Nursery Recruitment Tips
Nursery Recruitment - finding early years staff
Nursery recruitment is all about finding the right person that has great qualifications.
Finding the right early years staff can be difficult. You need to be certain that all legal requirements are met, including ensuring you meet the right nursery ratios.
Here are some of the tips and tricks to get started.
11 Nursery Recruitment Tips
Understand what you need
Create a list covering all the early years recruitment requirements. The idea here is to know exactly the amount of experience you want from your staff, the extra knowledge they have and so on. It will certainly help and it will eliminate a lot of potential challenges that can arise.
Use multiple platforms
Don’t just upload your advert to one platform and leave it there. Take advantage of the many different places you can list your job.
List it online everywhere (on your website, on Indeed, Reed, local newspaper listing, daynurseries.co.uk, childcare.co.uk, CV library, Facebook groups, Nursery World etc.), contact local schools, universities, post it to your existing parents, to your current staff and have banners outside your nursery.
Think of lots of different ways you can advertise your role and use them.
Also, consider referral fees if someone helps you to fill a position.
Assess references
As soon as you start getting applications, you want to check references.
Do this as early in the process so you are not left waiting for them, when you choose the right candidate.
Talking with the previous employer when you hire early years staff is actually very important. References are essential as you need references from at least two people.
Make experience a priority
Experience is important in the world of nursery recruitment, because you want to have qualified personnel. That’s why hiring experienced professionals is crucial and it will make a huge difference for your nursery.
Use technology for your early years recruitment
Using online recruitment platforms is a great idea as you can host things like blind auditions.
The main focus as mentioned is to use all recruitment methods and platforms you can in order to connect with as many professionals as possible. That will help make things better and easier. That’s especially true when it comes to mobile recruitment for example.
Show you care about staff development
Many people choose a job because they want to grow, expand and learn new things.
That’s why having the best staff development solutions is crucial and it can make a huge difference.
Professional training can dramatically increase the number of candidates you receive.
It is also a great benefit for your nursery to focus on staff development.
Offer employee benefits
Employee benefits are widely sought after by any early years staff.
Which is why you want to have extra benefits like health benefits, maybe extra holiday days, a bonus scheme, anything to encourage staff to choose you and not another nursery.
Provide apprenticeship opportunities
There are a lot of people that want to gain experience and learn.
The great thing here is that once they finish their apprenticeship, a lot of people will actually choose to stick with that nursery and become a part of their staff. It’s a great nursery recruitment option that works very well.
Always focus on quality and not quantity
Someone might have a lot of degrees or expertise, but they may not have specialised in your particular nursery requirements.
You may get a lot of staff applying who don’t have the required qualification or experience. You may be tempted to hire anyone just to fulfil your ratio requirements. However, this won’t be beneficial in the long run.
You need to value quality more than anything, as that’s what will give you the best results.
See your candidates in action
A great idea when you focus on early years recruitment is to test those candidates.
Bring them to nursery, let them become a part of the play session. This is great because will show how they interact with children, if they have a sense of belonging there and so on. Having a senior team member there to watch them is0 important since they can offer some feedback if necessary.
Offer flexible working options
Nowadays flexible working is a necessity, so making sure you have a more flexible schedule is actually an advantage. That’s why we recommend offering flexible working options, because it will attract more talent.
Conclusion
It’s never easy to find the best early years staff, but these tips and tricks will help you achieve that. You always want to take your time and ensure that you use the best nursery recruitment tactics and ideas. At the end of the day, good nursery recruitment can help you uncover great talent.
You shouldn’t rush the early years recruitment process, instead try to connect with as many talented professionals as possible.
Then you can start a shortlist and you can finally hire the right people which will be a great fit for your nursery!
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