Making the Most of the Hiring Process

Creating an Information Rich Hiring Process

Selecting for Fit

Making the Most of the Hiring Process

When this isn’t working as well as it could, the consequences can be:

• A “warm body” to fill an open position
• A dissatisfied educator with unfulfilled expectations
• A educator whose skills, knowledge, and/or disposition do not fit with the school needs and who drain time and energy of administrators and colleagues.
  

When this works well, the consequences can be:

• A mutual decision-making process where the school and the candidate play active roles;
• A great match between the hired educator’s skills, knowledge, and disposition and the needs and culture of the school;
• A new educator with realistic expectations about the school;
• The transmission of school culture and norms to the newly hired educator;
• Administrators and colleagues who understand the support needs of the newly hired educator;
• A new educator who emerges from the hiring process with some beginning collegial relationships already established;
• All candidates, even unsuccessful ones, go away from the process with positive regard for the school.

Promising Strategies:

• Create an information rich hiring process that includes opportunities for the candidate to learn about the school and for the hiring team to learn about the candidate;
• Develop a standard hiring process;
• Use information acquired during the hiring process to select for best fit.