What You're Doing:
You see a post that lists 150 roles the average teacher "holds" every day.
You start thinking, "I'll just apply to everything that sounds at all interesting and uses some of the skills I used in the classroom. Someone will call eventually."
So you start throwing your resume into every arena, tailoring it over and over again for different roles. Then the cover letter has to match. Before you know it a year has passed, you've applied to 300 jobs, in five different sectors, and all you have to show for all your efforts is a folder full of resumes and cover letters organized by role, and not a single interview to boot.
And that is the spaghetti approach.
So this is how a hiring manager or recruiter sees your resume, "This person can do a lot of things, but probably isn't good at any of them." Or worse, "What does teaching have to do with UX research?" Buried in that "spaghetti" resume are a few vague references to piloting a new software for your district, but it's the last bullet in a list of 10 and the first bullet is "facilitated daily discussions about 18th century literature."
What You Should Be Doing:
Know what you want. What are you chasing? A higher salary, home/work balance, remote work, or finally doing what you always wanted? Or a combination of things.
Research what roles require your skills and actually sound interesting.
Of those, determine which are best suited to your list of criteria established above in Step 1.
Network, but not looking for a job. Reach out to people on LinkedIn who already have the job you want and ask them what a typical day is like. Ask them was a terrible day is like. Talk to them about what they do.
Choose a role/path/career.
Tailor your resume to that role/path/career. Everything on your resume should touch on something you've done in your years of experience that directly apply to the job you want. (Stay tuned for a post about how to tailor a resume).
Now make your LinkedIn profile and your cover letter match.
NOW you can start applying.
This is what I call the Sniper Approach . It takes a lot more work up front, and it may take you months to narrow down to a specific role. But the payout is so much better.
By the time I started applying for jobs, using this method, I knew so much about the role that I knew which companies were underpaying, which ones were paying really well, and which ones I wasn't qualified for.
Good luck. You got this.