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How To Hire Education Staff

How To Hire Education Staff
Post Series: How to Hire

Education recruitment is something many UK schools, colleges, universities, and other educational institutions often find challenging. Demand for qualified teachers, school leaders, and teaching assistants is as high as the roles are challenging, so any recruitment strategy needs to be exemplary if it is to be successful. Failing to hire staff, or hiring poor quality talent, can make it almost impossible to hit tough performance targets and maintain, earn, or regain a reputation for excellence.

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It is imperative to leverage recruitment solutions that are not overly time consuming or costly. This is the focus of our schools and education staff hiring guide, where we discuss:

  • Preparing To Recruit Education Staff: Your Employer Brand & Company Careers Page
  • Writing An Education Staff Job Description & Job Advert
  • How To Hire All Education Staff
  • Advertising Your Education Department Positions: Referral Schemes, Social Media, & Job Boards
  • Reducing Education Staff Hiring Costs And Time: Recruitment Companies & ATS
  • Screening Job Seekers & Conducting Interviews
  • Presenting A Job Offer & Onboarding Education Staff

Preparing To Recruit Education Staff: Your Employer Brand & Company Careers Page

How To Recruit Education Staff

Before you begin active recruitment for high quality staff, you should review all your existing candidate touchpoints to ensure you are promoting a positive employer brand and a school environment where a teaching career can flourish. You will ultimately only secure the best education specialists if you show that you are a highly desirable employer where teaching assistants to teachers and leaders will want to work.

The initial step is to consider how you portray your culture, company values, and your teaching success, along with other elements such as supporting further teacher training and career development. In our Guide On How To Hire, we explore deeper the topics of Why Should SMEs Build An Employer Brand and What Should Be On A Company Careers Page.

Writing An Education Staff Job Description & Job Advert

Job Description For Educational Settings And Schools

You can only write an accurate job description and job advert once you have examined your teaching needs. It will make a big difference in the long run if you speak to key decision makers in the hiring process, including the position’s line manager:

Education Job Descriptions

Writing a job description for a qualified teachers and support assistants for schools will help your recruiter save time and speed up the recruitment process. The best practice is to have one on file for all school positions, which can be quickly updated and used to create job postings whenever recruitment needs arise.

For Search Engine Optimisation, it is a good practice to integrate keywords and key phrases that the right candidate might search for in a search engine. The job specification and teacher profile should have a clear message to attract the most suitable candidates. It also helps to refrain from using excessive punctuation and too much industry jargon.

When writing a job description for education staff, consider:

  1. Identifying and outlining typical school-wide requirements
  2. Collating today’s minimum technical skills, qualifications, teaching methods, rec. guidelines, and experience for workers in the education sector
  3. Reviewing what other institutes in the education sector are saying when they post jobs
  4. What your new teaching staff should look like
  5. How you want your teaching brand to be perceived

Download Job Advert Template

Our Job Description Templates can help you get started; we appreciate writing this content in manner that will attract the best staff can be a challenge. You can discover the most popular Education Job Descriptions here.

Further useful resources include How To Define What People Do In Their JobsPreparing Job Descriptions, and Key Roles And Responsibilities In Education.

Education Job Adverts

Your education job descriptions form the basis of your new job ad. There are other things to add to attract the perfect candidate with appropriate skills, so ensure your teacher or school support staff job ad includes:

  1. An accurate job title – supply teachers, teaching assistants, support assistants, intervention specialists, music teachers, children behaviour mentors, site supervisors, etc
  2. An opening statement – saying why education professionals will want to work for your school
  3. The teachers’ job’s description
  4. A list of teachers’ responsibilities – providing early years education to rec. guidelines, guiding the behaviour of young people, creating lesson plans, maintaining a safe learning environment, grading learners, speaking to parents, organising the daily supply of learning materials, etc
  5. Qualifications, personality traits, working knowledge and specific skills – Bachelor of Education, Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Science, qualified teacher status (QTS accredited member), early years teacher status (EYTS), patience, organisation, children motivation, sensitivity, excellent verbal communication skills, etc
  6. Schools’ location – school-based or remote learning
  7. Salary range and employee benefits – check the average salary for all teaching staff and school support staff
  8. Next steps – teaching candidates interested in our job opportunities should email xxx or apply via your careers page

We recommend that primary schools to private and higher education schools use a job advert template to get down the basics and then fill in more detail on the unique aspects of your school, team, jobs, and ideal candidate.

How To Hire All Education Staff

HOW TO HIRE A TEACHING ASSISTANT

To hire a Teaching Assistant, your job ad needs to describe your facilities, age of students, subjects, and teaching values. Set out what constitutes a qualified candidate, such as holding a teaching diploma and excellent communication.

Job duties that attract candidates include assisting individual students or groups of learners, ensuring the learning environment is safe, preparing lessons in conjunction with teachers, and encouraging good behaviours.

Teaching Assistant Job Description Example

Post A Teaching Assistant Job

HOW TO HIRE A TEACHER

To hire a Teacher, your job advertisement should clarify if employment is with a private school or public authority. Include links to where teachers can discover more about your organisation. Also, add essential qualifications such as a teaching degree and qualified teachers status.

Responsibilities that will entice applicants include providing inspiration to learners, grading coursework and tests, delivering educational activities and the national curriculum, and meeting with parents to convey progress. 

Teacher Job Description Example

Post A Teacher Job

HOW TO HIRE A NURSERY NURSE

To hire a Nursery Nurse and high-quality staff for your childcare business, start by sharing the advantages of working with young people and your team. Your job ad should state what constitutes a suitable candidate, covering certificates in first aid, NVQ childcare qualifications, and children and young people’s workforce certificate.

Duties to expand upon include preparing educational activities, building parent relationships, preparing drinks and meals, ensuring child safety and taking appropriate actions when illness or accidents occurs.

Nursery Nurse Job Description Example

Post A Nursery Nurse Job

HOW TO HIRE A PHYSICAL EDUCATION (PE) TEACHER

To hire a PE Teacher, leverage job board advertising supported by the school’s social media and careers page. The physical education recruitment text needs to include a list of traits and education, such as a relevant degree, passion for sports, and excellent physical fitness.

Enticing job duties include encouraging sports and physical activity inclusion, teaching techniques and skills, documenting participation and progress, and liaising with parents and the wider teaching team.

Physical Education Teacher Job Description Example

Post A Physical Education Teacher Job

HOW TO HIRE A NURSERY ASSISTANT

To hire a Nursery Assistant, begin by describing why candidates should work for you, considering your facilities, equipment, values, and employee benefits. Clearly state the skills and qualifications the right candidates will have, including an early years care NVQ.

Attractive nursery assistant duties include planning play activities, ensuring children’s safety, recording incidents, papering drinks and snacks, and communicating with other care professionals and parents.

Nursery Assistant Job Description Example

Post A Nursing Assistant Job

HOW TO HIRE A NURSERY PRACTITIONER

To hire a Nursery Practitioner, it will help if you develop a recruitment text that describes employee benefits, your organisation, and the values you hold. A person profile will help you secure applications from suitable individuals and may include an early years care NVQ.

The right candidate may be intrigued by job duties such as planning activities, acting as a role model and rewarding good behaviour, taking responsibility for children’s safety and well-being, and delivering the Early Years Foundation curriculum.

Nursery Practitioner Job Description Example

Post A Nursery Practitioner Job

HOW TO HIRE A SENCO

To hire a SENCO (Special Education Needs Coordinator), your school can leverage our SENCO job description template, adding unique aspects of your school, its mission, and values. To complete the job ad, select your special education recruitment needs, such as a teaching degree or postgraduate qualification.

Download Job Advert Template

To encourage the best staff to apply, set out critical responsibilities, including providing learning assistance, overseeing or implementing the SENCO policy, providing resources to parents, and working with individuals with special needs.

SENCO Job Description Example

Post A Special Education Needs Coordinator (SENCO) Job

HOW TO HIRE AN EARLY YEARS PRACTITIONER

To hire an Early Years Practitioner, your early learning nursery or preschool should layout its requirements and clarify how candidates should apply. Suitable candidates will have good health and safety knowledge, be able to follow your policies, and have appropriate childcare qualifications.

You can entice applicants by describing duties such as following the Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum, nurturing good behaviours, and delivering a high standard of teaching.

Early Years Practitioner Job Description Example

Post An Early Years Practitioner Job

HOW TO HIRE A NANNY

To hire a Nanny, begin by stating if employment is through a daycare facility or a direct contract with the parent, conducted from their home. A nanny with a child development qualification can be advantageous, and the person should have good organisation and communication skills.

A nanny’s desirable duties and tasks include acting as behaviour mentors, ensuring the child’s environment is safe, preparing drinks and meals, changing nappies, and responding correctly to sickness or accidents.

Nanny Job Description Example

Post A Nanny Job

HOW TO HIRE A NURSERY MANAGER

To hire a Nursery Manager, briefly give your company specification and include relevant links to your careers page, social media channels, or about us page. Leadership skills and experience will be on your requirements list, along with qualifications like a diploma in childhood practice.

Your advertisement needs to cover all vital responsibilities, such as hiring and appraising staff, setting work schedules and authorising leave, managing parent relationships, ensuring child safety, and organising learning-based activities.

Nursery Manager Job Description Example

Post A Nursery Manager Job

HOW TO HIRE A PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHER

To hire a Primary School Teacher, describe the size of your school and provide links to where applicants can find out more about your learning establishment. Your job description should cover desirable soft skills, qualifications, and subject specialisation.

The enticing job duties that may raise applicant numbers include developing lesson plans, delivering lessons to children and ensuring their understanding, creating development reports, reviewing them with parents, and identifying children’s support needs.

Primary School Teacher Job Description Example

Post A Primary School Teacher Job

HOW TO HIRE A HIGHER LEVEL TEACHING ASSISTANT

To hire a Higher Level Teaching Assistant, you should state your learning objectives and type of facility. To attract a good candidate match, create a traits and skills profile defining your must-haves and nice-to-haves.

The HLTA job summary can include duties such as supporting students’ learning goals, building relationships and trust, assessing individuals, and supporting teachers.

Higher Level Teaching Assistant Job Description Example

Post A High Level Teaching Assistant (HLTA) Job

Advertising Your Education Department Positions: Referral Schemes, Social Media, & Job Boards

Advertising To Attract The Right Candidate For Learning And Support Staff

With your job ad in hand, you are ready to begin education recruitment. To recruit teachers and education specialists, your hiring strategy might include posting your jobs:

Internally (Employee Referral Schemes)

A non-incentivised or incentivised employee referral scheme is extremely valuable and cost effective when you want to hire for permanent and temporary roles . You will turn your existing teaching faculty into motivated recruiters, sharing that you are recruiting new teaching team members across their social and professional networks (LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter).

Employee referral schemes often bring in promising candidates, with your team having connections with like-minded teaching professionals and industry contacts. To engage this teacher recruiting strategy, share your job descriptions with your team and reward referrals from existing education and teaching staff.

You can discover a few valuable tips on employee referral schemes by reading Introducing An Employee Referral Scheme.

On Social Media

Hiring for temporary or permanent vacancies through social networking sites is effective, with free and paid advertising options. Our top tip for success include ensuring your social network messaging is consistent with your school and employer brand and conveys a positive image. An active social media channel is helpful if you want to build a talent pool waiting for an opportunity to join your school. Recommended activity includes posting school news, expert opinions from specialist teams, updates, and industry insights.

Our tips and advice for implementing a successful social media recruitment strategy include:

  • Marketing yourself first
  • Joining industry networks and groups
  • Engaging with respondents and nurturing discussions
  • Using advanced search tools and Recruiter Lite on LinkedIn
  • Using Twitter’s advanced search tool and direct messaging
  • Building activity on your company’s Facebook page and encouraging engagement from current teacher and support staff, turning them into school advocates

We explore finding qualified teachers through social media further in our articles Social Media Hiring Strategies For SMEs and Job Advertising On Social Media.

On Job Boards

Whether your new hire is your first or your hundredth, advertising for teachers on the top job boards is essential if you want to be hiring the right candidates in an acceptable timeframe. You can post about your schools recruitment needs on one job board, or many using an Applicant Tracking System. Job board resellers help you advertise your education jobacross multiple general, geographical, and niche job sites using their integrated ATS software, minimising the hassle and time of developing leads and hiring a successful candidate.

Download Job Advert Template

Top Job Boards:

Niche Job Sites:

Aggregator Job Sites:

Geographical Job Sites:

You can advertise your job on these job boards today.

Reducing Education Staff Hiring Costs And Time: Recruitment Companies & ATS

Reducing Hiring Costs For Advertising And Your Recruitment Needs

Budgets, deadlines, and administration require careful consideration whenever you instigate the recruitment process. To get the best results, you may decide to work with a recruitment agency with a UK wide focus, a global recruitment partner, or niche recruitment agencies.

We discuss agency fees and recruiters in these two articles; How To Avoid High Recruitment Agency Fees and The Pros And Cons Of Having A Recruiter On Retainer.

Fixed Cost Recruitment Process

Fixed-cost recruitment allows you to hire at a flat fee governed by the level of service and functionality you desire.

The success of fixed-cost recruitment depends on the company offering the service, the methodologies they deploy, and their expertise and knowledge of your industry or other sectors. You will need to determine which actions you need assistance with to use flat-fee recruitment successfully.

Four steps to leveraging fixed cost recruitment to hire an educator or support teacher:

  1. Place ads across leading job boards
  2. Search CV databases and social media channels
  3. Headhunt and shortlist new candidates
  4. Receive interviewed and qualified candidates

Useful resources:

Applicant Tracking Systems

Automatic Tracking Systems can significantly reduce the costs of hiring for permanent roles and supply teachers by creating efficiency. Candidate, vacancy, and advert management fall within the software’s parameters.

Team access creates a unified place to work, helping you build a seamless hiring process and candidate experience.

Five steps to centralising recruitment with ATS:

  1. Find supply teachers and staff to fill permanent roles online
  2. Review interested candidates’ scores
  3. Distribute personalised messages to a large pool of candidates
  4. Automate responses
  5. Direct teacher candidates to application forms

To explore all the features and benefits of Automatic Tracking Systems, read Centralising Recruitment With ATS.

Screening Job Seekers & Conducting Interviews

Screening And Interviewing School Teachers For Permanent Roles

Before your interview process commences, you need to shortlist teacher applicants by reviewing their CVs or resumes. Indications that you have a teachers worth interviewing include:

  • Quantifiable evidence of past achievements and skills
  • The individual has steady career progression
  • The candidate is not job-hopping
  • The CV is free from spelling and grammatical errors
  • The candidate has the relevant experience, knowledge of teaching and learning principles, and specific skills to meet the job requirements

Decision-makers and hiring managers need to be prepared to deliver a consistent interview experience. It helps to ask the same interview questions to each teacher, to aid candidate scoring. Ensure anyone who has candidate contact is on the same page and understands the school’ vision, values and opportunities. Interviews should be challenging, supportive, positive, and engaging.

Video interviews are an increasingly popular recruitment solution, saving on resources and speeding up the recruitment process. Video sharing, shortlisting, and feedback from hiring and line managers ultimately generate more successful outcomes. If your school has not conducted a video interview before, read How To Conduct A Remote Interview.

Our article Defining Your Interview Process, discusses interview questions, avoiding unconscious bias & other issues, and interviewing tips.

Presenting A Job Offer & Onboarding Education Staff

Presenting An Offer To Permanent Teachers And Early Years Educators

When you have finished interviewing candidates and believe you have the right person for your education role, you will need to present an offer and onboard the temporary or permanent teacher or support teacher:

Making An Employment Offer

The process of presenting the offer to teachers and support professionals varies depending on what has occurred before. If you don’t already understand the individual’s current earnings, expectations are better managed over the phone. Phone offers should be confident but be prepared to make changes if the teacher’ circumstances have changed. Reaffirm that the candidate is happy with the offer, clarify their acceptance, and proceed to a formal written offer, in the same way you would for any school employees.

A formal offer letter from schools can be conditional (dependent on an enhanced DBS check, etc) or unconditional and should include:

  • Job title
  • Candidate name
  • Your conditions – i.e., this offer is made subject to an enhanced DBS check, etc
  • Official start date, time, and location
  • Probationary period
  • Offer terms
  • Candidate actions and acceptance instructions – i.e., signed copy of job offer
  • Terms and conditions of employment (issued within two months of the start date)

You can read further on Presenting A Job Offer here.

Onboarding Teachers And Training Staff

Download Job Advert Template

The onboarding process should support teachers as they become part of your school’ team.

Actions for onboarding teachers and education staff might include:

  • Creating an employer identification number
  • Presenting teachers with an school employee handbook
  • A school tour, introducing the person to their manager, team, and students
  • Informing teachers of school communication methods and exactly what type of learning and training software they will use in the new role
  • Presenting clear responsibilities and duties
  • Defining training expectations, standards, and learning performance indicators
  • Gathering feedback from new teachers

Education Recruitment FAQs

Here we answer your education recruitment questions.

Where can I advertise permanent and supply teacher jobs?

Schools can post jobs on/in:

1. General job boards
2. Niche job boards
3. Geographical job boards
4. Local newspapers
5. Social networking sites

What are the steps in the hiring process?

Hiring process steps include:

1. Assess school and children needs and write a job description and advert
2. Leverage social networks and teachers’ referrals
3. Post jobs on general and school-focused job boards
4. Use a fixed cost recruitment strategy
5. Present an employment offer to teachers and school support staff

How can I attract candidates for teaching jobs?

Begin by choosing an accurate job title and creating a job description. Focus on the support you offer teachers and learning staff and be open-minded about bringing in teaching staff from other sectors who have transferable skills.

What should I look for when hiring teachers?

Your job description should be a guide and when job ads send schools candidates, you can screen them against the role’s profile.

What are the titles of teachers and teaching assistants?

There are many titles that will help send schools applications from teachers and support assistants that are qualified to help and support young people, children, and adult students, including:

1. Intervention specialists
2. Behaviour mentors
3. Permanent teachers and assistant teachers
4. Physical education teachers

How To Hire Staff In Different Sectors

Find our recruitment guides for different sectors below:

All Education Job Descriptions

Post All Education Jobs

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