Former teachers and school administrators are often drawn to this position. Depending on the size of the company, there could be many opportunities to get an excellent sense of how large school districts are run and expand your public speaking skills and understanding of instructional theory. Because most positions are home-office based, there is some flexibility in your work hours when sales are slow (typically during the summer months).

Frequent travel is both a high- and low-light. Working in different school districts can be very rewarding but the travel time can get tiring. You often find yourself in a different school district every single day. Also, sales representatives and school administrators can be very demanding of your time.

There is no typical day in the life of an educational consultant. Because the accounts vary widely, on any given day you could be delivering a sales presentation, leading a teacher workshop, modeling a classroom lesson, observing teachers, attending district meetings and the list goes on. The plus side to all of this is that the job is never boring. There is always something new to learn and experience. The hours can be long, especially when air travel is involved.

Most companies in the K-12 space look for former teachers or administrators to fill their educational consultant positions. If you're currently working in a school, you will no doubt have met people in these positions working in your school. Let them know that you're interested in working as a consultant. Choose a company that develops a product that you found particularly effective in your classroom and ask if you could work as a per diem consultant for them. Applying online will not get you far because there are many educational consultants out there and it's a very close network. Once you're in, you'll find that it will be common for consultants to jump from one company to the next.

You need to be politically savvy and a real people person to thrive in this job. You need to like working with teachers and administrators, be customer-service oriented (be prepared for lots of complaints) and like public speaking. Present yourself as an instructional expert when you're in school and a competitive sales professional when you're in company meetings.