Adopt a Customer Service Mentality to Hire Teachers More Effectively

What Teachers Want

At Selected, we've spoken to and coached thousands of teachers on resume writing, interviewing, and the job search process.

Teachers tell us that school discovery is difficult. Teachers have a difficult time finding schools in their area, information as simple as grade levels served and what roles, if any, are open at the school. They would love to identify schools whose school culture aligns with their teaching philosophy.

Teachers, like all people in the digital age, demand and deserve a better experience. The schools who understand this early and put teachers first will be at a distinct advantage to find and hire quality teachers.

We started Selected by asking: why isn't teacher recruiting more customer-centric, meaning teacher-centric? Demand for teachers have long outstripped supply. Teachers are in demand and yet the recruiting market doesn't reflect that reality.

A Teacher-Centric Experience

So what does a teacher-centric experience look and feel like?

It doesn't require an online platform, personalized teacher coaching, or a matching algorithm. It requires empathizing with the teacher experience and taking a proactive approach: connecting with relevant teachers quickly, saving teachers' time and patience, and streamlining the hiring process. It requires treating teachers like customers.

Tactically, some examples of a teacher-centric approach include: simplifying the job application and asking only for information required to make a decision, getting on the phone and sharing the school’s mission before asking a teacher to complete another application, reducing candidate response times to hours, not days, accelerating the applications of high potential candidates, and asking candidates what their career goals are and how the school can help meet them.

A Proactive, Not Passive, Process

The traditional approach to teacher recruitment is largely a passive one. Large school districts and networks have generally relied on their brand and market dominance to assume that teachers will apply.

In an era of increasing school choice and access to information — not to mention the well-documented teacher shortage — teachers have more options and desire to find schools that they love. For schools, this means speed to hire and strength of personal connection (e.g., values, school culture) are critical to closing teachers in their pipeline. School culture and fit is the leading factor for teacher retention. The more effectively a school can show their culture in action and not words — in their hiring and interview process, school environment, and growth opportunities — the better.

For schools, having access to a large pool of teacher resumes isn't enough; running a streamlined and proactive process to connect with them quickly and effectively is critical to closing teacher hires, particularly for individual schools or smaller networks and districts where speed is one major advantage they have.

At Selected, we believe that simplifying the school discovery process for teachers will increase the number of quality matches for schools. Our goal is to help schools quickly and effectively match with “compatible” candidates.

How We Can Help

The resources and content in our blog are designed to support what schools are best positioned to execute: their hiring process, putting the teacher experience first, and closing the teacher hire. We are excited to have the privilege to support school leaders find great teachers.

About Selected

Selected helps teachers find jobs at schools they love. We offer a free school matching and career support platform for teachers that connects them with 1,100+ PK-12 public and independent schools 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 profile and start speaking with hiring schools immediately!