“If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.”
We’ve all heard this quote by Peter Drucker, management consultant and educator. What he means by this is that making an informed decision to improve a process requires accurate data collected from precise measurement.
So, what does this mean for schools looking to bring in the right talent in today’s international education landscape? What are the two key recruitment metrics a school should be tracking in order to improve their hiring?
First, let’s take a look at the international school space.
The demand for English medium K-12 education continues to skyrocket; since 2013, global fee income has risen by a whopping 40%. The pandemic furthered the international teacher shortage.
As Teach Away covered in our 2022 International Recruitment Report earlier this year, this looming shortage has resulted in a shift of power from the school to the job-seeking educator. This gap is further widened by fundamental changes in job search techniques; online recruitment makes it is easier than ever for job-seeking educators to discover new positions globally without ever having to step foot in a job fair. Scarce expertise and online job searching means the teacher has more leverage in the recruitment process than ever before.
Further reading:
With the right recruitment solutions in place, and by knowing the right metrics – or key performance indicators (KPIs) – to track in order to optimize the success of your school’s recruitment, organizations like yours have the opportunity to earn a major leg up on your competitors.
Here are the two most important KPIs you need to measure in order to help make talent acquisition a competitive advantage for your school:
1) Cost Per Hire (CPH)
Why? Maximize your recruitment budget.
In order to calculate your school’s cost per hire, you must consider both the internal and external costs associated with your recruitment.
Internal recruitment costs are organizational costs and internal expenses associated with your recruitment efforts. (Eg. salaries of recruitment personnel, employee time dedicated to recruitment, travel expenses to attend recruitment fairs, etc.)
External recruitment costs are external expenses associated with your recruitment efforts. (Eg. job board fees to advertise your vacancies, fees paid to recruitment agencies, registration fees to attend recruitment fairs, etc.)
Here’s how to calculate your CPH:
2) Time to Fill (TTF):
Why? Improve efficiency.
In the 2022 International Education Recruitment Report, we found that 63% of up-and-coming Gen Z candidates expect their first interview to be set up less than 2 weeks after applying, while 20% of applicants lose interest when faced with a long hiring process.
Needless to say, schools need to focus on recruitment solutions that will enable them to process and qualify candidates quicker. Stage your hiring process to help candidates understand what to expect next. (More on that topic in the report.)
TTF is a massively impactful metric to keep track of: it can inform vital decisions to do with the sourcing of committed candidates.
Find your TTF like this:
Keep in mind that with candidates having more options than ever before you should strive to be as efficient as possible in your recruitment, but never at the expense of a positive candidate experience.
How to optimize your strategy based on these metrics
Before jumping head first into tweaking your strategy, make sure you’ve not only calculated your CPH and TTF, but tracked them for long enough to be confident in the data.
Next, ask the tough questions:
- What recruitment techniques are providing your lowest CPH?
- What methods could be employed to reduce your TTF?
- In what ways could your school benefit by strategically reinvesting the money and time saved by reducing your CPH and TTF?
The demand for international educators is only going up. To ensure your school has the advantage it needs to secure top teaching talent in an increasingly competitive market, you must remain hyper-focused on measuring the results of your recruitment efforts, optimize based on what works best, rinse and repeat. And remember: if you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.
Find out more about what international schools need to know about today’s job-seeking candidate in the 2022 International Education Recruitment Report.
The world’s most innovative international schools are leveraging Teach Away’s annual subscription to dramatically reduce their CPH and TTF. Contact us to learn how partnering with Teach Away can help you streamline your hiring process and maximize your recruitment budget.