Teacher recruitment isn’t simply a repetitive task. It's a crucial component of building and sustaining an online education business. 

I strongly believe that there is no one-size-fits-all recommendation that guarantees a risk-free hire every single time. But I do believe that implementing the right strategies and mindset toward recruiting teachers, will allow you to increase your chances of consistently finding the right people for your business!

— Marika Boje, Global Recruitment Director at The Really Great Teacher Company

In many ways, recruiting online teachers is the same as recruiting top talent in any other field. Though there are a few key exceptions to look out for that are not so obvious:

• Online teaching has opened the world in many ways. Teachers engage students from multiple different countries and nationalities in a single classroom setting. They therefore need to have a refined understanding of cultural differences and how that can impact the learning experience.
• Teachers need to be able to tailor their lessons to accommodate their students' different goals, and be cognisant of how these differ between different groups that could consist of adults or children (and their parents).
• Finally, facilitating a virtual classroom requires teachers to be tech savvy. They need to be able to operate on various online platforms and teaching programs, as well as navigate different techniques, digital tools and resources. And of course, stay calm and collected while troubleshooting to ensure a digitally challenged lesson can continue, instead of being abandoned.

Here are some tried and tested recruitment strategies that will set you up for success in your online teacher hiring process!

Smart recruitment starts with insight. Your most actionable goals are based on a thorough review of your business’ recruitment and hiring data. This can be challenging if you rely on paper-based recruitment only, or have limited access to documented recruitment information. 

An effective applicant tracking software (ATS) built around your business needs is essential. While you may still be able to set your recruitment objectives without one, you will be severely limited in tracking and reporting on past performance and predictable future outcomes.

On the other hand, you may have a sophisticated recruitment system but lack the analytical capacity or resources on how to actually interpret the data for actionable insights. Knowing what trends to look for can help more successfully recruit the right candidates.

There are patterns in your data that will shine a spotlight on where your recruitment is doing well, and where it needs improvement. It can be especially helpful to look at year-on-year trends or monthly trends over the past year. A few specific metrics to look at include:

• Qualified Candidates: Number of applications per month, per source.
• Source Quality: Which source is most effective in terms of lead generation and conversions.
• Unsuccessful Candidates: At which point and why they dropped off, or reason for rejection.
• Time-to-Hire: How long it takes to place a teacher, per recruiter.
• Cost Per Starter: How much it costs to advertise, recruit, onboard and train a candidate before they teach their first lesson.
• Retention Rates: Year-on-year vs overall retention.
• Applicant Experience: Survey both new starters and candidates that dropped off to understand why and if there's any room for improvement in your recruitment process.

After working through your data, prioritise the specific areas that your recruitment team needs to focus on. Even though you can set and work towards “stretch goals”, your overall recruitment goals should always be realistic and attainable and backed up by a measured tracking of results.

Once you have a good understanding of your recruitment needs, you need to identify where you will find your ideal teacher. Do adequate research in terms of different strategies, tools and methods across different countries - depending on your desired teacher profile.

A few general sources:

Online

In today's digital climate, job-seekers would typically look for jobs online first before anywhere else. Spend some time exploring educational job boards, online job sites, relevant social media platforms such as LinkedIn and Facebook, paid advertising on Google and Meta, and organic traffic to your job pages through advanced SEO practices. Once you know where your target market spends their time, it gets easier to advertise to them.

Referrals

Word-of-mouth from your current teachers is probably one of the most reliable sources for further recruiting. Nobody knows your company better than your teachers! They can be great advocates for your platform and your overall workplace culture. Additionally, an effective referral program can double up as a great way to incentivise and retain great teachers. It's important to note that any inbound recruitment tool takes time and is intended for year-round recruitment.

Career Days and Job Fairs

Finding teachers at university career or job fairs is still a good bet. This source may not yield immediate results if you are looking for experienced teachers, but include this as one of your sources if you are looking to the future and to recruit a steady pipeline of teachers pro-actively. Some universities now also have online job boards for their alumni, and some allow companies to advertise.

A Trusted Teacher Management Partner

Partnering with a truster provider is also a consideration for many companies, who want to save on the time, energy, effort and expense of running their own internal recruitment departments.

Most online teachers will lose count of how many different online schools they apply to. And to top it off, quality candidates spend as little as a few weeks on the job market on average.

It is therefore crucial that your application process is efficient and as user-friendly as possible. Be clear on the minimum requirements for the role, and what next steps to expect.

This is a long-term recruitment strategy to take advantage of.

Create opportunity for new graduates to become experienced teachers by providing internships or roles within your company where they can start earning some online teaching experience. 

Also offer current teachers career path opportunities through promotions - it is a great way to retain your top performers at a fraction of the cost of recruiting someone externally.

The best teachers are lifelong learners. They aspire to make a difference in the lives of their students, which come from all different walks of life in online teaching. The more they expand their knowledge, the more adept they become in fostering quality outcomes in any student.

A great recruitment strategy is to minimize resources spent on recruiting for attrition. Retain your top performing teachers by offering ongoing opportunities for personal wellbeing and professional development. 

If your teachers are happy and fulfilled, it creates a great culture that will be sought after others, too.

It is always better to have access to a sustained talent pool that's been nurtured over time that you can draw from at any time, than attempting to build one from scratch every time you need to recruit.

A smart way to go about this is to look at your attrition trends over time to determine a projected monthly recruitment need, taking into consideration any seasonal or project-based demands. This can save time, money, and resources.

To earn the attention of job-seekers today, we need to think like modern marketers. Prospective teachers start off as strangers to your company. Your advertising needs to be on point to attract, engage, and convert them into future hires and then, proud ambassadors. 

Your recruitment system shouldn't only produce hiring data, but marketing data as well. Use it to identify which sources, platforms, and adverts shoot the lights out in leading to quality applications, and which don't.

A content creation strategy is another great way to appeal to job-seekers. Identify topics that would appeal to your target market - interviewing tips, reasons candidates get rejected and how to overcome them, the ideal virtual classroom set-up you look for - any insider resources you can provide that will genuinely add value to their online teaching experience. 

This also establishes you as an authority in the industry, building credibility in your brand when they look at your vacancies.

It's crucial that your website is functional and user friendly. A business that blogs regularly is guaranteed more traffic to their website!

Build a brand that teachers will want to identify with.

This is an approach that can separate great schools from the rest.

Even though it can be challenging when recruiting teachers in big volumes, it really can make a big difference to take an individualised approach. In a Mattersight survey, 80% of respondents said that they would choose one job over another based on the personal interactions during the job interview.

Recruiters should engage, whether through automated workflows or direct communication, in a way that makes candidates feel like humans, not just another applicant in a bulk recruitment funnel. 

Even if an application was unsuccessful, provide clear feedback as to why, so candidates can improve in specific areas that might even lead to them succeeding in future.

Review any automations in place to ensure your recruitment operates at scale without losing its personal touch.

It helps teachers settle in, find their way around, and be inducted into your company's culture from the onset. This will make their transition into your virtual classroom that much smoother, and let's them know what kind of support they can expect.

Providing effective training and onboarding also instils confidence in their decision to join your company, and sets them up for delivering exceptional lessons.

To conclude, streamline your recruitment strategy to save time, money and valuable resources! In turn, you will also create a flattering perception of your business that will organically attract more talent and help your business grow.

Marika Boje, Global Recruitment Director