Unlocking Success: Implementing a Full-Year Teacher Recruitment Cycle

Establishing a thriving educational environment begins with securing the right educators. Although the teacher hiring cycle normally starts in February or March and continues into the summer, we want to make the case for a year-round teacher recruitment cycle.

Schools that explore student-teacher programs, recruiting teachers in innovative ways, and making sure their district is a top “destination district” are ultimately the schools that will recruit their choice teachers. Schools are passively and actively recruiting teachers year-round using these techniques:

Develop a Compelling Employer Brand

To become a “destination district” (more on what that means here), you need to put your school identity out into the world. Leverage your website, staff and student videos, and your social media presence to showcase your school’s culture and values. 

Engaging current staff in the recruitment process can create an impactful school brand, and can even lead to employee referrals that often yield highly qualified candidates. One example of leveraging current teachers to promote district brand identity is to incorporate videos of teachers in your interview process. Think of it as a way for prospective new teachers to get to know their would-be coworkers.

Cultivate a Student Teaching Program

Investing in student teaching programs isn’t merely about aiding future educators’ development–it’s a strategic move to cultivate a future talent pool. Many colleges partner with school districts in their area, placing students in classrooms as co-teachers or teachers’ assistants as they finish their degree. 

Seeing student teachers in action helps principals decide who to hire for the upcoming academic year. Some school districts, like Tippecanoe School Corporation, use video interviews as a less stressful way to interview student teachers (their assumption is student teachers didn’t interview as well in front of their school principals due to nerves). They’ve seen better results and more student teacher hires after adopting one way video interviews.

Create a “Grow-Your-Own” Teacher Program

Schools can spark interest in teaching careers by creating inclusive “grow-your-own” programs, not only among student teachers but also within the broader community. Do you have any substitutes or paraprofessionals nurturing dreams of becoming a teacher? What about janitors, administrative staff, or even parents? 

Doing what you can to educate and nurture these dreams can help you fill education gaps. Offering grants for continuing education or assisting prospective teachers with career planning can pay off and turn non-educators into star teachers.

Leverage Technology for Recruiting Efficiency

Embrace virtual hiring practices to streamline your recruitment processes. Implementing video interviews and virtual job fairs not only broadens reach (Tigard-Tualatin School District screens more than double the teacher candidates they were screening before with phone screen interviews) but also enhances efficiency. 

Virtual hiring tools help you get to your candidates faster–most candidates complete one way video interviews within a day of receiving the interview invitation email. After the candidates complete the interview, K-12 administrators can screen at any time. An added bonus? Asynchronous interviews eliminate the possibility of a no-show interview.

One way video interviewing platforms are also helpful for HR teams because they can rate and review candidates and then send the recorded video interviews along to the principal or HR director, without having to schedule another interview or bring the candidate into the school.

Track Hiring Data to See Where you Excel

Collecting and analyzing recruitment data facilitates informed decision-making. Here’s a quick look at hiring metrics to track. Measuring time to fill, quality of hire, and pinpointing any candidate drop off points helps you see where your hiring process needs improvement and quantifies your recruiting and retention efforts. 

Platforms dedicated to tracking metrics empower schools to visualize their hiring and interviewing data at a glance, giving K-12 administrators back hours in their day. See what interview insights, interviewstream’s advanced reporting portal, can show you about your interviewing process.

Establish A Tiered Mentorship Program

One pivotal aspect in nurturing a sustainable teacher recruitment cycle is fostering a sense of community. Mentorship opportunities between new and experienced teachers serve as invaluable support systems. 

Tiered mentorship programs not only address the isolation often felt in classrooms but also provide new teachers with someone to turn to for every eventuality. Schools using tiered mentorship programs have different go-to mentors for the day-to-day questions, career progression, and instructional coaching.

See How interviewstream Helps you Recruit Year Round 

Crafting a comprehensive, year-round teacher recruitment cycle requires you to foster community connections, invest in future educators, and leverage technology to attract top teachers for your students. But, if you’re willing to put in a bit of extra work to recruit and retain teachers year round, you will be rewarded with larger candidate pools.

Begin laying the foundation for a brighter future in your school by partnering with interviewstream for your teacher screening. We’ve been supporting school districts in hiring the best educators for over 20 years. Set up a time to chat here.

About The Author

Caroline Chessia is the Marketing Operations Specialist at interviewstream. She loves color-coordinated graphs, hiking in the mountains, and every dog she meets—especially the Golden Retrievers.