time. So it's like, if we have really nothing to do, it's like, Hey, what are you doing? Oh, what are the horrible? I'm like, Hey, can you can you hop on a quick call I need I need help. Sometimes for our company, they'll put company questions, company surveys, or, Hey, this product is down right now. So slack is just like a giant internal company. Group Chat, if that makes sense. Okay, so I also wanted to kind of plug this in for myself, um, I do a lot of connecting, volunteering, and giving back because that is how I got out of the classroom from connecting, volunteering, giving back. So please, please, please feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. I take. I am a terrible LinkedIn or I'm going to be perfectly honest, though I don't I do not post often. But I will answer your messages. However, I am opening a group for black educators who are seeking to transition out and it's called the E T. So if that is that fits you, please connect with me on LinkedIn. And that will be coming out in February and everybody else connect with me so we can kind of chat. And if you're looking for customer success or any other role, maybe not specific to LMD, because I don't even think I'm not sure if customer success is quite LMD. And just kind of talk about other roles that are out in edtech. Or maybe you're like, I just want an entry role Raven, where do I start? And then we can talk about that. But I want it to stop and give some time for q&a. I do. And I'm probably gonna go back a little bit and talk more about my journey from transitioning. But I do want to stop and give a talk for q&a. So if you have any questions for me in the chat, please feel free to go ahead. I want to go back up. I saw someone asking a question too. Yes, Alexa is connected to my she's not connected to my Work calendar because I have, she would go off all day. Like she's connected to my personal calendar. But Alexis like I don't want her connected to my Work calendar because it's very annoying hearing her talk all day. You can also have your phone your phone like it can give you 10 Minute Warnings one minute mornings before meetings, but I connect Alexa to my personal calendar, not work. Someone asked a really a question about something.

Unknown Speaker  
You can type your resume as a teacher.

Raven Wilson  
So that's that's the biggest part with any position. What skills do you need right for instructional design? What skills do you need for project management? What do you need for customer success? Specifically for customer success, you do not need any skills, skills per se, you do need to have a transferable resume. The best way to do that is to look through a customer success job online and read those like really read the language. We need you to onboard 50 clients to our system. When have you helped someone learn a new system and your IT school? What have you done that? That is what you need to find on your resume and change it. So it's truly there's no need to you don't have to upskill for customer success, per se because anything that I do that you have you're doing. I'm learning the new systems that I learned from my dog, you learn that on the job, anything that I do for work, emailing, problem solving, finding new ideas to do something you do that it is truly changing the terms and the best way to learn the terms. Read the job descriptions. Like there are some very like onboarding, implementing When have you done that? And that's what you do. If you're scared for wrestling, like resumes are a beast, right? Like they're the hardest part of the transition? I think so. You can hire a great resume writer, or you can go to one of the free groups and have someone look at your resume say Hey, can you please walk through with this with me? I just I'm kind of confused. The wording is um, I don't understand so fine in your connections in LinkedIn. Find someone yes analyzing, evaluating. Okay, data other than conversations about your career growth, career growth, what have been the greatest differences in culture between K 12 education and your Ed Tech? Employers? Hmm. I would say, um, that's it. That's a really hard one.

Unknown Speaker  
Let me see about career go. But I've been in various differences in work culture between K 12.

Raven Wilson  
Previous, okay, I would say, I'm just the space to know that there it is okay to take off work. So this is a very prime example. COVID, right. The flare backup, it's no time we know it's crazy for school, crazy for educators. my boss's boss, right, the manager of our positions came through the company and emailed and said, Hey, we know this is a hard time right now. Whatever you need, whatever your family needs, take it. If you have COVID, your child has COVID Do not blink to think that you have to stress about work, get in contact with your manager. And we'll handle it from there. Right? The culture is different, you know, they really value and pride in their employees, like they believe in their people. So they are like, hey, if this is happening, let us know. We'll handle it. I'm off today, right? Today's like a day off. And it's not like, we don't have to prep. You know, my managers like put your arm up, put your out of office up there. You can go. Okay, yes, yeah, it's the basic thing is that it's just called respect. You know, it's just called respect. Oh, and talks about compensation or just open. Like, it's just open my manager, we had a talk the other day, at three months salary of you guys. I've been in my company for three months. And then she's like, Hey, we're having our salary review. I'm like, It's only been a day. You know, I've only been here for a second. She's like, No, but this is what we do. This is how much you make. This is where your forecasts to do? Do you have any questions? Like, do you want to know? How can you do that? Like, it is very open about compensation. Someone asked me, Are you? I am fully remote. So I would definitely say, figure out if you like remote work? Do you want to be at home? Do you? Do you prefer a hybrid setting? I like being remote. Personally, for me, when I was first transitioning. That's another reason why I want to do instructional design to begin with, because a lot of their roles were remote. And I'm like, Yes, I can wear yoga pants all day, you know, and just a nice cop. That's what I wanted. So that's what I personally sought out. So if you do not like remote work, then please look for hybrid skill, hybrid companies or companies that are coming. They're going to the office.

Luis Malbas  
Hey, I'm Raven, I do have a question in the QA from from live. Is that okay? If I go over that with you? Yes. Yeah, this is the questionnaire. What aspects of your previous previous experience did you highlight in applying your current position?

Raven Wilson  
Okay, so in my experience, when I highlight it was any presenting training or anything like that, that I did at school? So I need you to take a second and think about yourself, in your classroom in your building? Are you doing any type of presenting with other educators? Are you leading PDS? Are you leading stuff with your team and not just necessarily PDS like if it's your team, and you're having to meet and you're like, Oh, guys, this is this new tool that I am using? Let me show you how it's done. Are you showing anyone how to do that? I always highlighted that. And if you're not, that is something that you should start doing. That is something that you can ask your principal, I have a great idea for a PDE. But if it's virtual, even better, right, we're going to time doing virtual things. So I always highlighted how I on boarded a new system to our, to my school or to my to my team, because I'm like, Hey, team, let's do this. Like, let's all use Nearpod together. That's on my resume. And it's just worth it just really worded. Just like a customer success position with one, you know, I implemented a new SAS product with my colleagues. So anything like that I would highlight or scores. So say if your students were really struggling on something, but you did a new technique to turn that around, and you had a 90% success rate. And you don't have to say like, I have a 90% success rate on your state exam, you have to stay on the Sol, or whatever your state exam exam is, you can say, you know, 90% success rate. Jobs love to see numbers. They love, love, love to see numbers. So if you had a 90% adoption rate at your school, have a new product or if you had everyone to use teacher pay teachers, for example, like they're like, everybody needs this new worksheet, and 80% of the teachers didn't. That goes on your resume 80% adoption rate of a new X, Y and Z. Those are the things that you highlight on your resume. And I have no resume writer guys I just Apply for a lot of jobs, and I have a lot of nose. Okay, I'm trying to go back and go back up in the O, for LinkedIn type classes and upskilling. It depends it really depends on what you're looking for. But there are a lot of customer success and customer management, LinkedIn courses, Customer Success foundations, churn, zero, anything like that just type in customer success, and a lot will pop in. I also really want to go back to when you were applying for jobs, any type of job, you have to know the systems and the software's they're using. And I'm not saying like really be, you know, oh, I use HubSpot or Salesforce all the time, you need to know them. Like by language, if they ask you, you know, like, how are you going to keep yourself organized and they use Salesforce. And at your school, you may use I don't know synergy, or whatever your si s says. And you can, that's how you can enter your interview like that, you know, although I use X, Y, and Z in the classroom, I know that you all use Salesforce as your main CRM, right? These are these acronyms that you have to know. So I will stay organized by utilizing Salesforce. So please know those terms do not get into applying to jobs or have someone write your resume without knowing what it's talking about. So I always like Google, Salesforce, what is Salesforce and I would take a LinkedIn learning on Salesforce, especially if a job or company that I really, really, really wanted to work for said Salesforce, Salesforce, I'm like, what is that, you know, I got around, and I've got around and kind of dictatorial YouTubes on it. So please know the systems and the things that they are talking about, so you can talk to them about them. Because the big thing of teaching is that we feel such an impact like imposter syndrome. Super, I get really, I still feel that way. I said that to my husband other day like it was a hard week because I'm learning something new constantly. And I'm like, I am feeling the biggest form of like an imposter ever today. But I think at the very beginning of my journey, I felt that more so really more. So like I really felt like an imposter. So getting over that imposter syndrome is really researching and understanding the lingo. And if you do not connect with someone had them break it down to you. Yes, yes, adult learning theories. I had notebooks when I was doing instruction designed like notebooks researching, like, Okay, how do you set a good post, like I did research all up and down for Addy. And then I'm like, as I was really going through, I'm like, did I really need to know that that deep? You know, I really need to know how to apply it. But I had research on research on Okay, what does this mean? What does this look like? How can I talk back to it? And it's funny, because now in my current position, when I was taking those LinkedIn learning courses, I look back on some of those notebooks and I'm like, Oh, now it makes sense. Because sometimes in the moment is not going to make sense to you now, like, oh, that's what it means. Because I'm using it on a daily basis. But yes, research right videos and keep those videos on it. Keep those keep those notebooks and look back on them. And it's so humbling and beautiful to see your journey.

Do we have any other questions for me, um, I just I really wanted to get up here and really give you guys another perspective on what it is like, feeling like, instructional design is the only only idea, the only job for you. And there's so much more. And it's okay to even get into like I said, get into a position and say like, maybe this isn't it either get into a company. This isn't an either. And find your niche as you grow. You do not have to have a portfolio. Dina? No, see, I'm it's I'm gonna be very honest. I was really excited when I found this because No, I did not. I just had to have a great interview, and have a great resume. And just be myself. You have to be really personable. Before I get off, I want to give you this when people ask all the time about interviewing and stuff like that. As a teacher, as a teacher, I feel like we put on a show every day. Like right do you feel that way? Especially Virtual Teaching, especially if you're Elementary, I really feel like I'm putting on a show every single day like, Ah, so fast. Confetti, confetti, that's how I feel. That's how I interview. The same way that I'm talking to you all is how I talk in interview. I do not talk like this, because I'm client facing and they want to see people who can relate to clients, they want to see people who are going to just bring livelihood, relationship building is huge. Someone asked that question about another thing for highlighting relationships. It's really big in my field. Really feeling like you can talk to anyone is a big thing. So just just keep that yes, good energy. Yes. Good Energy when you're training is the best and if you're like do I have good energy record yourself? I did it it's very it's very humbling. Record yourself. Watch it back. It'll teach you a lot of things alright, Louise, I'm not sure if I have more time or if I'm up if I have you have any questions, let me know. Connected Have me always.

Luis Malbas  
Yeah, Raven, what a great conversation. Thank you so much for doing those amazing. Yeah, it's really, really interesting to hear about this stuff, especially like somebody who's just always in sort of straight up l&d and being able to hear an outside perspective. Just that option is amazing. And it's just, Heidi, I know you're out there. Thank you so much for introducing us to Raven. The only bad thing is we can't have you on more often Raven. So

Raven Wilson  
Heidi, I know you're out there you know, I'm so grateful to be here and to talk to all teachers. I just I you guys got it. I'm excited to see your journeys and where you guys go, please connect with me because I'd like to see where you guys make it.

Luis Malbas  
All right. All right, everybody. Thanks. We have a little break until let's see, it's gonna be 11 o'clock Pacific time. I guess that is. Is that to Eastern? I can't even tell anymore with the pandemic. What time zone carpet. We'll see you in the next one with Luke Hobson. It's gonna be fantastic as well. All right. Thanks, everybody. Thanks again Raven. Bye

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