Introduction
This month, Rhodes Branding conducted a survey for professionals in K-12 talent management. Our purpose was to identify trends in recruitment and retention strategies and understand if and how marketing tactics were being used to aid those efforts. Additionally, we were curious to see if there were consistent themes in how schools are approaching employee attrition, retention, and recruitment. The survey yielded responses from HR professionals in the K-12 sector across the United States. This article describes our key insights from the survey and details the datapoints.
The survey posed 8 questions:
- What tactics does your district use to recruit prospective employees?
- Which of the aforementioned tactics has been the most effective in the last 12 months?
- Do you think there are ways to improve your advertising metrics if you had the bandwidth?
- On average, how much does your district annually spend on recruitment marketing and advertising?
- If you answered $0 to the previous question, would you spend money on recruitment marketing efforts if you had the funds?
- On average, what is the number of years employees worked with your district before they retire or leave for another reason?
- Some districts are finding creative new ways to fill the gaps in teacher applications, in the last 12 months, has your district implemented any of the following?
- Does your district currently have more open vacancies than last year at this time?
Our Insights
- Career fairs are still the primary tactic used by districts to recruit new talent to their schools. A newer trend is hiring through alternative licensure programs, a process that the majority of respondents (90.48 percent) also reported utilizing.
- Despite being reported by respondents as the most effective recruitment marketing tactic, digital media advertising is the 4th most-utilized tactic by responding districts – lagging behind college career fairs, workforce development career fairs, and organic social media posts.
- Digital marketing efforts are still fairly new to the K-12 scene, though the majority of respondents reported that they spend between $1,000-$10,000 on recruitment marketing and advertising, and nearly 40 percent reportedly spend between $10,001-$60.000.
- Regarding attrition, responding K-12 talent managers reported that most of their employees leave their districts after 10-15 years of employment. This sets a “career midpoint” between years 5 and 8, which is an important data point to consider in conjunction with research from the U.S. Department of Education that shows nearly 50 percent of new teachers leave the field within the first five years of teaching.
The results
1. What tactics does your district use to recruit prospective employees?
“Other” included: signage around the schools, employee referral programs, job boards and websites, and collaborating with nearby universities.
2. Which of the aforementioned tactics has been the most effective in the last 12 months?
“Other” included: signage around the schools, employee referral programs, job boards and websites, and collaborating with nearby universities.
3. Do you think there are ways to improve your advertising metrics if you had the bandwidth?
4. On average, how much does your district annually spend on recruitment marketing and advertising?
5. If you answered $0 to the previous question, would you spend money on recruitment marketing efforts if you had the funds?
6. On average, what is the number of years employees worked with your district before they retire or leave for another reason?
7. Some districts are finding creative new ways to fill the gaps in teacher applications. In the last 12 months, has your district implemented any of the following?
“Other” included: working with universities to create opportunities for paraeducators.
8. Does your district currently have more open vacancies than last year at this time?
If you’d like to be included in our next survey, give us a shout.
