Recruiting Best Practices for Schools Hiring New Teachers

Toni Marek -

Teacher recruitment is a constantly evolving practice. As fewer people become teachers, the pool of qualified candidates is shrinking, and the competition to find and hire them is intensifying. High-performing schools are all looking for the same talent. In order to meet their hiring goals, they need to hire faster and better than ever before.

Each year, schools analyze their strategic plan, using data and experiences to make necessary adjustments for the following school year. The best schools stand out based on the following shared practices.

For early hiring:

Create a deadline for immediate hires (Jan/Feb)

  • Identify a date to use as an indicator of when you'll pivot to future hiring and stick with it!
  • Many strong recruitment teams begin their new hiring season in January/February

Only hire for pertinent, immediate roles moving forward

  • Limit your open roles search to difficult-to-fill talent (e.g., science, math, or technical education teachers) or to schools with a high number of vacancies

Share the early hiring deadline with school leadership

  • Always seek feedback from high-level decision makers and hiring managers
  • This adds a level of accountability for all parties, and ensures everyone has agreed on the pivot date for future hiring, and are on the same page

Early hiring is a key part of any strong recruitment plan as it allows for recruiters to transition their focus to hiring for the following school year. Choose a deadline that makes sense as a transitional point, and be confident enough to sell the decision makers on the fact that it's in the best interest of all parties involved.

On permanent interview days:

Pick interview days that occur on a weekly or bi-weekly basis — set these dates as “permanent” interview days

  • These permanent interview days will help you source candidates more easily

Host interview days at the strongest campus with the strongest hiring manager

  • This is a great chance to promote school culture and gives strong hiring manager(s) the opportunity to model best practices for other leaders

Establishing interview days helps organize processes for peak hiring season and summer hiring

  • It provides established dates for all recruiters to source candidates
  • You can split interview days between elementary school and middle school weekly (if applicable) to keep better track of different needs across the board

Don’t be afraid to cancel interview days that may not have enough candidates

  • Take late cancellations or limited attendance into account
  • Give school leaders/hiring managers 24-48 hour advance (if possible)

Having predetermined interview dates makes candidate sourcing a lot simpler. School leaders are aware of the interview days well in advance, and recruiters can prepare for each interview date at least a week beforehand.

For network-wide offers and hiring (multiple schools)

When you give a candidate their initial offer, give them an offer for a job at the network as opposed to at a specific campus

  • This allows you to hire faster and make campus/site decisions at a later date

Use feedback from principals and/or hiring managers to create a collective candidate profile

  • Create list of core competencies/skills that are ideal for all schools in the network
  • Use the network’s mission as a way to identify whether candidates fit the collective candidate profile — if they aren’t committed to the mission, they aren’t the right fit!
  • Use the Ideal Candidate Rubric to help your recruitment team standardize the interview process.

Network-wide offers give recruitment teams more flexibility to work quickly during peak hiring season and allow them to make more hires in a shorter period of time. Network offers can be complex; recruitment teams, school leaders, and financial decision makers all need to agree on the same principles for network-wide offers to work correctly. That’s why creating a collective candidate profile and tying it directly to the school’s mission is critical — again, if candidates don’t align with your mission, they aren’t a good fit for your school.

About Selected

Selected helps schools hire the best teachers. We offer a matching platform that connects 1,200+ public and independent schools with a deep and diverse pool of 25,000+ Pre-K to 12 teachers in urban metro areas in the Northeast and West Coast, including New York City, NJ, CT, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Boston, and Los Angeles. Create a FREE school profile and start speaking with candidates immediately.