Proactive recruitment
Much of the recruitment that takes place in the teaching profession is reactive. A need arises, and a candidate is sought. This evidently works, as it has seemingly been the norm for some time. Yet there are signs that things may be shifting as schools start to take a more proactive approach to recruitment. Looking forward to anticipate need can help to ensure that you get the right candidate at the right time.
Proactive recruitment is essentially exploring ways of attracting candidates ahead of need. It is about focusing on where you might find suitable candidates, and how your school can attract them and engage them before you must recruit. Building relationships, maintaining contact, and generating interest are all characteristic of proactive recruitment. Teaching roles cannot lie empty indefinitely so the quicker you get the right person in post, the better.
There are several strategies that schools can implement to be more proactive in their recruitment. These ideas may help:
Networking
Attracting potential candidates to work in your school ahead of when you need to fill a vacancy will help to ensure that you have good choice when the time comes to recruit. Draw on your professional networks and those of your staff to scope for any potential new recruits.
Online communities can be useful here. Keep an eye on social media and any local networks set up in your area. These will all help you to access hitherto hidden talent.
Talent pipelining
Also known as relationship recruiting, talent pipelining is a strategy that is worth considering involving building relationships with potential candidates over time. These may be people who have applied for vacancies in the past or who have expressed an interest in working in your school should an appropriate vacancy arise.
Anticipating need ahead of time is key here. Plotting need over the next year, two years, five years and so on is never going to be an exact science but it will help you to make connections between those you encounter in the present, and your future needs.
Some schools are devising talent personas – descriptions of ideal future candidates – so that current staff can make suggestions from their own professional networks and contacts.
A talent pipeline is a way of future-proofing recruitment. In a competitive recruitment environment, this just might help you to fill vacancies successfully. Keep on having those conversations in your wider work community, and network relentlessly, so that recruitment is not entirely reactive.
Nurture contacts
Recruitment is about getting the right fit with the best candidate. Proactive recruitment means nurturing contacts who are potential staff members. That does not mean poaching staff from other schools! But it does mean contributing to your network, perhaps by running networking sessions in your school. You may also consider running troubleshooting events in your locality or online. You will build contacts and may come across people whose thinking is aligned to yours when it comes to education and schools.
Consider the uses of a talent community – do you want to encourage interested potential candidates to talk to each other? Are there ways of involving potential candidates in school events so that those who may become applicants can get a taste of your school and its role in the community?
Develop engagement
Love it or hate it, social media can be of great use in recruitment. When you develop your school’s brand and online presence you are inviting people, not least potential employees, to engage with your school and what goes on there. What you portray online can help potential candidates to visualise themselves teaching in your community. It is an attractive enticement and just might help you to be one step ahead in your recruitment needs.
Employer brand
Being involved in your local community, commenting in the media on news stories, and generally developing your reputation as a leader and as a school gets you noticed, and may lead to jobseekers making direct approaches. Defining and sharpening your brand as an employer makes you a more attractive prospect for potential applicants.
Ultimately, all of these strategies are about getting a better fit for new staff in your school. They may also help you to fill vacancies more quickly. And if you have a better fit in the first place, you just might get better rates of retention and stronger staff wellbeing.
The days of posting a job advert and hoping for the best are long gone. Being proactive is part of effective leadership. After all, we would not (or at least should not!) wait until a need was unmet before undertaking professional learning, and perhaps recruitment is no different. Being proactive rather than reactive is most certainly the way ahead.
Find out more…
If you’re looking for ways to recruit proactively, Eteach can help.
Our ATS technology is designed with proactive, transparent recruitment in mind! Simply request a call back with one of our experts, use our easy self-serve advertisement option, or get in touch via our website with whatever recruitment query you may have and our team will be more than happy to help.
About the author
Elizabeth Holmes
After graduating with a degree in Politics and International Relations from the University of Reading, Elizabeth Holmes completed her PGCE at the Institute of Education, University of London. She then taught humanities and social sciences in schools in London, Oxfordshire and West Sussex, where she ran the history department in a challenging comprehensive. Elizabeth specialises in education but also writes on many other issues and themes. As well as her regular blogs for Eteach and FEjobs, her books have been published by a variety of publishers and translated around the world. Elizabeth has also taught on education courses in HE and presented at national and international conferences.
