🐝 Transferable Skills When Career Switching
My journey into tech began during the Covid lockdown. I was on Tocilizumab for rheumatoid arthritis, and medical advice was clear — I needed to keep my distance from large groups and children. That’s not exactly possible in a bustling primary school! 🏫
So I made the decision to step away from the classroom and try something new — something tech-related, where I could work remotely or in a small office.
When I started, I thought I’d be starting from scratch. I had no idea how lesson planning, parents’ evenings and organising a trip to the safari park with 90 six-year-olds would actually prepare me to be a Power Platform Consultant.
It turns out… absolutely yes! Because teaching gave me more tech-ready skills than I realised. 🐝
1. Lesson Planning = Project Scoping
In teaching, you plan every lesson with:
- A learning goal
- Small steps to achieve it
- Differentiation
- Assessment
Now I do the same — just with apps, reports, flows and Copilot prompts.
🛠️ “What does this customer actually need and how is it different to what we’ve previously built?”
🔎 “What do we want to achieve by the end of the sprint?”
📋 “How can we break user stories into manageable tasks?”
💬 “What was the feedback from the demo?”
🐞 “What needs fixing from test plan results?”
Same skill, new classroom! 🐝
2. Explaining Complex Things Simply
Have you ever tried teaching long vowel spelling patterns to a six-year-old after lunch on a Friday?
Then yes — you can absolutely:
- Explain Power Fx
- Troubleshoot app errors
- Leading client training
Teachers are natural de-bug-ers — we break problems down and find creative ways to solve them. Sometimes with stickers. Sometimes with logic. Occasionally with both. 😉
3. Fixing Things on the Fly
Lessons go sideways? You adapt.
App crashes mid-demo? Same drill.
Teaching trained me to:
- Think fast
- Stay calm
- Come up with plan B (and C… and D…)
Now, instead of a glue stick emergency, it’s a Flow that won’t trigger.
Still buzzing through it! 🐝⚡
4. Data-Driven Mindset
In teaching I tracked pupil progress, filled in endless spreadsheets, analysed attainment, and cross-referenced seating plans with behaviour logs (all before morning break).
Now, those skills become:
- Reading data patterns
- Building Power BI dashboards
- Making informed decisions backed by evidence
- Updating Sprint plans
Turns out, teachers were BI developers in disguise all along. 📊🐝
🐝 Multitasking? Teachers Invented It.
Teachers juggle:
- Pupils
- Parents
- SLT
- Student teachers
- Ofsted!
Now it’s just customers, internal users, and app support requests. Still a full hive — just with fewer felt-tip catastrophes.
If you’ve ever calmed an upset parent, sharpened 30 pencils, and covered a different class for PE before lunchtime…
congrats — you can ace consulting. 🐝
💛 Final Thought: You’re More Ready Than You Think
If you’re leaving teaching — or thinking of switching careers into Tech -remember this:
You’re not starting over, you’re just switching direction.
Your skills are already buzzing — you just need to hive them in a new way. 🐝
And hey, if you can survive wet play and a last-minute assembly, you can survive a deployment day. Just bee-lieve in yourself!
P.S. I’d love to hear from others on a similar journey. What skills have you transferred from a different career?
Did you enjoy this post? Please add a comment below — your thoughts help the hive grow. 🐝
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