Put your best foot forward when looking for work in Early Childhood Education using a strong CV (resume), and a confident cover letter so you get the interview. Establish and achieve professional goals to set a roadmap for your career.
Keep your CV current
Becoming an Early Childhood Education professional provides a truly valuable service to our communities. Whether you stick to home-based services, or you work in a service centre, you will want to have a CV that represents your professional qualifications, experiences, and aspirations.
Careers.govt.nz provides a free CV builder. It's a great resource to help you design a CV that you can feel confident about.
If you have a CV already:
- Does it indicate that you are enrolled in this course?
- Does it show your current tasks, activities, and responsibilities?
- Is it tailored for a New Zealand environment?
- The government has information to help ensure it fits with professional Kiwi culture.
Activity - Write or review your CV
Having a current CV at your fingertips is a great idea for all professionals. Enlisting a critical eye to evaluate how you appear to others will enable you to make modifications that strengthen your chances of getting interviews.
If you already have one, then let's make sure it still fits. You may not be the same size professionally you were when you wrote it.
- Copy or create your CV
- Use a 'resume' template at Google Docs, any CV template, or a tool like the one at Careers.govt.nz
- For ease of sharing and editing, you can export it as a DOCX from the CV Builder and then upload it to Google Docs for sharing. (New > File Upload)
- When you have something you like, share it with a friend or family member. Ask them for critical feedback. They should think about:
- Do they know what job you would apply for using this CV?
- Do they know what skills you have to perform the job?
- Do they know what experience you have in the field?
- Do they know what classes, courses, and credentials you have in your industry? Beyond your industry?
- Do they know about any awards or endorsements you have received?
- Do they know what volunteer or community work you have done?
- Is there anything they can learn about you personally, such as hobbies, clubs, and interests?
- Is your personal statement effective? Did they want to find out more about you?
Cover letter
Once you have your CV in shape, you'll want to ensure the cover letter you send with it invites the reader to call you for an interview. Learn more about how to put in the wow factor and get noticed with cover letter tips from the NZ Government.
Your online persona and finding work
It's important to remember that hiring practices can include a search of your social media accounts.
Many people choose to keep up a professional social media account, like Linked In. If you are interested in the legislation, oversight, advocacy opportunities, and current media around our industry, it's an excellent resource.
When looking for work, you'll want to become familiar with:
In this section, we'll look at the attitudes, goals, and activities you can do to achieve your career objectives in Early Childhood Education.
The term 'professional'
Have you ever been told to 'act professional'? What does that mean to you? It has to do with an attitude, which is shown through a number of behaviours and choices:
- Language
- Body language
- Hair and makeup
- Clothes and shoes
- Not using a device/phone while working (!)
Personal development plan
Ka pai for taking this programme, because it means that you have already set a goal for yourself, made a plan to achieve it, and are well on your way towards doing so.
Having professional goals with plans for your career is something that requires time, attention, and flexibility. Your life changes, so your plans probably will too over time. It's always a good idea to check in with yourself. Ask yourself what you want and need in a career and what you can do next to make that happen.
Create a diary
Start a new document, digitally or by hand, so you can capture notes, scribbles, visions, plans, and thoughts.
We will work through the following steps to create a two-year personal development plan. You'll be asked to look within and consider the reasons for your choices and goals.
- Clear out your vision
- Outline your strengths and area for improvement
- Build your personal development plan
- Review and adapt
1. Clear out your vision
Set aside the road you are on now, or the road someone else thinks you should travel and simply imagine how you would like your life to be in two years’ time. Go through your imaginary day and take notes in your diary.
— You may have moved onto Level 5 ECE with NZMA
— You may be moving into full-time employment
— You may have decided this isn't the right direction and have shifted to a different industry
Ask yourself:
- What’s the first thought that passes your mind in the morning?
- What’s the reason you get out of bed?
- How’s your day structured?
- What’s your workplace? What do you do there?
- How much time do you spend with friends and family?
Thinking about your interests:
- What makes you feel accomplished at the end of the day?
- What gives you energy moving forward and what drains your energy?
- What are the areas that will make you feel purposeful?
- What can you do to feel successful?
These answers will help determine your values. Map them out in your journal in this first section.
You could create a mind map like this:
2. Outline your strengths and areas for improvement
Now that you have an idea of what you want life to look like in two years let’s see how you can achieve that vision.
- Think about what you already have going for you — what are the strengths and skills you have naturally or have learned that are needed for your vision? For example, if your vision involves a new job then perhaps you have already created a CV. If you want to move to ECE Level 5, then maybe you have already made the plan or enrolled.
- You may find it hard to celebrate your strengths because you may not even see the great things you do on a daily basis, as strengths. You may bring skills in caregiving, leadership, and creativity. Celebrate your skills!
- Some examples to get you thinking:
- In your church, or Marae — are there things you do for others, you don't even think about? Are you caring for our elders, and tamariki?
- Are you contributing to a team? Kapa Haka? Touch? Rugby? Dance?
- How do you make your work placement a better place for everyone?
- Do you share your musical talents with those around you?
- Are you a caregiver? Do you look after a parent, someone else's child, or a sibling?
- Make a list of skills you need to develop and/or short goals you can start achieving as you move closer to the vision.
- Think about the people you can contact and who can help you along the way. At this point you don’t have to be too specific – think of it as a kind of brainstorming.
After you’ve created a long list, look at the different points and group them together to form clusters.
You may like to use the SWOT chart technique to help organise your thinking.
| Strengths | Weaknesses |
|---|---|
|
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| Opportunities | Threats |
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3. Build your personal development plan
After you have a clear direction, let’s go into detail. The key here is to get down to specific actions for the future.
You start by setting up specific projects. What do you need to get them done?
- What resources will you need? Books to read, courses to take, tools to subscribe to…
- What people will help you do it? Friends, mentors and so on.
- What will success look like? Set specific criteria for measuring that.
- What is the timeframe? Either put in a general deadline or milestones for different parts of the project.
You’ll end up with a clear idea of what needs to get done and how to do it.
Set your goals
Write a minimum of six professional development goals that you want to achieve/or work towards achieving within the next two years.
These could be big goals, that you might be working towards, for example becoming fluent in Te Reo, or smaller goals that you can achieve in a short time frame.
Post your goals into the appropriate forum discussion. Review and provide supportive feedback to others.
4. Review and adapt
The importance of a personal development plan is in getting the clarity that comes with answering questions about your future. But it is not set in stone. After all, life changes fast and we need to change with it. That’s why it is important to review and adapt.
Write a date in your diary and calendar that you will next review and adapt your personal and professional goals. It's a good idea also update your CV.
If a goal no longer makes sense, don’t hesitate to remove it from your personal development plan. The point of this is to adapt the plan according to new interests or a change in circumstances. A good personal development strategy grows with you.
