Every recruitment process has its challenges. This is even more true for schools, where safeguarding and driving school performance are the priority. Finding the right staff is vital, but recruiters in schools around the world will tell you that it’s difficult to achieve this while being truly efficient.
Recruitment is a human-based process, and this can make the journey towards finding a new staff member a time consuming one. In schools, every second counts, so the time taken to replace or hire new staff can have considerable wider impact.
While efficiency is important, it’s also key to balance that with a focus on hiring the right talent. Taking the time to hire the right person once, is better than hiring multiple people quickly before finding a member of staff that meets your needs.
As with any company, school recruitment can also run the risk of a biased process. When working to secure the best body of staff for your students, it’s vital to ensure that a candidate’s capabilities are the real driving force behind decision-making.
For International schools, all this is true, and more. Hiring at a distance can make all these challenges more difficult to manage, while also navigating the necessary rules and regulations that are associated with hiring staff outside of your native country.
It’s vital to have software that can support you throughout the recruitment process, and understands the unique challenges of school recruitment. How can the right school HR software strengthen your teams as they search for the best candidates?
The best recruitment software will offer an all-in-one solution for your HR teams. Manage all your processes in one place with a solution that focuses on providing a seamless experience. For instance, an integrated, cloud-based structure enables you to translate applicant information into employee details, with a completely paperless process.
Software should help to manage vacancies. Chances are, you’re unlikely to be hiring for one position at a time. Your teams need an overview of vacancies to get a full picture of recruitment performance, with a solution that offers an intuitive interface. The better managed your vacancies, the more efficient your recruitment process can be.
Ultimately, the less burden on your recruitment teams, the more they can focus on what matters – hiring the right person for each role. Employing the best candidate for the position at the first opportunity results in better retention rates, further reducing the workload for your teams.
The interview stage is one of the most important parts of the school recruitment process. You can read about a person on paper, in their CV or covering letter, but it’s impossible to know which candidate is right for you until you meet. That’s why it’s so important to be supported by a software that facilitates the interview process as much as possible.
In schools, recruitment panels are a popular methodology for reducing bias and ensuring that all role requirements are met by the candidate. However, these can be difficult to organise in a busy school environment and a complex schedule. Your software should enable complete transparency, so that you can create recruitment panels and set up a variety of interviews at the earliest opportunity for each candidate and member of staff.
An important step in eliminating bias in the interview process is to generate a uniform and consistent interview experience for each job role, ensuring that each candidate has the same opportunities. Make use of and share templates for interview questions or pre-screening questions within a HR software that offers these facilities.
As mentioned above, templates can help to reduce bias, but they can also help to boost efficiency in processes that are repetitive, and not just during the interview process. Template application forms and offer letters, or templates for other common school-candidate communications, can help to reduce the leg work and repetitive tasks for your recruitment staff. These will also help to reduce errors.
Applicant Tracking Software (ATS) also plays a crucial role in streamlining the recruitment process, thanks to automated scheduling, centralised communication, candidate evaluation and feedback functionality, and more.
By holding all this data in one secure database and one holistic system, your teams can also reap the benefits of data analytics and enhanced forecasting capabilities. The ability to forecast upcoming recruitment events or deadlines ensures that your teams are better prepared and can start the process in plenty of time to meet your staffing needs.
The more efficient your team can be, the less time it takes to hire the right candidate for your role. Ultimately, this is better for your students and your overall school performance, as it minimises any disruption to student learning.
However, as in many industries and across all technology sectors, the latest AI advancements are likely to offer even more opportunity to boost productivity and reduce repetitive and time-consuming tasks for recruiters. Currently, recruiters in variety of industries are looking for ways to implement AI screening technology. This allows teams to work through CVs a lot faster and ensure applicants meet all the key requirements for the role.
It’s important to stay on top of latest software developments in the space, as what is possible within a HR and recruitment platform will continue to develop.
Better candidate and vacancy tracking means that your team have a better understanding of the opportunities and talent available. Building relationships with those in the industry is a long-term approach, but might have a considerable impact later.
For example, a potential hire might not be available today. They may not be looking for new opportunities. Or perhaps your school doesn’t have the right vacancy for them at this time. However, by staying connected now and building a relationship, you might secure the right employee at a later date.
It’s also important to note that there are two sides to the recruitment process. Consider the journey and experience that your candidates have with your school. A laborious application, interview, and offer process is more likely to lose a good potential hire. Being efficient and communicative is key to building positive relationships with your applicants. Chances are, they’re in talks about multiple vacancies. Avoid losing a talented member of staff to a poor first impression.
Your recruiters also need to be supported by a software that understands the specific regulatory needs of schools, as well as the need to protect students. Safeguarding is key with each new hire. It’s vital to ensure your staff are meeting background check requirements.
In the UK, this typically comes in the form of an enhanced DBS check as a baseline. Checking the criminal history and identity of each person in your school is so important to the safety of the students in your care. Your software should support this process, ensuring total visibility, clear communication, and maximum efficiency where possible.
However, many schools also choose to conduct further background checks as an additional safeguarding precaution. The vast majority of us use social media, or have used social media, in some format. Our social media history has the potential to build an image of a person, but it also has the potential to damage school reputation and put children at risk if concerns are missed.
Consider implementing a dedicated tool that checks a candidate’s social media history, with their permission. Software like Social Media Check was created to enable schools to search the social media history of potential hires across platforms like X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, Instagram, and more.
The tool highlights risks and concerning uploads according to specific categories, including toxic language, hate speech, swearing, nudity, and more. You can learn more about Social Media Check here.
iSAMS’ HR solutions were created to assist your HR teams in all areas of their roles, with a holistic system to meet their needs. Featuring a central database and an Applicant Tracking System meant to prioritise efficiency and clarity, iSAMS HR can help your school to find the right candidates for each role and provide a positive applicant experience.
To learn more about iSAMS HR software for schools, you can request a full demonstration below: