The United States is currently facing a significant teacher shortage, with many districts struggling to attract and retain qualified teachers and staff. In such a competitive environment, it’s crucial for K12 administrators to market their school or district effectively to stand out from the crowd. One of the most effective ways you can recruit well is by leveraging your website and social media platforms to showcase your school’s unique offerings and values.
In today’s digital age, your website and social media play an increasingly important role in your school marketing efforts. These platforms allow you to connect with potential teachers and staff and provide them with the information they need to make informed decisions about where to work.
Let’s explore some specific ways you can leverage your website and social media to attract and retain teachers and staff.
1. Create a Recruitment Landing Page
Use your website and social media to highlight your school’s unique culture, values, and mission. Most schools only include a link from their homepage to open positions, which leaves potential candidates with too little information about the school culture and personality. You can improve upon this experience by creating a recruitment landing page on your school website and linking to that instead.
How to build a recruitment landing page:
- Create a separate page on your website for staff recruitment. Link to it from your home page and social media profiles.
- Share stories and testimonials from current and former teachers and staff. This gives potential candidates an inside look into what it’s like to work at your school.
- Highlight events and activities that showcase your school’s values and mission.
- Share photos and videos of your school’s facilities and classrooms.
- Include a link to your online application system.
Need some inspiration? Here is a sample recruitment landing page that may inspire you.
2. Use Job Listings and Application Tools
Make it easy for candidates to apply for open positions by using your website to post job listings and provide online application tools. Help make posting open positions and recruiting a breeze by finding a web hosting provider with an online job posting module.
Job posting tips:
- Be sure to include information about the application process, including any required documents and deadlines.
- Make every element of the application digital, including form uploads, to save candidates time.
- Include information about other requirements your school has for employees, such as attending Open House or working the gates at athletic events.
- Include a listing of employee benefits as well so that candidates know the full compensation beyond your salary scale.
Need some inspiration? Here is a sample job description page.
3. Highlight Professional Development Opportunities
Professional development (PD) is crucial in attracting and retaining high-quality teachers and staff. Prospective job candidates want to know that your district invests time and resources in its teachers.
Ideas for showcasing PD opportunities:
- Use your website and social media to highlight the professional development opportunities your school offers, including workshops, conferences, and mentoring programs.
- Highlight the benefits of these opportunities, such as the chance to learn new skills, network with other educators, and career advancement.
- Post web stories and social media posts often and regularly to highlight these PD opportunities.
- Using a web hosting service that allows you to cross post information to your website and social media at the same time will lighten the load with this task.
4. Share Benefits and Perks
Use your website and social media to highlight the benefits and perks of working at your school. Benefits like health insurance, retirement plans, and tuition reimbursement can be powerful tools in attracting top talent to your school or district.
Ways to highlight job benefits:
- Be sure to provide detailed information about each benefit and perk, and make it easy for potential candidates to apply for these benefits.
- Include any and all programs that your school employs to take care of its teachers and staff. Is Friday a jeans day? Let them know that! Does your PTA annually sponsor a wellness manicure session day? Tell the world.
- Post photos and stories of your current staff members enjoying those perks (Free Coffee Fridays, Spirit Week Dress-Up Days, Volunteer Time Off, etc.) to your social media channels.
5. Engage with Potential Candidates
Use social media to engage with potential candidates and answer their questions about working at your school. Use the “social” element of social media to make this a two-way communication platform.
Way to use social media to engage prospective teachers:
- Consider hosting Q&A sessions or virtual job fairs to give candidates an opportunity to connect with current staff and learn more about your school.
- If a potential candidate posts a question and gets a quick reply, it will show them that your district is sincere about wanting to recruit qualified candidates.
- If you’re hosting a job fair or other large recruitment event, or if you’ll be attending a similar event at a local university, be sure to publicize this far and wide.
6. Leverage Your Website’s SEO
You can leverage your website’s search engine optimization (SEO) to attract and recruit high-quality teachers and staff by identifying the keywords that potential candidates might use when searching for teaching positions in your area.
How to use SEO for recruitment:
- Come up with a list of common search phrases such as “teaching jobs in [your city],” “K12 employment opportunities,” or “best school districts to work for in [your state].”
- Once you have identified these keywords, incorporate them strategically into your website’s content, job listings and descriptions, and landing pages.
- By optimizing your website’s SEO, you can increase your online visibility, reach a wider audience, and ultimately attract and recruit top-tier talent to your school district.
Need some inspiration? For more information on website SEO enhancement, see Edlio’s Guide to SEO for Schools ebook.
7. Get Everyone Involved in Your Recruitment Efforts
Recruitment should not be solely left to your human resources or administrative teams. In “How Google Works,” authors Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenburg state,
“…the job of finding people belongs to everyone, and this fact needs to be woven into the fabric of the company. Recruiters can manage the process, but everyone should be recruited into recruiting.”
How to get everyone involved in the process:
- Quality recruitment should be a whole team effort.
- Encourage your current staff to share their experiences working at your school on social media. Consider featuring these posts on your website and reposting them to your own social media.
- Start a referral program to encourage current staff to bring in friends or colleagues from other areas. You can even give them a small prize, like some school swag, if their referral is hired.
8. Harness the Power of Technology in Recruitment
Finding the right web hosting partner can help in your school’s recruitment efforts. Edlio is a premiere K12 communications solution that can help schools and districts effectively market themselves to potential teachers and staff.
Here’s how we do it:
- Edlio’s website builder and content management system make it easy to create a professional and engaging website that showcases your school’s unique culture, values, and offerings.
- Our social media management tools also allow schools to easily manage and schedule social media content, engage with potential candidates, and promote job listings.
- Our online forms allow you to collect information and document uploads for job postings, and we even have a built-in job listings page module you can use.
By leveraging Edlio’s communication tools, K12 administrators can effectively market their school or district and attract and retain top talent in today’s competitive education landscape. Edlio is also proud to be a TCEA Silver Sponsor, where we provide free resources to members helping them advance teaching and learning through the use of technology. For more information about Edlio, visit us at www.edlio.com.
Want to learn more? Don’t miss TCEA and Edlio’s Partner Webinar, “If You Boost It, They Will Come: Using Your Website for Teacher Recruitment,” on March 2, 2023 at 11:45 a.m. Central! Edlio will share tips and tricks that are easily adaptable for educators regardless of which web solution you’re using.