Every college in the UK is battling a teacher shortage right now. But that doesn’t mean there are no great teachers out there for you to recruit – it just means you need to work harder to attract them.
This is why a strong recruitment marketing strategy that makes your college stand out from the crowd is so critical. Here are some recruitment marketing ideas for colleges you can implement today that will help you attract and hire the best educators – even when they’re not looking for a new role.
Create a college career site
If a candidate visits your college's website, how easy is it for them to find your current vacancies? Is it even clear from your website that you’re hiring right now? It’s always surprising how many colleges make this sort of information hard to find on their website, if they even provide it at all.
Having a dedicated career site should be at the core of every college's recruitment marketing strategy. You can use this virtual space to highlight your unique culture, values, and all the benefits that come with working at your college.
With the right recruitment marketing software, you’ll also be able to add a jobs widget that includes information about every job opening and an easy way for them to apply to your roles without leaving your website.
Build a strong employer brand
Your employer brand is the strand of your marketing that focuses specifically on promoting your college to future employees rather than students.
How are you selling your college as a great place to work? Can candidates learn everything they need to know by reading through pages of your website, your social media channels or on your college's Google Business page?
Share success stories of your current teachers to showcase your college's unique selling points, such as innovative teaching methods, extracurricular programs, or the fact you nurture a supportive work environment. Basically, any content you can share that tells candidates a move to your college will be great for their work satisfaction and their career.
Take a multi-channel approach
Great job ad marketing is not just about publishing your job ads on the best further education job boards (although that certainly helps!). It’s also about publishing them across as many channels as possible. By casting your net as wide as possible, this ensures you don’t miss out on great educators just because they’re not looking in the ‘right’ places.
So aside from specialist further education recruitment sites like FEjobs, you should also be publishing your adverts on the big job boards like Indeed, Monster and CV Library. You could also post them on your local authority’s website or on this dedicated teaching jobs page on the UK Government website.
If you’re worried that this all sounds like a lot of work, don’t worry - recruitment software like FEjobs also has a job advert broadcasting feature that allows you to publish your ads to multiple websites in just a few clicks.
Run a targeted social media campaign
It’s worth remembering that a lot of the best educators won’t be actively looking for new roles, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be tempted by the right opportunity if it comes along. So how do you get your vacancies in front of these candidates?
Publishing your job ads in places where these passive candidates will actually be spending time online (and spoiler alert: that isn’t job boards!) is how. And this is where targeted social media campaigns can be really effective.
On sites like Facebook and Instagram, you can post tailored ads that appear to narrow audiences based on specific criteria like location and profession. Many businesses avoid social media marketing due to costs, but the narrower your audience is, the less expensive your campaign will be. Therefore, this type of targeted social media marketing can be really cost-effective for colleges.
Not sure how to do this? Don’t worry. With the right recruitment software, you can put your job advert in front of even more candidates, without doing any of the work. In-house digital marketing experts can design and post sponsored ads across Facebook and Instagram on behalf of your college to promote your chosen vacancy, as well as provide reporting on the success of the campaign, and source tracking to identify which applicants came from those social posts.
Have a college referral program
Have you ever thought about running a referral program at your college? If you look into the success rates of referral programs in any industry, you’ll see why this is a good idea. For example, referred employees will stay in a company 70% longer than other employees hired by any other means.
And when you think about it, it makes sense: no educator at your college is going to recommend another educator to come and work at your college unless they’re confident they would be a right fit.
Running a program that encourages existing staff to refer qualified candidates is therefore an excellent form of recruitment marketing that colleges shouldn’t miss out on. What you offer employees as a referral incentive is entirely up to you, but bonuses, professional development opportunities, or another form of official recognition for successful referrals can be equally appealing to staff.
Send recruitment email campaigns
If you’ve been growing your candidate database with role-specific talent pools filled with candidates suited to particular roles, this is an email marketing goldmine. If you haven’t been using talent pools, here’s why you should.
As soon as a new vacancy comes up that’s relevant to candidates in a particular talent pool, send a tailored email to them directly through your recruitment software.
If you have an email marketing list but no talent pools yet, you should still be sending them occasional emails to keep your college on their radar. For example, you could send them a marketing email that showcases the benefits of working at your school and is followed up with links to all the live jobs you currently have available. Whatever your college's candidate database looks like – email marketing should be part of your marketing strategy.
By implementing a combination of these recruitment marketing strategies at your college, you’ll stand out miles above other colleges who aren’t thinking about marketing yet. And with the right messages, you’ll be able to attract qualified teachers who align with your college's values, even if they’re not actively looking for a new role.
If you’d like to know more about how FEjobs can support your college in implementing all the recruitment marketing strategies mentioned in this article, get in touch to request a call.
About the author
Katie Paterson
Katie Paterson is a writer and digital marketer specialising in recruitment, marketing, HR technology, and business growth. She lives in Glasgow, Scotland.