Most educators looking for work in early childhood head straight to SEEK, Indeed or Jora, refresh the page every morning, and wait. Fair enough. That is what we are all taught to do. As a journalist, I always try to find sneaky ways or hidden vacancies.
This will surpise you 🙂 A lot of the best positions are filled before anyone writes an advertisement.
Centres often fill vacancies from their own pool, from so-called sister cenres, director’s network; and … through a recommendation, a placement student who impressed everyone, a casual relief educator who already knows the room, or someone who simply introduced themselves a few months earlier. This is what I mean by the hidden job market. It relied on relationships and timing, and you can absolutely get into it.
Your goal is to become the first person a director thinks of when a position opens up.
1. Make a list of services you would love to work at. I usually start with the local exceeding or even excellently rated services.
Start before there is a vacancy. Research the services that actually match your values, then get to know them properly. Read their philosophy, look at their programs, notice how they talk about children. Drive or walk past and observe some practices.
✓ Long day care ✓ Kindergartens and sessional services ✓ Montessori or Reggio-inspired centres ✓ Bush kinders and nature programs ✓ Community-based services ✓ Not-for-profit organisations
2. Introduce yourself
Most directors respect an educator who is initiative and engaged in the job search. Send a short, warm email with your resume attached, your availability, your qualifications or expected completion date, and a couple of honest lines about why their service interests you.
3. Use your placement network
Professional experience is one of the strongest pathways into your first job, and the connections outlast the placement itself. Stay in touch with your supervising teacher, the educational leader, the director, the educators you worked beside, and your university peers. Do not burn the bridges!
From my experience, placement is one of the best ways to get hired.
4. Join relief agencies
Casual work builds your experience and your confidence at the same time. It also puts you in front of directors across many services, which means people know your name and your practice before a permanent role ever opens.
https://www.vic.gov.au/register-recruiter-find-early-childhood-jobs
5. Attend professional events
Early Childhood Australia events, local network meetings, council professional learning, conferences, workshops, university networking evenings. These rooms are full of educational leaders, and vacancies get mentioned out loud long before they get advertised.
6. Build your professional job portfolio
Your reputation starts well before your first permanent position. Keep your resume current, your LinkedIn profile updated, your Working With Children Check ready, and your references organised so you can move quickly when something comes up.
I always bring my folio or ipad with photo evidence to the important interviews.
Here is my video on how to create your portfolio
7. Tell people you are looking
So many opportunities arrive through ordinary conversations. Mention it to friends, family, lecturers, placement mentors, previous employers and classmates. Someone usually knows a service that needs an educator. That’s how I found my first job actually.
8. Be specific about what you want
“I’m happy to do anything” is too vague. Let’s use the manifestation approach here and calibrate our brain to help up to find the best opportunity for us.
Try something closer to this. “I’m looking for a graduate Early Childhood Teacher position where I can keep developing my practice in play-based learning and build strong relationships with children and families.”
That sentence gives someone a real picture, and real pictures stick.
Your brain also loves it!
9. Follow up
Contacted a service and heard nothing back? Send a polite follow-up a week or two later. It reads as professional and interested, and it puts your name in front of them a second time.
One last thing
Your next job might never appear on a job board at all. It might begin with a placement, a casual shift, a recommendation, a conversation at a workshop, or one short email to a centre you have admired for months.
Make yourself visible while the vacancy is still hypothetical. That is where the hidden market lives.
Cheers, Storykate
