The recruitment market in education is more competitive than ever, so standing out amongst the crowd with clear communication, a strong employer brand and easy to use, fast and efficient processes for both candidates and your hiring team are key to ensuring your college sets itself above the rest.
Make a good impression by following the below advice:
1. Build your employer brand
Enhancing your employer brand is a sure-fire way to attract candidates that are right for your college. Before applying for a role, candidates will spend time researching colleges to understand their values, ethos and other variables.
Make a good impression and strengthen your employer brand by following the below advice:
Build a strong Career Page/Career Site
Stand out from the crowd with an attractive and candidate-friendly Career Page or Career Site that’s easy to navigate and promotes your college in its best light.
Develop your job adverts
One of the first things candidates will do is read the job advert. Ensure it outlines the role clearly, as well as advertising development opportunities, benefits and what makes your college the employer of choice.
Enhance your social media presence
Include your college’s social pages on your Career Page or Career Site to give candidates an insight into what it’s like to work for your college. Social media is a great opportunity to show staff appreciation and promote how active the staff and students are within the college and wider community.
Create eye-catching video content
With a Premium licence, you can upload videos to your Career Site and social platforms to significantly increase engagement with the content you send out. Create a video that makes your college stand out from the crowd to really enhance your employer brand.
All of these strategies are possible via your Client Portal. For more support, speak to your dedicated Customer Success Manager.
2. Draw more eyes to your vacancies
Attracting the right candidates to your job advert is something recruiters are always striving to do. Increase your chances of relevant eyes on your job by following a few steps.
Use a frequently used job title
When you start to enter your job title, pay attention to the drop-down options that show below – these are recommended to you based on the popularity of our candidates’ search terms. Choosing a well-used search term will ensure your jobs get seen by more relevant candidates – so if you’re looking for a Second in Maths, consider using a more common title such as “Maths Lecturer” instead and go into more detail on the role in the job advert.
Categorise, categorise, categorise!
If you select one of our recommended job title options, we will populate your job’s categorisation as best as we can using what we know about the chosen job title and your college. However, it’s always worth checking the auto-populated terms and make changes where needed. Your chosen categorisation feeds directly into our job search and the job alerts which candidates set up, so getting this right is vital.
Dip into your Talent Pool
Once your job is posted, your Client Portal will highlight matching candidates from your Talent Pool. These are a great starting point for finding a suitable candidate; why not practice proactive recruiting by assigning the most suitable candidates to your vacancy and invite them to apply?
Social sharing
Share your current vacancies on your college’s social media channels for some additional exposure. Tech-savvy candidates that are interested in your college will most likely be following you on social media, so showcasing your latest vacancies in this way is a great way to generate interest in your roles.
3. Streamline the application process
In a fast-moving world with current jobs taking up a lot of time and energy, candidates don’t want to fill out a lengthy application form.
Our solution to this is simple: the online application form. Faster, fully mobile optimised and with inbuilt reference management, candidates can complete applications quickly and easily with necessary information prepopulated via their FEjobs profiles. On the FEjobs job board we are now seeing over 70% of traffic coming from mobile devices, so using our mobile-friendly application method is a no-brainer.
What’s more, previous surveys carried out by FEjobs have shown that candidates are put off applying for jobs with arduous application forms, and our data proves this as jobs using our online application method generally receive a third more applications than jobs using another application method.
4. Stay in contact with your applicants
Consistent communication is key to securing the candidates you want the most. This ensures they are kept well-informed throughout your recruitment process, nurturing a positive relationship before you even make a decision.
For efficiency, we have best practice email templates built into our system, meaning you can keep track of all communications with past and present candidates all in one place. You also have the ability to create your own templates to store and use throughout your school or share amongst your group if applicable.
Top tips for email communications
- Portray your college’s voice in an engaging, professional and friendly way
- Manage their expectations with timelines
- Create automated responses for receiving applications and scheduling interviews
- Ensure a main contact is clear and accessible for any questions they may have
5. Ensure a positive interview experience
A negative interview experience can change a candidate’s mind when it comes to accepting a job offer. Maintaining consistent communication and ensuring the candidate knows exactly what they need prior to interview is key.
Provide a schedule for the day, name the interviewers and ensure dates and times are clear. A post-interview email thanking them for attending and managing their expectations for when they can expect to hear back also goes a long way to building a positive candidate experience.
You can schedule and run online interviews using Teams, Zoom and other platforms directly through your Client Portal, plus you can use our interview email templates to save time.
6. Provide valuable feedback for future applications
Interviews can be intimidating and there’s nothing worse than leaving an interview unsure of whether it went well or not. Don’t just forget about unsuccessful candidates; provide constructive feedback they can take on board for the future.
We’ve built email templates for this scenario into our Client Portal for ease of use to save you time in your recruitment process. What’s more, if you have a strong “silver medallist” that didn’t quite make the cut, keep in touch with them and when the time comes you can assign them to a suitable role, copying their previous application across if applicable.
Read our blog How to reject a candidate (the right way) for more advice.
Don’t have an FEjobs Premium licence? Speak to your Customer Success Manager today to discuss an upgrade.
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About the author
Tammy Lane
After completing a BA in Creative Writing and a Masters in Creative and Critical Writing at the University of Winchester, Tammy worked as a Learning Support Assistant, with a focus on helping students develop their literacy skills. She then taught as an English teacher at an all-boys comprehensive school in Berkshire. Now she has turned her sights to a career in writing, with education at the heart of it.