Schools are spending record numbers on job vacancy advertising. The Guardian reported in 2016 that secondary schools spent £56 million a year on teaching job advertisements and the number has been rapidly climbing since. With a 61% rise in advertising spend since 2010, individual school job advertising spend can rack up to £80,000 a year. For school bursars, these numbers are difficult to swallow, especially amidst current funding cuts.
Along with the high cost of advertising, schools are having to advertise more year on year due to fundamental issues with teacher recruitment and retention. The number of schools that have to re-advertise when a post isn’t filled has more than doubled. In a vicious circle, schools spend more on ads for posts which aren’t filled and then forced to re-advertise, spending even more, causing the cost of recruitment to spiral out of control.
DfE Failures
So what’s the solution? Last November, the DfE announced they plan to release a free publishing channel for schools to advertise jobs. So that’s that sorted, right? Perhaps not. You may be wondering why this free government jobs board hasn’t been created earlier, if the problem has been hatching for over a decade? Well it has, three times in fact. A government-backed school jobs board is not a new idea; it’s been done before, and it’s failed every time. The last attempt was the Schools Recruitment Service.
The Schools Recruitment Service was a government-sponsored jobs board that ran between 2009-2012. It only ran for a short time after being axed due to low take-up. So why has such an essential and seemingly simple tool received no traction, despite head teachers crying out for years for the creation of this exact service?
When creating their recruitment channels, the DfE did not engage with recruitment experts, instead choosing to repeat mistakes of past attempts. Instead of properly investing the required time and money in to building an effective system, they choose to pay extortionate fees to consultancies. This is not helped by the constant changes in staff and education secretaries, causing schools to lose faith and continue carrying the burden of recruitment costs.
The problem of mounting school recruitment spend needs to be properly invested in and approached from all angles: that means tackling both issues of advertising spend and agency costs.
What We Do
Our jobs board allows schools to post vacancies for free, with a simple posting process and user-friendly website. Teachers sign up, create their profile and apply for jobs, completely free. Our jobs board is also socially augmented, meaning schools can utilise social media platforms to promote their vacancies.
Along with offering a free jobs board for schools to advertise vacancies, we’re also tackling the next big recruitment cost for schools: agencies. We’ve created a system that allows supply teachers to book work directly with schools, removing the need for an agency. Because there is no agency margin, schools essentially pay less while teachers earn more. Schools no longer need to pay the high cost of job sites or recruitment agencies. Problem solved!
What’s more, RealiseMe is a social enterprise company, that means we invest back in to the company rather than maximising profits. We are also a member of SAFERjobs, protecting jobseekers and agency workers from exploitation.
Education recruitment is harder than ever before, but it doesn’t need to be. If you’re interested in how RealiseMe could help your school or academy trust, sign up today or get in touch (contact: [email protected]), we’d love to meet you!
