As an educational leadership professor, I have coached many students aspiring to transition from classroom teaching to assistant principal and principal positions. Through this work, I have reviewed countless résumés, and one thing continues to surprise me: how many look almost identical to those used to apply for teaching positions, with little more than an administrative certification or graduate degree added.
Earning an administrative license establishes eligibility for school leadership positions, but it does not automatically make someone a competitive candidate. A résumé should reflect the transition from classroom teacher to aspiring school leader by demonstrating the ability to lead others, influence school practices, and make a meaningful impact.
I recently came across a LinkedIn post by executive coach Melissa Schmidiger that made an important point about résumés: every bullet should pass the “so what?” test. Rather than simply describing responsibilities, applicants should demonstrate what they accomplished and what changed because of their work. This advice is particularly relevant to aspiring school leaders.
I frequently encounter statements such as:
- “Responsible for facilitating professional development.”
- “Participated in instructional leadership team meetings.”
- “Served as grade-level chairperson.”
- “Collaborated with administrators on schoolwide initiatives.”
There is nothing inherently wrong with these statements, but they tell me very little about the candidate’s actual leadership contributions. You facilitated professional development. So what? What did teachers learn? Did instructional practices change? How do you know?
These are precisely the types of questions aspiring administrators should expect when interviewing for leadership positions. A résumé that lists responsibilities tells me where you have been. A résumé that demonstrates impact helps me understand what you accomplished while you were there.
Sometimes It’s the Résumé. Sometimes It’s the Experience.
Through coaching aspiring school leaders, I have noticed two groups of candidates. The first has actually done quite a bit of leadership work. They have mentored colleagues, facilitated professional learning, helped develop schoolwide initiatives, led collaborative teams, and addressed meaningful problems of practice. Yet their résumés fail to capture the depth of these experiences. They describe their work in terms of responsibilities rather than contributions and results.
For these candidates, the solution is relatively straightforward. Instead of writing “Responsible for mentoring new teachers,” a candidate might explain how they developed a mentoring structure, supported colleagues with instructional planning, and used classroom observations or feedback to assess improvements. The experience is already there; the résumé simply needs to communicate it more effectively.
The second group presents a more complicated challenge. These individuals have earned their administrative credentials and completed the required internship, but they have limited experience leading beyond their own classrooms. Their résumés may be filled with descriptions of successful teaching, committee memberships, and graduate coursework. What is often missing is evidence that they have taken responsibility for leading adults, improving systems, or addressing challenges beyond their individual classrooms.
This is not necessarily a résumé-writing problem. It is an experience problem, and no amount of creative wording will compensate for leadership experiences that have not yet occurred.
Leadership Experience Doesn’t Begin With a Title
Being an excellent teacher is a tremendous asset when pursuing school leadership. Successful teachers understand instruction, students, families, and the daily realities of classrooms. However, the work of an assistant principal or principal requires additional competencies, including supporting adult learning, navigating difficult conversations, analyzing competing priorities, allocating resources, building trust, and making decisions that affect an entire school community.
A teacher may have tremendous success with students but still need opportunities to develop these broader leadership capacities. Fortunately, aspiring administrators do not need to wait for an official title to begin developing them.
Leadership opportunities can take many forms: facilitating professional learning communities, coordinating interventions, mentoring colleagues, leading curriculum development, examining attendance trends, or helping a school address an instructional challenge. What matters is not simply joining another committee or adding another responsibility. Candidates should be able to explain the problem they addressed, their specific contribution, and the results of their efforts.
Leadership experience is not necessarily about how many activities appear on a résumé. It is about the substance of those experiences and what they reveal about a candidate’s ability to work with and through others.
Your Internship Should Help Tell That Story
Educational leadership preparation programs also have a responsibility to help candidates develop these experiences. An administrative internship should be more than a collection of completed hours or a checklist of activities. While observing administrative work and participating in school operations are valuable, aspiring leaders also need opportunities to exercise judgment, solve problems, work with colleagues, and reflect on the consequences of their decisions.
If your internship involved attending meetings, observing administrators, and assisting with school operations, those may have been worthwhile experiences. But what did you learn about leadership? What opportunities did you have to influence decisions or contribute to improvements?
Consider an intern who identifies a pattern of chronic absenteeism, works with school staff to examine underlying causes, helps develop an intervention, and monitors its implementation. That experience tells a much richer leadership story than simply writing “Assisted with attendance initiatives.”
Even when an initiative does not produce the intended results, candidates should be able to explain the leadership process, the evidence considered, the challenges encountered, and what they learned. Impact is not always a percentage increase or a dramatic turnaround. Sometimes it is a stronger process, improved collaboration, a better-informed decision, or a meaningful change in practice.
Before You Submit That Application
I encourage aspiring administrators to review their résumés through a different lens. Ask yourself:
- Does my résumé describe primarily what I did as a teacher, or does it demonstrate my development as a leader?
- Can I identify specific examples of how I influenced the work of other adults?
- Have I helped address a problem that extended beyond my own classroom?
- What changed because of my contributions, and what evidence supports that conclusion?
- If I cannot answer these questions, what leadership experiences do I need to pursue next?
These questions should not be reserved for the weeks leading up to an interview. They should inform how aspiring administrators approach their graduate coursework, internships, professional responsibilities, and opportunities for growth. Waiting until application season to think about leadership experience may mean discovering too late that there are significant gaps in your preparation.
A License Is a Starting Point, Not the Finish Line
My intention is not to discourage teachers from pursuing school leadership. Schools need thoughtful, capable educators who are willing to take on the challenges of leading others. But preparation for that transition should be intentional, and candidates need to understand that demonstrating effectiveness in the classroom is not the same as demonstrating readiness to lead a school.
For some aspiring administrators, the next step is to revise their résumés so that their leadership accomplishments are more visible. For others, the next step is to seek out the experiences that will eventually make those accomplishments possible.
Your administrative license tells me you have met the requirements to apply. Your résumé should tell me what you have done to prepare yourself to lead.
And if you cannot yet tell that story, perhaps the next step is not another revision of your résumé, but another opportunity to lead.
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