This is a fact of life: You can send out every resume, contact every school district in your state, and write all the cover letters you want, but you can’t get a teaching position unless you interview. Without the interview there can be no teaching. Do well in the interview and the job is yours! Fail at the interview, and no matter how impressive your credentials, no matter how high your GPA, no matter how stellar your letters of recommendation, the simple truth is: you’ll never get the job!

Each interview with a teacher is based on eight basic themes, each aimed at discovering and showcasing your skills, abilities and attitudes. Each one is designed to separate the mediocre from the good and the good from the great. Everything he does, everything he says, and everything that happens in an interview with a teacher is linked to these themes, separately and together. Your success in any interview will largely be based on how well you meet each (and all) of the following:

1. Passion for teaching

When I interviewed elementary and secondary school principals and asked them to identify the most important characteristic in a quality teacher candidate, guess what they told me? You guessed it: “Passion for Teaching!”

What activities, projects, or assignments have you done that demonstrate your passion for teaching? What have you done that shows you are willing to go the extra mile for students? What have you done that demonstrates your sincere commitment to teaching? Where have you gone further? Did you do anything in teaching the students beyond the ordinary? Did you do anything during your pre-service years that went beyond your university’s requirements for teacher certification? What really excites you about teaching?

2. Skills and Experience

One of the first things you should do in any interview is to establish your ability to do the job. Bottom line: can you teach and can you teach effectively? In most interviews, these will be the initial questions you will be asked. Many of these questions will be factual in nature and will provide you with an opportunity to highlight your skills and talents and how they will be used in a classroom setting. This is when you should offer specific information rather than generalities. It is also the time to be completely objective about yourself, with confidence and security.

What will it bring to the teaching profession? Why should we hire you? Why do you want to be a teacher? What did you learn in teaching the students? Don’t make the mistake of assuming these are easy questions, they are not! They are often asked near the beginning of the interview because they help “set up” the rest of the interview. Positive responses to these questions help ensure the success of the entire interview.

3. Sympathy

Here is a basic truth that you may find hard to believe. The most important factor every interviewer looks for in a candidate is NOT the breadth and depth of her skills, education, or talents. It’s sympathy! In a recent review of more than 100,000 face-to-face interviews, there wasn’t a single candidate hired who was initially disliked by the people they were interviewing and hiring. You might think that one’s personality would be of less value than his progress in teaching, but that is not the case. Simply put, people are hired because they like them.

4. Student orientation

Candidates without a strong student orientation are candidates who do not advance further in the hiring process. Without that orientation, without that commitment to student life, and without that desire to work hand in hand with young people, no one is ever hired as a classroom teacher.

How to motivate an unmotivated student? How do you evaluate students? Tell us about your most difficult student: how did she handle it? How do you approach cultural diversity in your classroom? What do you enjoy most about working with children? What are some challenges you have had working with children? Besides teaching students, what other work have you done with the youth? Come to an interview with a strong and honest student orientation and you just might walk away with a job offer.

5. Professionalism

The field of education is changing rapidly: new technology, new standards and new curricula, lots of new things. Your willingness and enthusiasm to continue your education is a key factor in your “hireability.” Candidates who assume that just because they have a degree their education is over are the ones who never succeed in an interview. Any manager wants to know that you are a constant learner, willing to continue learning through graduate courses, in-service programs, online seminars and webinars, membership in professional organizations, books, magazines and journals, and a host of other other career opportunities that indicate your enthusiasm to further advance your education.

6. Management and Discipline

You’ve probably seen classrooms where students were orderly, work was productive, and a sense of purpose and direction filled the room. It is also possible that he has seen classrooms that were chaotic, disruptive, and seemingly out of control. Perhaps you were even a student in one or both of those classrooms at some point in your educational career. Principals are extremely interested in how you plan to run your classroom. Your management skills and discipline policy will be vitally important in the decision to hire you. Know that you will be asked more than one question in this area. Read, research and review everything you can – your success here will often be a major turning point.

7. Lesson planning

What are the essential components of an effective lesson? Think about a recent lesson you taught and share the steps you incorporated to deliver the lesson. Share your short-term and long-term planning process for effective instruction. Think of a lesson that was not effective or did not meet your expectations. What adaptations did you make to address the lesson? How do you infuse technology to enhance your education? It is critical that you provide the interviewer with information about lesson planning, lesson delivery, and lesson evaluation. Anecdotes and examples should be critical elements of your answers.

8. Flexibility

Can you “turn with punches?” Can you “go with the flow?” Can you “change direction in midstream?” Can you “bend with the wind”? All of these questions have to do with perhaps the most significant attribute of any good teacher: flexibility. Interviewers want to know that he can handle a wide variety of classroom situations, a wide range of teaching challenges, and a wide range of changes, modifications, or alterations, all in one moment. Your willingness to show up. as someone who can adapt without getting flustered or change without getting angry is a key attribute, an attribute that can often “make” the interview.

The above themes appear in all interviews with teachers. Practice them, prepare for them, and review them periodically. Your preparation will help you beat the competition and land the teaching position you want!