Attracting school staff may seem like an easy thing to do, but when you are competing against every other educational establishment in the UK, it can be very difficult, especially when budgets are tight and flexibility around pay in order to win great candidates is limited.

There are unspoken rules around when Teachers will be starting to look for other roles, with September being the most obvious time that a Teacher will be required to start work, recruitment campaigns normally happen between February and June. Ensuring you are posting your job at the right time is crucial. You need to allow your team enough time to shortlist and interview people so they can make an informed decision.

How to write a good job advert

1. Use a simple job title.

You need to ensure you are advertising your role based on what people will search for. Primary School Teacher is a good option whereas Primary School Teacher KS2 will be more specific but still a term that people will search for.

2. Advertise the salary.

You may have heard that advertising your salary will put people off if it’s not high enough, however, not advertising your salary can do more damage than good. Who would want to go through the whole application process to find out you are not offering anywhere near what they want. It’s a waste of your time and theirs.

3. Be specific with the location.

Again, there is nothing more frustrating than applying for a job to find out the ‘local location’ you mentioned isn’t accessible by public transport.

4. Promote the working hours

It may be obvious for most educational roles what the hours are but it doesn’t hurt to reiterate them

5.  Be keyword heavy.

You don’t want to go overboard with using the same keywords in your advert but repeating a keyword 4-5 times is about the right amount. This will help your advert to be ranked higher than others as the search terms come up more than others. Try using a keyword in your job title. E.g. Primary school teacher. Repeat this keyword throughout your job advert, but don’t go crazy else you might be penalised.

6. Promote your company values
If you do not have this, how do people know if they want to work for you? They need to know that you will be like-minded and help them to grow and develop.

7. Tell your company story

Make it entertaining. Talk about when you were established but more about what you stand for and where you are planning on being in 10 years’ time, how long employees stick around for, interesting projects, plans for new equipment, any awards etc.

8. Make the application process really clear

You need to tell people how to apply and exactly what will happen once they have applied. The candidate journey is so important to get right. People want to know when they can expect to hear back from you and what the interview process is. Time frames are key.

9.  Attach the job description.

Make this a separate document. Your advert should sell your company and outline the job itself but you need to create a separate document that outlines all of the person’s daily responsibilities and duties.

Make sure you follow up with each applicant, whether they have been accepted or rejected, it’s good to keep everyone in the loop. This puts you in good stead for future campaigns as you may be able to utilise previously rejected candidates for other roles. Do not put ‘If you do not hear back from us within 7 days then you have been unsuccessful.’ It’s really impersonal and makes the applicant lose faith in you. We are all human and enjoy the human interaction.

Be mindful of where you post your jobs. You want to get as much exposure as possible, so posting your job to a specialist job board such as UK School Jobs will do this for you. Share your jobs in as many educational groups on social media as you possibly can. Word of mouth is a great way to market yourself and, if you become omnipresent, then you have more chance of receiving more applications.

This should be enough to get you started on ensuring you create a good job advert for your teaching roles.

Good Luck