Why Education Recruitment?

 Have you ever considered moving into Education Recruitment?

At Frankland Associates, we recruit for several professional sectors within the Recruitment industry, but the one that I know best is Education Recruitment.  I joined the sector in 1998, when it was in relative infancy, and have seen it grow to a massive chunk of today’s Recruitment industry.

What’s it like?

It is extremely fast paced, particularly at the start and end of your day. The sights and sounds of a busy education recruitment office at 7.30am are impressive. I’d imagine it’s similar to what an air-traffic control centre looks like on the August bank holiday weekend. Or the Tokyo stock exchange on a Monday morning!  The phone ringing off the hook with immediate urgent jobs to fill, and teachers calling in for work. 

If you run a big desk, a lot of your work will be pre-booked so you may find it not as busy.  Or you may work for a company that uses EdTech as it’s booking spine – regardless, the hours before 9am are where relationships are forged, and reputations made! 

What do you do?

Your clients are schools, so your client contacts can range from school administrators to Headteachers, and every point in between. Your candidates are supply teachers and support staff. Like lots of other Recruitment sectors, it’s about recognising great talent, and pro-actively taking them to the market ahead of your competitors.

You will interview teachers, visit user schools to ensure service quality, makes sales visits to non-user schools to promote your services, attend university career fairs, negotiate pay and charge rates.  And maintain a pool of teachers and support staff by providing regular work, ensuring they are paid good rates and on time, and also provide counselling to stressed supply teachers! Tea and biscuits are your friends here.

 
Why it is rewarding

In addition to the usual satisfaction that comes from doing a Temps Recruitment role well – the thanks from the client for digging them out of a hole, the gratefulness of a teacher who has a quality weeks’ work from you, the sheer pleasure of knowing that you just successfully spun about 15 plates without dropping any, there is another positive.

You know that thanks to the combination of your company’s recruitment and vetting procedures, your knowledge of the local teacher pool, and your candidate’s skills and qualifications, has meant that a group of children have a smooth and productive day’s education in the absence of their regular teacher.  You are dealing with professionally qualified candidates in the main.  Reliable, highly skilled and in demand. 

And for you personally, the commission structures are extremely lucrative and basic salaries have risen considerably over the years.  £100K packages are not uncommon now in this sector. 

What recruitment skills transfer best

When you work in Education Recruitment, you will be building, growing, and running a busy temps desk.  This may be from scratch, or you may be lucky enough to inherit some days on the board.  You will be handling a regular pool of 50-100 temporary workers. You will need to be on top of your candidate availability and be able to quickly put your finger on which teachers are available to go where at short notice, google maps and local bus routes are your best friends at 7.15am!

You will need to actively work on behalf of your temps – finding them work by alerting schools to their availability and be able to negotiate pay and charge rates effectively.

So, you must be used to building and running a busy temps desk – sectors that often have very transferable skills are temps recruitment consultants from recruitment sectors like industrial, social care, healthcare and so on.

Its quirks

There are a few quirks within Education recruitment that may mean it’s not for you.

You may well start earlier than other recruitment roles, as you need to be able to get a teacher out to a school as soon as the Head lets you know there is an absence – this may mean starting work at 7am.

When this post was first written, flexible and home working was unheard of in this sector.  Now though, SOME of our long-term clients have built flexibility and home working into their week as it was so successful during lockdowns.  For others, they prefer you in the office, especially if you are new to the sector, or early in your recruitment career.

Instead of your clients being grouped in a city centre or business park, they are spread out through the city’s suburbs and the villages of your local county, so you will generally need to be able to drive yourself to client visits.

You will generally be expected to take most of your holiday allowance during the school vacations, as these are the quietest times of the year.

Interested?

Does this sound like it’s for you? If you are a Temps recruiter and you have an interest in Education, then feel free to call me to discuss your experience. Since 1995, I have worked in the industry as a Teacher, Education Recruiter, Branch Manager and Recruiter to the Education Recruitment industry.

Please get in touch with me if you would like to discuss a career move. 

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