No two auxiliars experience the same working conditions, and auxiliars who have done multiple years know that experiences can even change from one year to the next. This post will help you learn how to tailor your individual experiences to the types of jobs you’re seeking.
If this will be your first year as an auxiliar , keep reading. This can help you make a plan for how to use your year abroad. Also, feel free to check out my article on how to plan your first class.
Even if your next job is another year as an auxiliar, read on. These strategies can shape your next auxiliar experience to help you gain the skills you need.
My Auxiliar Experience
First, let’s take a look at some of my job descriptions.
You can tell by these two basic descriptions which school followed the rules and which one didn’t. There’s a big difference between “Delivered” and “Planned and Delivered”.
It’s clear to most auxiliars that the CEIP took advantage of my role, and unfortunately I let them. I was non-confrontational. They did not use text books, and I had to plan lessons in subjects that weren’t my forte. The teachers gave me very little input other than “I liked it” or “I didn’t like it”. Honestly, I didn’t learn very much from this school other than how to plan under stressful conditions. “Collaboration” may have happened occasionally, but not often enough to feel like I was benefiting from their knowledge.
The IES, on the other hand, did everything according to the book. If a teacher was absent, I was excused, whereas in the CEIP I was usually sent a substitute who didn’t speak English and didn’t attempt to help with classroom management. At the IES, I was not responsible for planning lessons or classroom management, and I was able to observe a variety of classroom styles. I learned a lot from them, as they were professionals who saw the advantage of having a native assistant without taking advantage of them.
Let’s look at my description from the second year.
That year, I did more in the classroom, but by choice. Synthesizing what I had learned at the last two schools, I was confident in my ability to plan lessons and deliver them. I didn’t have to do this, but, by this point, I was considering going into teaching after auxiiliares, and wanted to see what I could do. If you also want to go into teaching, or even just to show leadership, it’s a good idea to take a more active role once you feel comfortable in order to gain more marketable skills.
Life After your Auxiliar Experience
After 2 years as an auxilar, I was able to use that auxiliar experience to get a full-time teaching job at an English academy where I now live in Caceres, Extremadura. This option is possible EU citizens, people with Pareja de Hecho, and people who have been here long enough to convert their visas from student to worker (cuenta ajena). For more information on any of these processes, feel free to join the Spain Guru Facebook group and search for threads about each process.
If you cannot easily get work permission, or are not interested in doing so, you can still use this experience outside of Spain. Licensed teachers will have earned invaluable classroom experience in an international setting. You could use this to apply to international schools or for teaching positions in your home country.
If you are not a licensed teacher, you could still look for jobs in an academic setting. I like to use Higher Ed Jobs to find jobs at US colleges and universities.
Unless you’ve got a teachable master’s degree (IE, Spanish, English, History, etc), I recommend filtering for administrative roles. From there, you can filter depending on areas of study and interest. Most of these jobs will only require a bachelor’s degree.
I like to look under “International Programs and Services”, because they will likely value your time living and working abroad. Here is an example job. As jobs tend to disappear once they are filled, here’s a screenshot of some relevant information from the job listing.
For each job, take a look at the duties, qualifications, and requirements. Look for key words and include them in your job description and in your cover letter. For example:
- Visa Experience
- Assists with Workshops and Seminars
- Living Abroad Experience
- Ability to Work Independently with Little Supervision or Instructions
- Ability to Interact with Personnel with Diverse Cultural Backgrounds
- Excellent Written and Verbal Skills
This job is ideal for someone with a couple of years’ auxiliar experience. If you don’t have all of these skills and experiences, it’s not too difficult to plan your next year as an auxiliar building these skills. The job may not still be available, but if you check out job descriptions frequently, you can get a good idea of what you need to do to get them. Let’s look at each skill one by one.
Visa Experience – As someone who has lived abroad, you already have some experience in this area. If you would like to include it as a skill, volunteer to help new auxiliars with the process. Then you can say “Guided and advised fellow international students through the immigration process”.
Assists with Workshops and Seminars – If it is at least your second year in the program, contact your regional coordinators and ask about volunteering for the Auxilar Orientation. At the orientation, you can not only offer to assist the local auxiliars with the immigration process, but you can also tell them a bit about your prior teaching and cultural experiences in order to help them adjust.
Living Abroad Experience – We all have this after just one year abroad. How you represent it depends on what you’ve done. If you didn’t take as much initiative on the teaching front, no worries. You can make up for that here. Find examples within your own experiences that demonstrate problem solving, collaboration, time management, and even budgeting.
Ability to Work Independently with Little Supervision or Instructions – Did your teachers throw you into the deep end and force you to sink or swim? If you swam, congratulations! You have this skill. As much as I resented my first auxiliar post for taking advantage of me, I really did learn how to work independently out of necessity, and my second year I CHOSE to take on a more independent role. Make sure you don’t talk about your experience negatively, even if you were miserable while gaining the experience, or you could come across as difficult to work with.
Ability to Interact with Personnel with Diverse Cultural Backgrounds – you may recall that my second year experience touches on this idea, although I put it in the context of a diverse student population. Use this experience to talk about problem solving and collaboration.
Excellent Written and Verbal Skills – in my opinion, it isn’t really necessary to write this in your cover letter. They will see your written skills in your application, and get an idea of your verbal skills if they ask you for an interview. What I would do is mention that your time abroad has helped you increase your written and verbal skills in SPANISH. It may not be a requirement for the specific job, but will definitely be seen as an asset.
Every time you apply for a job, you should make adjustments to your CV and your cover letter. Do not just copy and paste with a few name changes. For your cover letter, you should look through the job description and requirements and show how your skills match each one. If they need someone with creative problem-solving abilities, think of an example from your experiences. Even if you don’t include each one in the cover letter, you will have something to talk about in the interview that will make you sound like the perfect fit for the job.
You should also try to include some of the key words from the job post on your CV or Resume. If they are talking about being a collaborative, diverse work environment, try to get some form of “Collaborative” and “Diverse” into your job descriptions where relevant.
Lastly, take your time. Proofread. Err on the side of formal, but not robotic. For the last month and a half, I’ve been reading CVs for English teachers for the next academic year at my academy, and I’ve seen a lot of good and bad examples. Bad grammar is a turnoff. Too much repetition makes it difficult to read attentively. You want to stand out, but not in a negative way.
What kind of job are you looking for after your auxiliar experience? Let us know in the comments bellow!