Faculty are the heart and soul of any school. Tasked with carrying out a school’s mission in the classroom and beyond, faculty have a tremendous impact on the school and its community. But ad hoc processes and limited proactive recruitment mean that schools are potentially missing out on great teachers.
To attract and hire top talent, schools must first create a standard hiring process to assess candidates on the criteria that matters most. This process should include determining criteria at the outset and creating an interview process that seeks to collect evidence on these criteria. With a process in place, school must then focus on attracting new talent to the candidate pool.
EAB researchers shared best practice strategies for recruiting and hiring faculty at the 2019 Independent School Executive Forum’s executive roundtable series. We have identified 14 practices, across four areas, to help schools attract and hire top talent, listed below. For more information on any of these strategies, please contact your dedicated advisor.
1. Lay foundation for effective hiring
1. Centralized applicant tracking system
2. Candidate-center recruitment website
2. Determine assessment criteria
3. Principles-based hiring criteria
4. Vacancy-based goals
3. Create evidence-based process
5. Stage-specific assessment rubrics
6. Quantified-feedback scorecard
7. Priority-focused interview schedule
8. Competency demonstration exercises
9. Comprehensive hiring guide
4. Attract new talent to the candidate pool
10. Employee referral incentive
11. Independent school recruitment event
13. University pipeline cultivation
14. Diversity teaching fellowship
The resources below are designed to help schools deploy the above strategies and have an immediate impact on your approach to hiring faculty.
Resource 1: Faculty Hiring Data Compendium
Too often hiring data is siloed across campus, or not collected at all, making it difficult to analyze and reflect on the success of a hiring cycle. Use this resource to collect and analyze hiring data in a more consistent and intentional manner. First, develop a system to centrally collect hiring data. Use the Post-Hire Data Form and Hiring Data Collection Sheet to create a system to collect data. Next, select metrics to measure during the hiring process. Then, after each hiring cycle, compile and analyze the data, discuss successes of the cycle and goals for the next hiring cycle.
Resource 2: Employment Page Audit
Today’s job seekers are looking to an organization’s employment page to gather information and to learn more about what it would be like to work there. If a candidate visits your school’s employment page what will they learn?
Use the Employment Page Audit to assess how your school scores on 10 key features of a school’s employment page and develop actionable next steps to take your employment page to the next level. Schools can complete a self-assessment or request an audit by EAB experts. Contact your Strategic Leader for more information.
Resource 3: How to Build a Criteria-Based Faculty Hiring Process
The first step for schools to develop a standard, evidence-based hiring process is to establish clear, predetermined criteria. These criteria fall in to two categories: school-wide criteria and position-specific criteria. Schools should translate their principles of teaching excellence to establish school-wide criteria on which to evaluate all faculty candidates. When a position becomes open, hiring leads should then move beyond simply updating a previous job description, and instead use the opportunity to think strategically about the goals to accomplish with this hire.
This guide is designed to help schools and hiring teams determine criteria at the outset of the hiring process. With criteria selected, hiring teams will use questions and templates to create interview questions that get at each criteria, detail what to look for in response to those questions, and finally to create clear rubrics for assessment.
Resource 4: A Step-by-Step Guide to Hosting Prospective Faculty Education and Recruitment Events
As schools look to bring new talent into their candidate pool and increase the diversity of their faculty, they’ll need to look beyond the independent school-centric recruiting sources they’ve historically relied upon.
Locally focused candidate education and recruitment events allow your school to reach previously untapped candidates in your community. Through an educator open house or diversity hiring fair, you can reach candidates that match your current hiring priorities, with candidates who may have been previously overlooked. Use this guide to determine which event is right for you, and how you can successfully host it at your school.
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Learn how you can get access to this resource as well as hands-on support from our experts through Independent School Executive Forum.
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