How to Attract the Best Teachers to Your Institute

The standard of education in any institution depends on the academicians who deliver knowledge. A team of passionate and talented teachers can elevate your school and make it a coveted institution. On the other hand, poor hiring can reduce the quality of education and adversely affect the image of your school.

Teachers are architects for young minds. They sow the seeds for informed opinions to grow and build the foundation of knowledge that a person gains in a lifetime. As a school leader, you are aware of the impact the calibre of your educators has on your students’ learning experience.

Therefore, hiring talented teachers is one of the most significant concerns for a school principal or leader. This article will outline various ways schools can find and hire exceptional educators and create a team of teachers who enhance the learning experience in their institution.

12 Key Strategies to Attract Good Teachers for Your School

• • Competitive Salary & Comprehensive Benefits

    Most talented individuals avoid teaching because of the poor wages and benefits. Offering a good salary to teachers can significantly improve the talent pool of teachers applying to your institution. Besides salaries, schools can also invest in benefits like

    • Health Insurance – Tie up with a reputed healthcare firm to give health insurance to teachers and administrators in school.
    • Retirement Plans – Schools can also invest in retirement plans for teachers to ensure they are looked after once their working years end.
    • Leave Benefits – The ability to encash remaining leaves at the end of the year or roll them on to the next year can be an attractive benefit for teachers.
    • Professional Development for Teachers – Tie up with an expert organisation like Extramarks to offer educators high-quality professional development and career growth opportunities.
    • Rewards & Recognition – Appreciating the efforts of some teachers by bestowing rewards, certificates, career advancement, or public recognition helps motivate good teachers to work hard.
    • Wellness Programs – Introduce wellness programs that promote teachers’ mental and physical well-being as an employee engagement initiative.
    • Flexible Working Benefits– Designing an attractive compensation and benefits package can make your school an engaging workplace for talented teachers.

  • Create a Supportive Work Environment

    The work environment for teachers and staff members in your school determines how happy teachers feel in their workplace. Building a supportive work environment, reducing the burden of administrative duties on teachers, and offering mentorship to new teachers can make your institution a good example of a positive work environment where good teachers are eager to work

  • Hire Early

    Start the hiring process early in the school year. Schools that hire early tend to receive better-qualified applicants than those that start looking towards the end of the hiring season. If your school can identify hiring requirements early on, begin hiring teachers in the second half of the academic year.

  • Leveraging Technology for Teacher Engagement

    Leverage technological tools to make teaching more effective and effortless for educators. Build a modern image of your school that emphasises using the latest education technology to attract tech-savvy educators. Partner with the Extramarks team to explore innovative teaching tools like the Extramarks teaching app, which makes administrative tasks and classroom management easier for teachers. Demonstrate your school’s commitment to education technology and set an example in the education field.

• Build a Strong Institutional Brand

  Building an institutional brand includes:

  • Social Media Presence – Foster connections among parents, students, and teachers by building your school’s brand on social media. Frequent updates, tips for exams, and engagement activities help show talented teachers how much your school values their stakeholders.
  • Website Content – Keep all sections of your school audience in mind when designing your website content – including potential applicants for the teacher’s position. Adding success stories of teachers associated with your institution on your website highlights respect for educators and a supportive working environment.
  • Utilise Video Content – Do not underestimate the power of video content in building a brand image for your institution. Create videos featuring current teachers, students, and staff to showcase different activities in your school. It is one of the best ways to showcase your institution’s culture and work environment on social media.
  • Recruit Through Your Website – Add a careers page to your website and invite applications to your school through the website. Besides featuring current job openings in your school on the careers page, add testimonials of current teachers and highlight the benefits of working with your institution here.

• Create Compelling Recruitment Materials

  Much of academic recruitment has moved online, but many candidates still seek offline opportunities. For such applicants, your school should create compelling recruitment material. For example –

  • Pamphlets & Fliers – Handing out pamphlets and fliers at job fairs and with newspapers can help your recruitment drive.
  • Make your Recruitment Material Stand Out – Use strong images and good content to ensure your recruitment materials are eye-catching and engaging.
  • Customised Advertisement – Leverage social media for teacher recruitment advertisements and Google Ads to create a customised campaign for recruitment. It will ensure that your ads reach your target audience and elicit the best response.

• Online Job Boards

  Most modern educators search for job opportunities online. It is imperative that your school posts all job openings on online job boards to reach talented educators. Besides, online job boards can help you gain a global talent pool of teachers.

• Attend Teacher Job Fairs

  Teacher job fairs are events where you can interact with all the job-seekers in education in your city. Face-to-face interactions can help you screen the applicants on the spot and build a network of talented educators. You can also offer recruitment materials like pamphlets and brochures to potential candidates here.

• Referrals

  Asking for referrals from experienced teachers can also lead you to exceptional candidates for teaching positions. Teachers who have worked with you in the past or who are currently working with you are likely to refer candidates who are compatible with your institution’s work culture, practices, morals and ethics. You can also offer financial incentives to current employees for referring good candidates.

• Reach Out to Former Teachers

  If you had a good teacher who had left due to fallout or a mismatch of expectations, you could reach out to them again – provided that circumstances have changed. You can talk to them about the new situation, understand their current expectations, and see if they would like to work with your school again. Even if they are not interested in returning to work for your institution, past teachers may have friends or relatives who work in education.

• Prioritise SEO

  Search engine optimisation or SEO is critical to creating a noteworthy online presence for your institution. Hire a qualified SEO manager and develop high-quality content for your school’s website. Designing and implementing an effective SEO strategy can help your education brand stand out online. Talented students and teachers are interested in working with trending names and often research online about good education institutions.

• Design an Effective School Teacher Recruitment Strategy

  Schools should use their past experiences and advice from expert recruiters to design a foolproof recruitment strategy for their institution. Here are some steps to take for an effective recruitment strategy –

  • Source Useful Hiring Data – Gathering data at the right time in the academic year can yield useful insights for creating a recruitment strategy. For example, you can identify the recruitment needs of every department, define the timelines for recruitment, or identify factors that enable the retention of talented teachers.
  • Conduct Meaningful Inquiries – Once you source the required data, you can conduct meaningful inquiries to find valuable insights. It can help you answer questions like – which avenue leads to maximum applications, which teaching roles require the most experienced candidates, or which roles are best suited for freshers.
  • Set Realistic Goals and Organise Recruitment Activities to Reach Them – Based on the recruitment data you have collected and the insights drawn, define realistic and measurable goals for the recruitment team. Plan backwards to determine which recruitment activities will yield the most suitable applications. Then, organise recruitment activities with the correct timelines and milestones in mind.
  • Track Your Progress Periodically – Once the roadmap to recruitment is defined, design a system to track and monitor the progress. Some activities may need more time than anticipated; work with your recruitment team to find innovative solutions for roadblocks. Make notes to improve the recruitment process next year.

  Hiring good teachers is critical for schools and other educational institutions. The essence of the learning experience offered by an institution rests on its teachers and educators. Finding talented teachers is an uphill task wherein schools must work hard to retain valuable talent and compete with other schools to find good teachers.

The strategies listed above are essential to creating an effective hiring process for educational institutions. A prominent online presence can get your school noticed by top talent worldwide, reaching out to teachers may define your school as an open and approachable workplace, and designing an informed recruitment strategy can set your institution up for success.

Last Updated on February 19, 2024