It’s the height of the hiring season, and though some schools may be out for this month, or even the rest of this school year, schools must continue next year’s hiring if they want to open next year fully staffed. Many Nimble partner districts have embraced remote interviews, demo lessons, and recruitment events.
Interviews
There are several tools now free to districts to facilitate remote interviews. For example, Zoom (video calls) has made their premium service free to schools, and Calendly (scheduling) has made their Zoom and GoToMeeting integrations free for everyone.
For remote interviews, we suggest sending clear directions to candidates so that they know what to expect and how to use the technology. Here is some sample language used by some of our district and charter partners (feel free to make a copy of this google document and personalize it to your organization).
It’s also important to set expectations and provide support for hiring managers. Here is sample language used by some of our partners. Make sure to remind both interviewers and interviewees to test their tech prior to the call.
Demo lessons
Now that school visits are off the table in most places, many districts have moved to an online demo lesson format. Check out a case study with 5 tips for virtual demo lessons here.
Remember to give candidates clear guidance on what a successful demo lesson looks like. DC Public Schools has kindly shared their teaching demo guide, which you can access here. Adjust all guidance to reflect social distancing guidelines (e.g. for those recording novel teaching demos they will likely need to do so without an audience). Here are some additional resources you can point candidates to or use as inspiration to develop your own demo lesson guidance.
Second, decide on the structure of your organization’s demo lessons (or provide some options and suggestions to principals). Teaching demonstrations can be recorded or completed virtually. Many districts also provide the candidate with feedback to see how they incorporate that into their lessons.
There are various ways schools might structure demo lessons:
Scenario 1: Live demo, incorporating feedback
Applicants do a demo lesson (typically 5-15 minutes) during a live video interview to a panel of interviewers who play students; feedback is delivered in real time by the school leader and the lesson is delivered again with feedback incorporated. This option can typically be done within an hour long video interview, although it may be a strenuous interview for candidates. Remember to leave time for them to get to know the hiring managers and school-based teams as well.
Scenario 2: Video demo upload
Applicants record and upload a 5-15 minute teaching demo video, followed by a live interview where they discuss areas of improvement with the school leader. For this option, experienced teachers may have a real classroom video, while new teachers may record a simulated lesson — this sometimes makes an apples-to-apples comparison challenging. Also with this option, the hiring manager cannot evaluate how effectively the candidate incorporates feedback.
Scenario 3: Combination lesson
Applicants conduct a live demo lesson as part of the video interview; feedback is delivered at the end of the interview, and the candidates then upload or email a revised demo lesson to the school leader as a follow up. This can also happen in the opposite order, with feedback being delivered prior to the interview. This scenario makes the initial interview demo less burdensome to the candidate and leaves more time for him/her to get to know the school-based team during that conversation. However, it can slow the feedback loop since the candidate may have homework after the interview, which must be revisited by the interviewer(s).
With each of these scenarios, the organization should consider the burden of time and stress on the candidate, equity across teachers (for example newer versus more experienced teachers; those with more or less access to tech at home), and the time requirements for the hiring team.
If you use a live format, it is helpful to provide guidance to school-based teams on how to conduct effective demo lesson interviews. Here is some sample guidance for hiring managers.
Recruitment events
Check out this fantastic guest post on the Nimble blog by Kelly Gleischman of EdFuel. This guide provides a template for 3 types of virtual recruitment and hiring events, along with suggestions for tools to help with each.
KIPP has also shared some excellent guidance for hosting virtual hiring events, which can be found here.
