Pro Tips for Recruiting the Best of the Best
Having stellar employees is key to your charter school’s success. However, you only have a small window of time for selection: the opportunity to explore candidates and decide who will gain that coveted spot on your charter school’s team. To make the most of it, you’ll need a well thought out recruiting strategy: a plan of action to successfully identify, recruit, and hire high-quality candidates.
How can you make the most of the pre-hire experience to ensure that you end up with the best of the best? Try these strategies that can help you attract the job seekers you’re looking for.
#1 Prioritize Recruiting
Earmark a section of your budget for recruiting activities. To get value out, you have to put value in. Find out where your potential staff are going to look for positions and market using those platforms. The objective is to entice a large pool of applicants to ensure that you find the best match for your unique school.
Common recruiting places:
- Your website
- Job fairs – host your own or participate in those hosted by other agencies
- Targeted employment websites like Monster.com and Indeed.com
- SchoolSpring
- Local paper
- Partnership with Local College (recent grads!)
- Professional Association
- Social media avenues like LinkedIn and Facebook
Pro Tip: By sharing photos and videos from school events or day-to-day school life, you give potential applicants a glimpse into your charter’s culture.
#2 Know Who You Are Looking For
Know, in advance of interviewing, the skills and the personality you need.
Writing an attention-grabbing and thorough job description is crucial to engaging with qualified candidates. Create compelling and accurate job descriptions so that the candidate will be engaged by the description and also excited to tackle the tasks. How do you make a job description an effective recruiting tool?
- Be specific. The more accurate your title and the more detailed you are in describing the tasks and duties, the more effective you will be in piquing the interest of the most qualified and interested job seekers. Include core responsibilities, hard and soft skills, day-to-day activities and explain how the position fits into the organization.
- Open with a captivating summary. Provide an overview that gets job seekers excited about the role and the school. Put some passion in this part!
- Keep descriptions concise. Yes, be thorough – but no need to repeat the same tasks in different ways.
Outside of the knowing the skillset needed, know the strengths of those already on your team, and know the areas of strength your organization, department, or team lacks. Seek out someone who not only is qualified for the job and can accomplish the tasks, but who will also bring a balance to the strategic personality aspects of the whole team.
Optional ways to assess personality and skills:
- Include personality/strength tests as a part of the application materials
- Include basic skills tests as a part of the application process
- Create or extend an opportunity for the candidate to interact with other team members and/or students as a part of their screening assessment
#3 Treat Candidates Like Customers
A candidate’s first impression of your school is critical. Whether at a recruiting event, on a phone screening, or during an in-person interview, it’s important you make all candidates feel you’re as excited about getting to know them as they are about being considered for the role.
What does it mean to treat a candidate as a customer? Be respectful of their time. Show up on time for them. If you’re running late, let the candidate know as far in advance as possible. Be hospitable. Ask if they’d like something to drink, show them where to find the restrooms… Make them feel as welcome and comfortable as possible. Make yourself available. Provide candidates with your contact information so they’re able to reach out with questions and follow-up throughout the process.
#4 Emphasize Your Culture
You want the person that you hire to believe in what you’re doing! We all know that charter schools are different than other school systems in Texas, but you want to make sure you communicate this difference, in addition to how your charter school is unique. Ensuring that a candidate is aligned with your charter school’s mission, vision, and values and is aware of the working environment and student population you serve is critical!
Sample questions to gauge a candidate’s match with your culture:
- Have you visited our website? What intrigued you about it?
- What makes you think you’ll be effective with our students?
- Let the candidate interview you too. You’ll gain insight as to what is important for them to know!
#5 Be Thorough in Screening
The more you put in on the front end, the less work you’ll have on the back end. Don’t be afraid to draw the selection process out. Choosing the right person not only benefits your students, it also increases retention and results!
Some nontraditional ways of interviewing might include:
- Phone screening in early stages
- Panel interviews to include other staff, parents, students, board members, etc.
- Hosting a dinner meeting
- Having the candidate complete personality and skill assessments
- Requiring the candidate demonstrate skills, Ex: Teach a lesson to a class
Pro Tip: Include peers in the interview process. Sometimes the best person to interview a candidate is someone already working in the same or similar role. This employee already knows what it takes to excel in the position and can verify whether candidates have the skills and experience needed to do the job well. Also, current employees can give an accurate description of day-to-day experiences and help candidates better understand what they can expect if hired.
#6 Check References
It is shocking that most schools do not check the references of their candidates! Reference checking will give you the added assurance that your intuition about a candidate’s abilities and personality is well-founded. Beyond seeking verification of employment dates and job titles, asking the right questions can make a world of difference.
- It is crucial to ensure that none of the questions you ask can be linked to the possibility of a basis for discrimination. The same is true at any point in the interview process!
- Here is a helpful article that addresses the legalities of reference checking and outlines what reference check questions are prohibited: https://www.checkster.com/blog/the-legal-issues-of-reference-checking
- Here is a helpful article that suggests the 10 best questions to ask when checking references: https://workbright.com/blog/the-10-best-questions-to-ask-when-checking-references/
# 7 Implement an Employee Referral Program
If you want more people like the great people you already have, remember this truth in life: Great people surround themselves with other great people. While many employees are probably already sharing open roles with qualified contacts in their networks, a well-developed employee referral program can boost this behavior even more. By providing incentives for referrals with stipends or contests, you can create excitement and further motivate your workforce to bring the best talent they know into your organization.
# 8 Don’t Wait for Them to Find You – Find Them!
Search using key words on search engine platforms like Indeed and Monster, which host millions of resumes from job seekers. Key word searches can include job title, skill, experience, location, degree, and more. You can even filter to narrow to extremely specific criteria like years of experience or education level. On many platforms, you can set resume alerts to receive daily emails of new candidates who fit your criteria. Once you find a candidate who peaks your interest, go get ‘em tiger.
When it comes to finding and hiring great people, you have to be persistent and willing to think outside the box. By using these recruitment strategies, you can quickly discover highly qualified, passionate professionals ready to join your team.
How can we help?
Contact HR Professional and Charter School Success Chief Operations Officer, Jordan Elliott.