How one school is utilizing HR tech to hire incredible teachers that truly make a difference.

America’s public schools face many challenges, from funding to keeping up with rapid innovation in other industries. Today, the number of teachers is dwindling, with enrollment in US teaching programs falling by 15 percent between 2006 and 2015, leaving many to wonder how schools will find quality educators to prepare the next generation for future challenges.

With the literal future at stake, many schools are stepping up to the challenge by harnessing tech to find the next crop of inspirational educators. One such institution achieving success in rocky terrain is Uncommon Schools, the public charter school whose handy use of tech successfully scaled their employer brand and advertising reach to attract, select, and hire educators to staff all of their 54 locations in six cities across the Northeast.

The results speak for themselves, with 99 percent of Uncommon School’s students being accepted into four-year colleges since 1997, and 76 percent of students earning—or are on track to earn—a bachelor’s degree. This is an amazing feat, considering that 82 percent of the students they serve come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. 

We caught up with Amanda Craft, Senior Director of Recruitment for Uncommon schools, at Hiring Success 19 to discover the recruiting strategy that finds teachers who produce such outstanding results. 

If you want to learn more about Hiring Success EU – Amsterdam, September 10-11, 2019, check out our agenda here!

What are the challenges that your schools face when hiring teachers?

Right now we’re in the midst of a national teacher shortage. There are more teachers leaving the profession than entering, so we have to be both creative and competitive to bring in the top talent and get them excited about coming to our schools.

Diversity is also very important to us, especially since 95 percent of our students are black or Latino, and 85 percent qualify for free or reduced-price lunch.  According to a John Hopkins University study, students of color who have at least one teacher of color in elementary schools are more likely to pursue a college education. So, we place a strong emphasis on recruiting people of color to join our team and lead our schools. It is super important to us that our students see themselves reflected in the people who teach, lead, and guide them. I am proud to say that over 50 percent of our teachers and staff are people of color, compared to a national average of just 18 percent. 

How do you navigate these issues?

We’re doing a lot of brand awareness. We are making sure that people know that our schools are committed to being both joyful and rigorous, full of love and learning, and fiercely dedicated to closing the achievement gap. We also ensure that aspiring and experienced educators know our schools are great places for people looking to develop their craft and grow professionally in a strong teaching environment.

How is your team leveraging HR tech in this process?

Since we’re hiring for over 50 schools, and the majority of our candidates are millennials, technology has become a huge part of our recruiting process. HR technology helps us advertize our job postings and digital branding across platforms like LinkedIn, Handshake, and Glassdoor—all through our SmartRecruiters Talent Acquisition Suite (TAS). 

…And what results have you seen thus far?

Since we implemented our new HR technology, we’ve seen a 95 percent increase in applications in the first 30 days after launch. We’ve seen a 60 percent increase in applications and triple the number of leads collected at career fairs. We’ve also doubled the number of conversions from staff referrals into applications. In part, a lot of this success is due to features like automated email messages sent to candidates saying, ‘We’re so excited you’re interested. If you fill out an application, it’ll increase your chances of getting a job.’ That is happening without my recruiter needing to go in and decide who should receive an email.

Additionally, we’ve significantly diversified our sources and improved our job board integrations since using SmartRecruiters. The overall result has not only been an increase in application volume but also the quality – We’ve seen a 93% increase in the number of teacher candidates who qualified for an interview compared to last year despite needing to fill fewer openings.

How has your organization’s candidate experience changed?

Filling out the application is much easier. We’ve already seen an increase in application completions since we implemented SmartRecruiters versus what we were doing before. Furthermore, we now use scorecards and reviews to ensure consistency of interviews across our regions.  We have made it so that when we are hiring someone in Newark they have the same candidate experience as someone in New York City and we’re looking at the same criteria to evaluate both candidates. One of the ways we are eliminating biases is with an objective candidate and interview experience. 

What are you looking at in terms of optimization going into the future?

We’re capturing more data about each candidate through the full-cycle recruitment process. Our long-term goal is to connect the lead and applicant information to how successful the new hire is in the classroom. In the end, we could potentially source more great teachers by tracking all of the information to where we found them and what motivated them to apply.

Any reflections on recruiting in the education industry?

If you don’t have the right people in the building, you’re never going to be successful. The number one indicator of a student’s future is the adult in front of the classroom. The teacher is an essential factor in a student’s ability to grasp a concept or master a standard. Once a school attracts and retains those key difference makers, they have the ability to coach and develop other teachers, as well as create a strong culture that allows students to flourish. 

People are the backbone of any organization. That is undoubtedly true in education, Uncommon Schools and almost any organization for that matter.

See more from leaders like Amanda in the next part of the blog series – 10 Things I learned at Hiring Success – where we find out what it is like hiring for a global industry in transition with Jonathan Mears of Visa

Could HR Tech save America’s public schools before it’s too late?

• • Hundreds of thousands of teachers leave the profession each year, costing the government an estimated 2.2 billion dollars annually.

• • Enrollment in teaching programs has dropped 10 percent since 2005.

• • Teachers cite negative work culture as primary reasons for leaving.

• The US is no longer among top-performing countries on the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA).

“We’re not leaving!” shouted thousands of educators occupying the Oklahoma state capitol building. It was the second day of a statewide teacher walkout, one that would inspire similar protests across the southwestern United States in the following months. Punctuated by rhythmic clapping, the chant on April 2nd held an uncomfortable irony, however, in that teachers are leaving. And in droves.

The exodus of certified K-12 teachers in the US  – at a rate of about eight percent annually – has become as much of a back-to-school routine as buying a new backpack. And though the teachers’ nationwide median attrition rate – twice that of Finland and Ontario, Canada – makes the news cycle for a brief moment every autumn, the root causes have yet to be adequately addressed.

“We’re set to fail from the beginning,” says Jocelyn Good, a second-grade teacher in Northern Illinois with five years’ experience, “with countless assessments assigned without the tools, time, or support to reach the expected goals.”

While Good says she plans to carry on into her sixth year and beyond, about 40 percent of American K-12 teachers won’t make it past year five.

“I wish people had an idea of what it’s really like on a daily basis,” reflects a former high-school teacher from eastern Washington. She asked to remain anonymous, so let’s call her Joanne. “I can think of no other job scrutinized to the same extent, and with very little support from the system it serves,” she says. “After two years I decided I couldn’t continue in a classroom full-time, simply because of the bureaucracy and nonsense involved.”

Now a high-school, college, and career specialist focused on working with high school students from low-income and first-generation families, Joanne recalls the constant pressure to prove one’s worth, often through required courses, to be paid for, out of pocket, by the teacher. She’d look at her acquaintances outside of teaching; people, like herself, graduates of four-year university programs and certified experts in their fields. These people seemed to be treated with respect and valued by their employers. Joanne’s husband for instance, an engineer, never had to foot the bill for government-mandated continued-learning courses, or purchase supplies for his employer with his own money.

Teacher attrition costs American public schools about 2.2 billion annually. To replace one teacher in an urban school district costs around $20,000 in recruitment and training alone, not to mention the emotional toll the constant turnover takes on the staff.

The Learning Policy Institute found that students perform better, and log fewer absences when instructed by an experienced teacher. Not only that, but new teachers perform better when they have more experienced colleagues. And yet, as of last September, 100,000 classrooms across the country were staffed with an under-qualified educator.

So how much experience is enough? The same Learning Policy Institute report indicates student gains are most significant in a teacher’s first three years, but continue to grow steadily over their career.

Thus far, the overwhelming response to the teacher shortage has been reactionary. US schools have started hiring from the Philippines, or alternatively-qualified teachers nearby, just to fill the gaps. While the hustle is laudable, it’s not a solution. Most of the foreign teachers aren’t eligible for long-term visas, and uncertified instructors are 25 percent more likely to leave. Schools stop-gapping like this are bound to find themselves in the same position the following year, only worse.

It’s not entirely low pay that’s pushing educators out of the profession. Though teachers make an average of 11.1 percent less than their peers in other industries (up from two percent in 1995), The Learning Policy Institute lists compensation as fourth on the list of why teachers quit, behind inadequate preparation (as in teachers who are uncertified or inadequately trained), lack of support for new teachers, and adverse working conditions.

The tech industry has heard the distress call, and platforms for monitoring group interactions have been popping up everywhere, from Slack bots that flag microaggressions, to AI that susses out team dynamics. In fact, the Human Capital Management market, as a whole, is forecasted to grow by almost thirty percent in the next five years, from $14.50 billion in 2017 to $21.51 billion in 2022.

“We are in a really interesting era for workplace culture, how it’s defined, and how it’s managed,” says Sarah Wilson, head of people for SmartRecruiters. “Technology has replaced so much of the ‘technical’ job requirements in so many industries that we are now, more than ever, relying on personal values and empathy as key attributes for success. As such, many companies (including ours) are spending time and energy in analyzing their company cultures and subcultures.”

Outside Topeka, Kansas, a district of just over 5,000 students is making great strides.

Brian White, Executive Director of Human Resources and Operations in Auburn-Washburn for the last six years, decided it was time for a change, so he switched their legacy applicant tracking software to SmartRecruiters a little over a year ago.

“Statistically, I’ve increased my applicant flow,” he notes, “and anecdotally, I’ve received positive feedback from teachers, who say it’s much easier than other districts to which they apply. The teacher talent pool in the United States is shrinking, which makes recruiting teachers a more competitive process. You don’t want to create barriers to completing an application.”

That’s not to say candidates in their pipeline are any less vetted than other districts, it’s that the initial buy-in is easier. From that point, the recruiters ask what they need and when they need it, thus engaging the applicant without overwhelming them with asks.

“Last decade technology” is how White describes his district’s old ATS. “It wasn’t mobile-friendly, and the interface wasn’t intuitive or easy to us.”

That description is sadly emblematic of most tech in public schools, where clunky software makes applying for open positions more difficult than it needs to be, and on the recruiter side, outdated tech makes it hard to get input from teachers and stakeholders from within the school.

“In the education application process,” White continues, “you have to provide a lot of information up front. You’re asked to upload references, letters of recommendation, transcripts, evaluations, resume, and cover letters. It can take up to three hours, whereas our initial application takes 10, 15 minutes, max.”

Hiring well is an important first step to creating a culture of respect and trust between teachers and administration. A collaborative process ensures that veteran teachers feel their input is valued when it comes to the recruitment of new staff, and a positive candidate experience ensure that workers feel respected from the beginning.

“I think building a sense of community among the teachers would help,” says Jocelyn Good, of her experience entering the world of public schools. “When you’re new, coming into a building of teachers that have worked together, sometimes it’s hard to be welcomed and you can feel like you are alone and have no support.”

And community is precisely what’s next on the agenda for White. “We are already looking at different ways to engage in the communication process more,” he says. “Right now there’s a negative stigma on teaching. So we have a challenge to change that perception of education as a profession to something positive. Teaching is something you should want to get into.”

Hear more from Brian at  Hiring Success 19 – Americas, February 26-27 in San Francisco. Check out last year’s highlights below!

At SmartRecruiters giving labor and ending unemployment are part of our mission. In Richmond, CA, Making Waves and their creative arts program, RAW Talent, are working to beat the odds in a community where you’re more likely to be involved in a crime than searching for a job.

Richmond, California is not the Bay Area people think of when they imagine Palo Alto, San Francisco or Berkeley. In Richmond, the crime index is more than twice the United States average. The unemployment rate is high at 13.8%. Gabriela Ruiz de Mejia, Lead College Advisor at Making Waves says, “It’s not the kind of place people want to invest in.” However, the Making Waves Education Program and RAW Talent are making heavy investments in the education and training of youth.

Making Waves Education and RAW Talent are a safe haven for the youth of Richmond.  At Making Waves, education is key. Their programs provide academic assistance, after-school programs, creative arts, and job development among many other things away from the distractions of the city. The idea is to support Wave Makers as holistically as possible, not only to get them to college, but also see them through it and help them get internships or jobs after.

Donte Clark, a former Wave Maker and the first RAW Talent student is now a Program Director at RAW Talent. Molly Raynor, RAW Talent’s founder and coordinator hired Donte soon after he graduate from high school in 2008, each year RAW Talent and Making Waves have been able to create jobs for the alumni within the program. Raynor says, “If I could, I would hire five more former students each year. We just don’t have the money.”

Making Waves and RAW Talent are setting an example. Investing in education and supporting students’ passions are the catalysts to positive change in a community that Donte Clark describes as, “the bottom of the bottom.”

At Making Waves and RAW Talent, Richmond youth are given the tools they need to take ownership of their futures. They have proven that all the kids need is support to exceed. 95% of all Wave Makers are the first in their families to go to college. According to Gabriela Ruiz de Mejia, upon graduation about 50% return to Making Waves and RAW Talent to support the program and future students. Each day they show there is more to Richmond than meets the eye.

RAW Talent is currently fundraising to finance, “Te’s Harmony” and “Romeo is Bleeding.” The documentary, “Romeo is Bleeding,” details the day-to-day of courageous youth in Richmond as they produce the play, “Te’s Harmony,” a re-write of Romeo and Juliet set in Richmond. The project aims to shed light on the culture of the city and strives to change the common dialogue of violence to peace and opportunity.

To learn more about RAW Talent Email: mraynor@making-waves.org. Click here to learn how to help fundraise for “Romeo is Bleeding. They need $3,000 more, and have four days left!

Imagine a world where people who want to work, can work.
Imagine a world where businesses that need talent, get talent.
Imagine a world where hiring is easy.