Building a Portfolio for Instructional Coaching Job Interviews

Gearing up for a job interview can be daunting, especially in education. When principals and administrators want to hire instructional coaches, they’re looking for candidates who are flexible about a school’s complex academic needs. These candidates need to be prepared for questions about how they’ll simultaneously support students and classroom teachers.

As an instructional coach myself, I’ve been through my fair share of interviews and have engaged in illuminating conversations with school leaders about the qualities and experiences they believe are most important for the position. With a thoughtfully crafted portfolio, prospective instructional coaches can approach job interviews with clarity, purpose, and a strong sense of what they have to offer.

One bit of feedback I’ve received is that administrators expect—and welcome—applications from teachers who haven’t served as instructional coaches before. After all, everyone has to start somewhere. The key for first-time applicants is to demonstrate their would-be coaching style: How does it look? How would you act? Capturing and then articulating these details takes time and reflection, but it’s the most effective way to provide interviewers with a clear picture of how you would settle into the role.

Portfolio Section 1: Building Relationships

The start of an instructional coaching interview often features this question: “How will you establish strong relationships with staff during your first year?”

Within your portfolio, I’d recommend including examples of how you’ll connect with staff members, ensuring that they have meaningful opportunities to get to know you. You might suggest the following:

• Hosting a session during the school’s first in-service day where teachers can learn about you and your role as an instructional coach.
• Creating a rotating schedule that outlines how you will visit each professional learning community at the start of the school year to introduce yourself to the teachers.
• Including an example of a monthly newsletter that you’ll send out to share your offerings to teachers.
• Including a flyer for an event called “Coffee With the Coach,” where teachers can bond with you on a personal level (and vice versa). Note that during these sessions, you’ll avoid focusing too heavily on teaching practices; instead, you’ll prioritize developing relationships with your colleagues with work-appropriate conversations about their families, hobbies, and interests.
• Making time to engage with staff at school events that are important to the school’s climate and culture.
• Sending out a Google Form where teachers are invited to indicate whether they’re interested in a classroom visit. The Google Form is framed as an opportunity to get to know teachers, their students, and their instructional practices.

Portfolio Section 2: Relevant Experience and Expertise

Many instructional coaching roles are specialized—they include titles such as “literacy coach,” “math coach,” and “educational technology coach.” The second section of your portfolio should highlight your knowledge of these topics. And if the open role is a more generalized “instructional coach” position, then the second section is a valuable chance to relay your own passions and areas of expertise.

This section of your portfolio is also where you can display your strengths as an educational leader. Include copies of the following:

• Presentations that you have delivered about staff development 
• Meeting agendas that you have facilitated
• Curriculum-writing documents that you have created

If you don’t have these leadership experiences, don’t fret; consider including lesson materials that have been particularly successful in your classroom, which point to your knowledge/understanding of best educational practices.

Lastly, it’s important to review the prospective school’s website so you can take note of relevant district initiatives and programs that are already in your wheelhouse. Mark these down in your portfolio. In doing so, you’ll be able to lay out how you can step in and collaborate with a school’s instructional leadership team, as well as how your background aligns with district goals.

Portfolio 3: Instructional Coaching Offerings

The final section of the portfolio should run through all of your potential contributions as an instructional coach and make it clear how you plan to encourage teacher growth. Many applicants present this section as a “menu” of sorts—it functions as a choice board of services that you can provide to staff members. Focus on the coaching cycles that reflect your strengths and what you perceive as the needs of the school.

I also recommend offering a “new-teacher coaching cycle” as an extra layer of support for first-year teachers, so you can assist them with logistics and early-days questions while they acclimate to the job. And you may want to offer other outreach efforts about timely topics in the field of education, such as artificial intelligence and educational technology.

The Big Picture

When you create your portfolio, I recommend using a binder with tabs that separate the three sections. If you’re interested in going the extra mile, consider matching the aesthetics of the binder to the school district’s colors and tailoring the cover of the binder so that it matches the specific role. I suggest including at least four or five artifacts in each section of the binder, so the interviewing team can see your full capabilities as a coach.

Once you complete your portfolio, try practicing responses to instructional coaching interview questions. If a question correlates with an item in your binder, make sure to refer to the artifact in real time, so the interviewing team can get a visual representation of your response. Here are a few go-to questions you should expect:

• How do you structure your coaching cycles?
• What strategies will you use to support teacher growth in your coaching practice?
• How do you use data in your role as an instructional coach?
• How will you build relationships and establish trust so teachers feel comfortable participating in coaching?

On the day of your interview, take a moment to reflect on your career to date. Remember: Instructional coaching is not defined by a title, but by the impact you have on students, staff, and school communities. Every educator brings a distinct perspective to this work, shaped by their own experiences, their values, and their commitment to students. That includes instructional coaches, the best of whom leave a lasting impact on their school community by affecting teaching and learning in entirely new, innovative ways.