I find that networking with other schools and instructors in my field produces many qualified instructors. Thes are also professionals working in the field of study. Any comments?
Hi Cliff
I'm for anything that works. And in my experience, personal referrals from good employees or experienced professionals are the best applicants you can have. So, if you have
"many qualified applicants" that is great and
an asset to your school. It should also speak of your institution's reputation in the community.
How did you do this? Are you meeting people through professional organizations? How have
you developed the outside contacts?
This is an important part of creating an entire
recruiting program and we can all learn from your success.
Thanks.
Hi Cliff
I'm for anything that works. And in my experience personal referrals from good employees or experienced professionals are the best applicants you can have. So, if you have
"many qualified applicants" that is great and
an asset to your school. It should also speak of your institution's reputation in the community.
How did you do this? Are you meeting people through professional organizations? How have
you developed the outside contacts?
This is an important part of creating an entire
recruiting program and we can all learn from your success.
Thanks.
Thanks for responding. I am a graphic artist and operate a business along with my duties with the school. This keeps me in touch with people in the field. Our school has an advissory board which also helps to provide a source of networking professionals. This class will be a great help to me to select instructors from this pool of individuals.
Thanks Cliff
Cliff
You brought up a good point--use the advisory board. They are an excellent resource. And they have connections.
Thanks for your response!
OUr way of recruting instructors is probably different form the way it is done in traditional universities. Since we are an accelerated bilingual institution we ask that our prospect professors demonstrate their knowledge and skills in the area to be taught by presenting a mini lesson and going through an interview process. At the same time we ask that our professors demonstrate their skills in both Enlgish and SPanish language by writing an essay in the languages assigned and by providing feedback to existing essays in either language. Once that has happened a committe evaluates the candidates and make final decisions as to which candidates can be recruited.
Ricardo Ortolaza, Ed.D.
Director of Faculty and Curriculum
Hi Ricardo
This sounds like a great way to meet your needs. What might you do to improve the process?
We use varied resources to recruit for instructors. We do have an account with career builders and receive a lot of applicants from that source. We also rely on our program managers and existing instructors to refer people they know to teach. The referrals work out the best, since our employees know what the applicant needs to get the job. One way our method can be improved is to have a central repository for applicants that can be viewed for any opening and then interest in that applicant can be documented to avoid multiple calls to the same applicant.
We have a variety of methods for recruiting applicants. We use Internet resources such as Monster and Careerbuilder. We also have an employee referral program, however, I have not seen many of those. The majority of our resumes come from the Internet resources. I do know that I have never received a walk-in.
Our method can be improved by adding more detail to our ads. Our instructor qualifications are based on the course. So, we can offer more detail into qualifications so that underqualified applicants do not get submitted to us. We do use a questionnaire to get more detail, but that does not always prove to be effective.
Good response, Shanel. Does your organization use the screening methods that Monster or Career
Builder offer? If so, has that helped or hurt?
Shanel,
Excellent answer. I agree the online questionnaire should be improved.
We primarily use the Internet for recruiting but also attend job fairs in search of qualified candidates.
For some hard to find positions we will utilize newspaper ads but since we are an online institution that method is often limited to candidates that will be required to maintain on-campus hours.
We can make better use of our existing staff by asking for referrals from them and also by being more specific in how we present our skill requirements in our Internet ads.
I like the central repository suggestion John. Even though our Corporate Recruiter maintains a file of all applicants it would be great to have the "faculty" portion of that file and to have it maintained within the "education department".
i often use word of mouth from other students or known college instructors, i also use the hospitals to give leads that will give me someone who is a natral teacher on the floor.
We have a variety of ways, such as newspaper and internet ads. However, referrals have worked very effectively for us as well as advertisements. We are clear in the type of instructor we seek, and everyone in our school know about the specific characteristics/skills our instructors must have.
The most often used method is the help wanted section of area newspapers. Not only do the ads appear in print, but they have now expanded onto the internet. Based upon the success (or lack thereof), revisions are made to the content. We are going to attempt to be more descriptive, so that the respondents will be better qualified and the interview process will be less time consuming and less costly.
Hi Ronald
Have you found the right ad newspaper to work well or are you getting more responses from the internet portion?
We are still receiving more response from the newspaper, although there is a marked increase in the number of internet responses. My "personal" feelings are that those who respond via the internet are more likely to be "fishing" for a job, while those from the newspaper ads are the more serious job hunter. Also, we get more unsolicited queries from the internet.
i tend to use a lot of word of mouth via my own instructors, from time to time i have used on-line.
Agreed. A good combination of word-of-mouth (particularly with at least a few excellent instructors) and light on-line work can provide a superior group of instructors. Never ignore your own students down the line though.
