The free government teacher job site ... Eteach CEO and founder Paul Howells responds
The government’s national teaching job site continues to disappoint schools and teachers alike.
As a life-long specialist in the field of teacher recruitment, I would want to make it clear that new National teaching job website has tried to answer a question that nobody has really asked and created something that nobody needs.
The technology already exists for teachers to find vacancies for FREE i.e. SEO, free job boards, specialist job boards, Google jobs, social media, schools’ websites, to name just a few. These are all easy and efficient ways to find teaching jobs in today’s digital world that pretty much every teacher under 45 is using. And the younger the workforce becomes, the more prevalent this will become.
I believe the Department for Education’s efforts may be better spent focusing on these three issues:
- The growing number of expensively trained teachers that we are losing from our profession.
- Expensive recruitment agencies
- The lack of effective HR & recruitment training given to schools
We know how schools can save £000’s on their recruitment immediately
We know that there are many recruitment companies who take advantage of schools. They do this with disparate pricing strategies based on how much a school is prepared to pay, rather than having a fixed rate and transparent rate card. This pricing policy is endemic in the education recruitment industry and following investigations and research by Eteach, we have identified many cases where schools within the same postcode, less than a mile apart, will pay wildly different prices for their recruitment – in some cases, the difference in cost being equivalent to the salary of a qualified teacher!
We know many schools don’t realise, or don’t care that this is happening, and many don’t have the time or resource to tackle the issue themselves. There is also definitely a lack of knowledge and training available for schools in this arena. As someone who has worked as a teacher and a teacher recruiter for more than 25 years, this concerns me hugely in a time when schools are struggling to balance the books and are losing teachers. It appears then, that many companies are simply taking advantage of a teacher shortage market at the cost of the UK education system.
So, what can you do to mitigate this potential waste of budget?
Become aware of the alternatives, especially with the rise of school friendly recruitment specialists and practice digital marketing techniques such as social media. Raise the issue with your schools HR or recruitment team and ask them if they got the ‘best’ solution (cost-effective, greatest reach, guaranteed placements, SEO optimised, GDPR compliant, mobile friendly etc). Make sure you always get a comparative quote.
For support with your school’s recruitment, please get in touch with us today on 0845 226 1906 or request a call back.
For press queries about this issue, please contact Rob Webb, Marketing Director, on 0845 226 1906.
About the author
Paul Howells
After working as a PE teacher in London, Paul started the first London supply teacher agency, LHR Education, in 1990, which soon became one of the fastest growing businesses in the UK. In 2001, Paul launched the visionary eteach.com which has evolved into a world-leading portal of school recruitment innovation, and FEjobs.com in 2004 which is now the market leading job board for further education across the UK. Today, Paul’s websites, Eteach and FEjobs have become synonymous with teacher-centric, value-driven, ground-breaking and proactive recruitment methods. Paul has a wealth of knowledge and experience of education recruitment and is passionate about using effective online strategies to optimist school recruitment.
