Essential to every school is a body of excellent educators; however, recruitment and retention aren’t always easy and, over the past few years, have been established as additional obstacles that schools must overcome.
But in today’s market, what makes for effective recruitment and retention? Katie Newall, head of content and PR at eTeach – the leading specialist provider of education recruitment solutions – shares some essential insights.
Schools have been performing admirably against staffing and budget constraints for several years. With the workforce failing to increase at the required rate, schools need to address – on an individual basis – the innovations they can embrace to compete for staff and to retain them.
eTeach’s annual research – consistently yielding opinions from over 4,000 teachers and school leaders – provides a valuable insight into what schools can do to adopt a proactive and candidate-centric approach to recruiting while building a credible employer ethos that even helps you to retain your existing staff.
57% of teachers cite long application forms as the most arduous part of the recruitment process
Stop making it difficult to apply
Schools still need to bring down some of the barriers to applying. In 2018, more than 50% of eteach.com jobseekers are visiting the site via mobile.
The schools with healthy application rates per advert are those who allow teachers to search and apply instantly via their phone.
Fifty-seven per cent of teachers cite long application forms as the most arduous part of the recruitment process. An application of over five questions leads to 15% fewer applications, over 30 questions lead to 50% fewer applications.
Application forms have been misused as ‘catch-alls’. Under GDPR, you will be hard-pressed to justify asking many of the questions at the application stage. One alternative is to offer a brief online ‘Expression of Interest’ job advert response then data such as NI number after interview.
53.6% of teachers say they are looking for evidence of professional development opportunities
Establish and market your school’s ‘employer brand’
As a minimum, schools should have a dedicated career site and an active social media presence to be found by and engage with the online community of teachers. Sixty per cent of job-seeking teachers said a dedicated school career site would make them more likely to apply for a role.
Teachers tell us they are looking for evidence of professional development opportunities (53.6%) and a ‘fair workload’ policy (45.6%). Your career site lets you showcase exactly how you meet their career wants and needs.
Build talent pools – for permanent staff and supply staff
Just imagine if, every time a vacancy arose, you had access to a pool of candidates already interested in working at your school? This is exactly what a ‘talent pool’ offers. So much more than a powerful database of candidates, it allows you to build and engage with your own talent community in a far more meaningful way.
Arming yourself with an annual licence for unlimited advertising on a national low-cost-high-value job site like eteach.com is already the most cost-effective way of controlling your recruitment spend. But by securing your right to unlimited advertising, you are free to advertise a series of vacancies in your Talent Pool year-round, inviting school professionals of all types and levels to join your ‘workforce waiting list’ and engage until the right vacancy arises.
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