Why do we still fall for the person who interviews best, rather than the best fit for the job?
Recruiting a new hire is, in effect, a calculated risk. We whittle down the pool of candidates to reduce our risk but ultimately, it is a gamble.
In traffic control towers, nothing is left to chance. With the right systems, data, accreditation and professional development, those that guide the aircraft around us use a range of tools to make sure that their chances of success are as high as possible.
Likewise, football clubs do not rely on their scouts simply spotting the “next big thing”. Instead, they use data analytics to prove or disprove those opinions when it comes to identifying the right players for the team, removing bias and unreliable judgement.
In business, candidates have been tested on their numerical skills, verbal reasoning and other psychometrics in their interview process for decades.
So, is it time for schools to learn from this? We believe schools are no different from their corporate cousins, football teams or the traffic controllers when it comes to needing to reduce their risk of failure.
The impact of a bad hire can be felt across a whole school, especially when that bad hire is a critical member of the IT department. Their failings can hinder classroom success, slow technological development and waste financial resources all through their decisions and lack of skill. A gamble that didn’t pay off.
School Leaders often don’t realize how many resources are wasted by the turnover of even one employee. It is estimated that the recruitment process costs a school between £4,000 to £5,000 for each new hire and this is without factoring in the issues created by the departing individual. Bad hires make bad decisions that cost schools money they simply don’t have.
The good news is that most of this can be avoided by senior school leaders being equipped with the right recruitment tools that assess candidates for that particular role. According to a CareerBuilder survey, 33% of employers who recruited an underperforming employee say they knew they didn’t have all the right skills, but they thought they could learn quickly. Thirty percent were in a rush to hire someone and prioritised that, and 29% were focused on the skills of the candidate, overlooking their attitude. These are all mistakes that could be easily avoided.
ED ITK accreditation stacks the odds in the school’s favour, using objective data to assess if the candidate is capable of performing in the role. This data removes unconscious bias, focuses your time on the right candidates and gives you the evidence to hire the right person for the job, saving the school so much money in the long run.
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