As education recruitment specialists, we’ll let you into a little secret: the very best recruitment strategies are the ones that are active all year long. Even if your school doesn’t currently have any roles to fill, having a year-round, proactive recruitment strategy in place will mean that when a vacancy does arise, you can fill it fast – and with quality candidates.
How Talent Pools can help
Just imagine if, every time your school had a vacancy, you had a large database of quality, interested candidates waiting for the phone call? This is exactly what a Talent Pool is – it enables you to stay one step ahead of your school’s talent needs, now and in the future.
How it saves you time and money
Regardless of whether the candidates in your Talent Pool are actively looking for a role or not, because they’re in your Pool, that means they’ve all expressed interest in your school. So, you don’t have to pour time and effort into the ‘attract’ stage of the recruitment process – and you can expect things to progress at a far quicker pace.
Where to start
If you have a licence for unlimited advertising, you should have a constant set of adverts running all year for the types of teacher you often need in September. Secondary schools feeling a shortage of science and maths teachers can advertise for them year round. Even the smallest primary school can start to gather a waiting list of keen local staff ready for a call should you unexpectedly have to cover a maternity leave or request for part time work next year.
By proactively advertising, you are asking them to actively join your Pool so there is no question that they have consentually joined, as long as you only detail the terms of that Pool membership in your Privacy policy. Is your recruitment process GDPR-compliant? Download the guide here.
Also, using Eteach's Talent Pool software, you’re able to filter, manage and make notes on candidates at any time. Meaning, when a vacancy does arise, you would have already carried out the time-consuming task of screening candidates.
With Talent Pool software, your talent pipeline and recruitment process are more streamlined and effective, which has the added benefit of freeing up HR’s time to focus on other areas of the business. And of course, less time spent hiring means less money spent on hiring – which, in the current climate where school budgets are already squeezed, is a huge advantage.
A candidate community
Of course, just because a quality candidate has shown interest in your school by joining your Talent Pool, doesn’t always mean they’ll feel inspired to hit the ‘Apply’ button when a suitable opportunity arises. This is why it’s important to foster a sense of community among candidates, and shout about what makes your school so unique through an eye-catching, informative career site.
Thankfully, careers sites are another one of Eteach’s specialties. We boast a powerful, real-time editing software that integrates your school’s career sites with your social media pages. It’s also fully optimised, so incredibly user-friendly.
A strong social presence and top-level careers site, used to promote your school’s USPs and share updates to candidates, can really help to portray your school as an employer of choice. Plus, with candidates signed up to your Talent Pool able to receive school updates, you’ll help to ensure your school remains front of mind.
There are many factors involved in creating a winning school recruitment strategy. Building and nurturing a Talent Pool will however help you to speed up time to hire, reduce costs associated with recruiting staff, and keep top talent engaged.
If you’d like to find out about our Talent Pool software or any of our recruitment tools, we’d love to chat. Contact us today.