In many industries, employers can get away with an uninspired recruitment process. But with skyrocketing demand for international educators, international schools have little room for error. If your recruitment process isn’t up to par, you run the risk of losing out on top talent.
To help you avoid the most common complaints, we asked our extensive network of educators to tell us what frustrates them the most about the job search process. Here are five recommendations based on their feedback:
1. Don’t leave your recruitment till the last minute.
Today’s candidates are serious about their careers and are taking their time to find the right opportunity. According to our recent survey of over 16,000 international teaching candidates, 71% told us that they’re beginning their job search anywhere from three to over nine months in advance of their desired start date.
This means it’s essential to take a more proactive approach to your recruitment. Teachers shouldn’t be a last-minute hire. More and more, recruitment is becoming a year-round process. Candidates are beginning their search earlier and earlier, and you should be too.
2. Be clear about responsibilities and qualifications.
Few things frustrate candidates more than finding out they aren’t qualified for a job they spent hours applying for.
When drafting your job postings, clearly outline the responsibilities and qualifications you’re seeking without leaving room for interpretation. This way, you’ll attract more qualified candidates and save yourself time screening out unqualified applicants.
3. Include salary and benefits information in your job description.
Salary and benefits are key pieces of information for prospective teachers. Omitting compensation details is a huge red flag for candidates, who will likely assume your package isn’t competitive and move on to other opportunities.
A comparatively lower salary can be overcome for the right situation, but candidates won’t waste their time applying to postings that don’t provide the information they need to make an informed decision.
4. Keep candidates up to date on their application status.
A positive first impression starts with communication. At a minimum, candidates want to be kept up to date on the status of their application and be aware of the next steps in the process.
Using an applicant tracking system, will enable you to automatically acknowledge receipt of an application, notify candidates of a change in their status and let them know to pursue other opportunities if they’ve been screened out.
5. Speed up recruitment time for a better candidate experience.
To maintain your candidate’s interest, you need to move quickly. An inefficient, slow-moving hiring process will result in a disengaged candidate pool and promising applicants moving on to other opportunities.
Again, using an applicant tracking system with built-in tools to sort, filter and screen out candidates that don’t meet your requirements is an easy way to speed up your recruitment process.
The bottom line?
Making minor tweaks to your hiring process to prevent these common frustrations can go a long way towards improving the quality of your candidates, saving you time and providing candidates with a positive experience.
It could also make the difference between securing and missing out on your school’s next great teacher. So, there’s no time like the present to make sure your recruitment process is satisfying candidates.
Updated for 2019, this article originally appeared in the Fall 2018 edition of NESA News, the bi-annual magazine of the Near East South Asia Council of Overseas Schools (NESA).