4 Tips For Recruiting New, Qualified Teachers For Your School

Recruiting and attracting high-quality teachers for your school is an essential job for school administrators. The quality of education your students receive is highly dependent on the quality of their teachers—but finding them can be challenging.

With teacher shortages on the rise, schools need to get creative about attracting and recruiting teachers. Here are four ways you can draw, recruit, and retain high-quality teachers:

Create a Clear, Compelling Job Description

It may seem like common sense, but it’s surprising how many schools don’t take the time to put together a thorough, well-written job description. Spell out precisely what you’re looking for in a teacher, including specific qualifications and personality traits.

Get specific about the position’s responsibilities and what kind of work environment your school offers. Be clear about whether this is a full-time or part-time position and details about benefits and compensation. Be sure to include details of what the candidates should bring during the recruitment process.

Make sure the process is easy for prospective candidates to apply by including contact information for the hiring manager.

Be flexible With Scheduling During Interviews

When recruiting new teachers (especially those who are full-time teachers at schools), scheduling interviews can be challenging.

You want to make yourself available to applicants so you don’t miss out on a great candidate because of an interview conflict. If possible, consider allowing applicants to select from multiple interview times when setting up the interview.

You could even offer video interviews if an applicant doesn’t have much flexibility in their schedule or is coming from a distance.

Ask Teachers For Their Recommendations

As a school, you want to be sure you’re recruiting teachers who are qualified, dedicated, and willing to get the job done. One of the best ways to do this is by asking your current teachers for their recommendations on potential candidates.

Your current staff members can refer some excellent candidates for your open positions, and if you pay them for making the referral, you might find that you get more referrals than you expected!

If your current staff members feel like they’re valued members of your team, they’re more likely to help you fill open positions with people who will fit in nicely at your school.

And even if they don’t personally know anyone who would be a good fit for your open positions, they’ll almost certainly know someone who knows someone who would be a great fit.

Your current teaching staff has a better idea of who would make a good teacher in specific positions and what qualities they need. It can help you narrow down your options based on other teachers’ experiences with them.

Offer Competitive Pay and Benefits

Teachers aren’t necessarily in the profession for the money, but the salary is still a factor. You should make sure that you offer competitive pay and benefits to your teaching staff. It can be a great way to attract qualified teachers who will stay at your school long-term, which is beneficial to you and your students!

So, what makes up an employee benefits package? There isn’t a hard and fast definition, but it generally includes health insurance, matching retirement contributions, paid vacation time, and sick leave.

Employers usually offer these things as part of their employees’ compensation—and they’re essential because they allow employees to have necessary expenses paid for by the employer. As a result, it enables them to preserve more of their income for other purposes.

Summing Up

Recruiting new, qualified teachers to your school will become more straightforward as you consider these tips. If you find that your school requires additional help with this area of expertise, feel free to reach out to our consulting firm.

JAG Consulting Services can help your school recruit new, qualified teachers. Contact us today with any questions about this service at info@JAGconsultingservices.com or by completing the form on our website.

We look forward to hearing from you!