TIME AND MONEY
For a school to advertise in a wide spread of media is expensive in terms of time and money. Advertising on the internet results in huge numbers of applicants, and the problem is wading through the applications, and separating the wheat from the chaff. Time spent screening and interviewing takes school management away from other urgent and important roles, and if the screening is delegated to unqualified staff, they may not identify good candidates. If a suitable candidate is not found, the whole process must be repeated. By using The Teacher Network, a school pays only for the employee it wants, and does not have to spend unnecessary time “away from the knitting”. An additional factor is that we may well already have a suitable candidate on our books, providing a timely and relatively stress-free solution.
CONFIDENTIALITY
Schools don’t necessarily want to publicise the fact that they have vacant posts, particularly in the subjects where it is difficult to find teachers or when they are experiencing a high staff turnover for whatever reason. Sometimes schools wish to withhold their identity until they are ready to interview a short list of candidates. This may be for competitive or strategic reasons. We advertise posts in general terms (e.g. independent boys’ school in Johannesburg needs a Gr 10-12 AFRIKAANS teacher from 1 August 2023). Interested candidates who have the required qualifications and experience etc are able to respond to advertisements via us without revealing their identity to the school. Many good teachers are open to progressing in their careers but are not actively looking for new positions OR are absolutely unwilling to place their CVs on recruitment sites or send it to schools’ HR departments. They prefer to deal with a teacher recruitment agency whose values they know and trust, one which places a high value on confidentiality. Further, the world of education can be very small: like all other employees who may be available for a new position should something suitable become available, teachers may not necessarily want their current employers to know that they are “looking” – and teachers are very much aware that often Heads know each other. For this reason, a good teacher may send her CV to us with a view to moving when a position that meets his/her needs becomes available.
REFERENCE CHECKS
When we – as an independent third party – phone the past employers of our candidates, they are helpful and honest (and forthright, even!). Our many years of experience doing this has resulted in us being able to get a very comprehensive and accurate picture of the candidate, from someone who knows the candidate. When a school is about to offer a candidate a position, a past employer may be reluctant to share certain information, for fear of it jeopardising the candidate’s chances and/or for fear that the potential employer will handle the information in a way that damages the previous employer. Our reference checks are confidential, but if they raise a red flag in any area, we will tactfully ensure that the school’s attention is directed to this area for their own investigations or discussion with the candidate in the final interview (eg absenteeism, problems with certain interpersonal relationships, situational difficulty meeting deadlines). We only do reference checks once the school has indicated that it is seriously considering offering our candidate a position/has shortlisted our candidate. In addition, we generally we ask the candidate to contact the referees he/she has listed, and let them know that The Teacher Network will be phoning; this has the benefit of enabling us to create the necessary rapport with the past employer speedily. Our 100 Day Guarantee is only offered to client schools that have given us the opportunity to make these phone calls, before they offer our candidate a position.
APPLICANT POOL
Recruitment consultants are able to build up a large applicant pool from which they can draw for future assignments. This pool of applicants may be built up through media advertising (including the Internet), through word of mouth (clients or other candidates), or through networking. In addition, in response to new assignments, further advertising and/or networking occur, resulting in an increased applicant pool. Networking and referrals are hugely valuable sources of new candidates. (See “More about The Teacher Network” below.) We are also on Facebook, and have more than 14,000 followers.
EXPERTISE
Schools are experts in education. We are experts in recruitment and selection, and have many years’ experience in this, with a particular focus on teacher recruitment and selection since 2001. We know how different each school is in terms of its culture, and prefer to visit schools before working on an assignment, so as to ensure that we recruit the right person for a particular school – someone who can do the job, will fit in well, and will stay. We prefer to only put forward candidates once we have interviewed them (including telephonically) but this is not always possible because of our clients’ time constraints. We belong to appropriate professional bodies. We do our best to keep up to date with relevant legislation. Schools’ chances of unintentionally committing an unfair labour practice are reduced.