Recruitment Methods
What is your most common way of recruiting applicants for instructor positions at your school and how can the method be improved?
We have been pretty effective with employee recommendations. We can improve it by creating a more formal recruitment procedure and by ensuring that the person who recommended the applicant is not also their tutor / mentor in the initial employment stages and trials.
Xander,
Do you have a program that rewards employees for referring other employees to your school?
My employer has a policy that rewards the recommending employee when the recommended employee completes six months successfully. It is not a significant amount, but it is a way of saying thanks.
Our school uses several methods to recruit instructors, internal postings, school website, and CareerBuilder.com. I have been priviledged to also locate instructora via my networks, and also from other faculty recommendations. I believe the Internet ads can be improved by being more specific with KSAO's. Some of the very generic written instructor ads generate far too many unqualified applicants.
Thanks, Tammy!
Can you please give an example of an ad that is "too generic?"
Besides all the methods others have mentioned in these discussion threads I use our College's HRIS system. Applications are taken on our school's website. I can search the applications using various criteria as part of the search; such as campus location, the level of degree, pay requirements, etc. When we have a specific need HR can advertise the position needed using some KSAO attibutes in the ad and then I can search those specific applications. It's a lot easier and much quicker than the old method of reading through tens, if not hundreds, of paper resumes!
For chef instructors we reach out to the culinary community. There is a never ending source of qualified chefs looking to change from working in the industry to teaching. The KSAOs are important tool when interviewing this type candidate,working chefs don't always translate into great instructor. For our FS classes most recently we use HRB and found two qualified instructors and are happy with them at this point.
Our best hires have come from referrals. Once someone is in the job, experiences positive results, they almost always want to share our institution with a friend. I've kept a file of resumes sent to me. Some I speak with almost quarterly as they want to know if we have "openings"? I generally make a point of saying who do you know and frequently find referrals.
Our advisory board is another good source of instructors and referrals. I use the board meetings to network and have found some instructors that way or were referred to someone else by a board meember.
Our advisory board members have been invaluable. Many of our members work for or own staffing companies. I actually just found an excellent MRT instructor via one of our advisory board members. As you know, finding qualified/credentialed MRT instructors are very difficult to find.
Tony,
What do see as the one or two characteristics that chefs who do not turn out to be good instructors share?
Tammy,
Thanks for this post. Advisory Boards and referrals from other faculty often provide some of the best faculty members. How do you approach your Advisory Board when you want o talk to them about teaching positions?
Susan,
Thanks for this post. Advisory Boards and faculty referrals are among the best methods of identifying candidates for teaching positions.
How do you approach Advisory Board members when you are looking for teachers?
Dave,
Technology has really change the way we fill teaching vacancies on our campuses. Do you see an challenges wit hthis type of process that may not have exited when all we had was the "old mthod?"
I have hired many staff in previous jobs, but at my school I have been a second person to interview candidates. I know we do get random calls inquiring about teaching positions, or clinical instructors will get leads or have friends that were interested in teaching. Another method that has worked in a past position; when we could not find qualified therapists. We held educational sessions for professionals and would get leads that way. Especially if the education was geared toward the type of expertise we were looking for. If good leads are gone brainstorming new ways to find contacts may help.
Referrals are the number one way we recruit instructors. Unfortunately we are usually in a time crunch and I would like to have more time to explore other avenues of recruitement. We are a small school with a small budget at this point. I know that quality instruction is critical to retention and happy students.
I take advantage of the advisory board meetings to connect with members. Observing board members speak and relate with others is a good way to do a preliminary, silent screening of abilities. Further conversation is also good as most of the time I don't reveal my own agenda to them until I'm confident that they would make a good instructor. If they are not interested, often they know of people who might have an interest in teaching.
Susan,
Good points! Thanks for sharing your experiences.
Annette,
Holding educational sessions related to the positions you are seeking is an interesting approach to identifying candidates. Thanks for sharing that with us.
I think there could be a challenge to the candidate who is applying online. That's the only way we will accept an application is via online. So it's possilbe if the candidate doesn't complete the whole process accurately then they might not show up in my search. For example, I have had instances where a person has indicated their degree is in General Education. (It's surprising how many people don't know the exact major on thier transcript!) In this case, the person's degree was in Psychology, which is what I was searching for in the process. It's possible I could miss the qualified candidate. So, it is a challenge for us, too.
I agree Dave. Sometimes in an effort to not miss a potential candidate, I will look at all resumes and this can be a daunting task with the large number of resumes in the system.
The keyword search is helpful but also can do more harm than good--too many or too few.
