Regardless of the outcome of ballots on industrial action, unless there is drastic change to funding for schools in relation to pay increases, it will be unusual to find any organisational budget that is not impacted by the current economic situation.
We know that some large school trusts spend in excess of £500,000 per annum on recruitment advertising and the sector as a whole spends in excess of £75 million. Furthermore, in excess of £0.5 billion is spent on recruitment agencies.
Pay increases - even at the levels put forward - will still have a significant impact on schools’ abilities to continue to operate in the same way since increases are not being funded. In addition, the sector has already suffered a recruitment squeeze prior to the pandemic because of people leaving the profession, this has only been exacerbated post-pandemic and many are not only struggling to recruit teachers, but support staff too. As a result, it’s more important than ever to find novel ways to achieve the best recruitment with the lowest cost.
To this end, you may consider recruiting via the Teaching Vacancies service, the largest source of primary school jobs directly listed by primary schools in England, and the second largest source of secondary school jobs directly listed by secondary schools in England.
The service is free for schools and academy trusts to use and leadership, teaching and educational support roles can all be listed. There is also a free application tracking system to manage and respond to candidates.
Over 50,000 jobseekers are signed up to receive job alerts and last year views of vacancies totalled over 6 million. During peak recruitment months over 350,000 jobseekers visit the service each month.
Yvonne Ridley from the Department for Education advises:
“Put money back into the classroom by making use of the Teaching Vacancies service! It’s the free, national search and listing service from the DfE helping state funded primary and secondary schools save money on their recruitment advertising.
With school budgets under even more pressure now is the time to review recruitment practices and move to this totally free service.”
By listing your vacancies on the service, you could attract a wider pool of candidates and help create a national platform for jobseekers to find their next role more easily.
Here are some additional tips from our HR Services team to help you make the most of recruitment when budgets are tight:
Head of HR Services
emma.hughes@brownejacobson.com
+44 (0)330 045 2338
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