Tracy Brisson - Confessions of a Teacher Recruiter

There are many people to thank for their support in helping me finish and publish Confessions of a Teacher Recruiter. Here are just a few.

Thanks to specific people who helped me on the creation of this book: Sara Lancaster of No. 2 Pen (http://www.no2pen.com/) who served as copyeditor and has helped on projects since The Opportunities Project launched three years ago; Jamie Kutner (http://jamiekutner.tumblr.com) who designed the PDF; and Edward Antrobus of SEAM Publishing (SeamPublishing.com) who publishes my books for the Kindle and NOOK and has been a great person to work with on many projects.

An extra special thanks to The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. They pre-bought copies of this book and continue to grant me the privilege of working with their dedicated teaching fellows, so that they can make a difference in some of our country's neediest schools.

Much gratitude to The Opportunities Project core team, Tanisha Christie and Sera Bishop, for their help in supporting the company while I disappeared for long stretches to write.

Thanks to Justin Mathews, The Opportunities Project's first official team member in late 2010. Without Justin, The Opportunities Project would not exist today.

Thanks to everyone who has worked with The Opportunities Project on our recruitment consulting work, including the Teach Newark team of Rachel Eckhardt, Denise Ivanoff, Coy Jones, Chanelle Schneider, Shannon Firth, Steven Francisco, and Lisa Welsien. Your dedication to do great work continues to inspire me and influenced pieces of this book tremendously.

Thanks to all the coaching clients who have worked with The Opportunities Project over its first three years. I am glad to have helped you on your journey and am always here for you as you rock your professional possibilities.

Thanks to the fellow entrepreneurs in my life who have helped support me: Dana Leavy and Nicole McGarrell for your bi-weekly accountability calls, and the FastTrac group, especially Jaison Greene and Danielle Lanyard. Being able to share our stresses and triumphs has been critical to keeping it moving! Also, thanks to my coaches, Thekla Richter and Les McKeown, for helping me envision and execute on my projects.

Thanks to everyone from my New York City Department of Education days who all continue to believe in me, never forget me, and kept it to themselves if they thought I was crazy to leave my job (and maybe still do). Thanks to my mom and dad, my friends in New York City and elsewhere, as well as my new friends in Savannah who are some of the fiercest women I have ever met.

Thanks to my biggest fan, Eve Hyman, whose enthusiastic belief in my abilities has sometimes been the only reason I haven't given up. Thanks to Angus Mungal for emergency Skype calls and regular Facebook check-ins.

Thanks to all the students from P.S. 528 who have kept up with me on Facebook. You inspire me every day and your presence in my life keeps me striving to be a better person.

And finally, thanks to Laura Ross for her help in changing my life and making hugs from James and Lily available to me when I need them, and to Josh Nichols for supporting me in everything I want to do. I am so lucky to have met you and your love and support means more than I can ever say.

The Opportunities Project is a talent development, coaching, and recruitment consulting agency that helps individuals rock their professional lives and supports organizations that seek to perform at their best. We empower our coaching clients by helping them make decisions, explore possibilities, and create concrete plans so they can command the professional success they desire as quickly as possible. Since opening our doors in 2010, The Opportunities Project has helped over 1,000 individuals reach career success through speaking engagements, workshops, and one-on-one and group coaching. Through our recruitment consulting, we have also helped organizations hire almost 500 new team members in the education industry.

The Opportunities Project is led by Tracy Brisson, Founder and CEO. Before launching her own company, Tracy worked in recruitment for over a decade, including as Director of Teacher Recruitment for the New York City Department of Education, one of the largest employers in the United States, where she supervised the hiring of over 5,000 teachers annually. During her tenure, Tracy's team won second place in the annual Best Employer Brand contest sponsored by ERE, an international recruitment association.

In 2011, Tracy published her first book, Create Your Own Opportunities, available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Tracy's career advice also regularly appears in print and national media outlets, including the New York Post and Time Out New York, and on Mashable and CBS MoneyWatch. She has also been a featured speaker at many universities and selective conferences, including the Brazen Recruiting Social Recruiting Conference, the CollegeRecruiter.com FedCollege Conference, #140edu, and TEDxCreativeCoast.

Tracy is an alumna of Syracuse University, New York University, and Teach For America. She splits her time between Brooklyn, New York and Savannah, Georgia.

If you found the advice inConfessions of a Teacher Recruitervaluable, we would love your help in telling others about it via social media or by giving us a review on Amazon or Barnes & Noble! You can find more information on the book and sign up for updates at http://confessionsofateacherrecruiter.com.

If you would like to hire Tracy Brisson to speak or conduct a workshop, are considering personalized coaching for yourself or organization, or would like more information on our recruitment consulting services, we invite you to schedule a free consultation call at http://opportunitiesproject.com/contact.

You can also interact with our team on Facebook at http://facebook.com/oppsproject or on Twitter at http://twitter.com/oppsproject to learn more about our work.

If you have feedback on this ebook or have questions about Tracy Brisson or The Opportunities Project, please email us at .

Copyright Tracy Brisson 2013

Published by SEAM Publishing at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If youre reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Tracy's Tip!

Throughout this book I'll offer you tips and suggestions to get the most out of the content. Here is my first one on how to best engage with the material.

You may be short on time and be tempted to jump straight to Chapter Three and its shiny title of "Creating Your Extraordinary Resume Section by Section." I suggest you do not skip ahead and instead read the book in the order it's presented. The information in the first two chapters will provide you with a competitive advantage most applicants don't have.