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7 ways to attract talented teachers to your school

Did you know? English-speaking international schools around the globe are on the lookout for talented teachers. Generally, international schools that know how to attract talented teachers will typically follow a few best practices when recruiting teachers to their institutions.

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Not sure where to start for your school? In this Pacific Prime article, we’ll take a look at 7 ways to attract talented teachers to your school without making the highest bid.

How to attract talented teachers to your international school in 2021 and beyond

Here are 7 ways to help your international school stand out from the competition:

1. Entice teachers by promoting your location

If your international school is based in a country that offers a great climate and attractive lifestyle, then it’s worth mentioning these when you advertise for the teaching position.

You could even list out other advantages of working for the school like proximity to the city center, places of interest, telecommunication services, ease of travel, excellent transportation services, reliable healthcare system, comfortable accommodation, established expat networks, and more.

2. Promote professional and personal development opportunities

Teachers who are thinking about moving abroad will often ask whether they’ll have training opportunities like the ones available to them back home. Young teachers, in particular, will be interested in professional and personal development opportunities. With this in mind, you could address this need by offering easy access to training and qualifications to teachers.

More so, you could include additional holidays or breaks on their contract so they can step back from their teaching duties and focus on their development and wellbeing. This offering will also benefit their mental health and make them feel valued. In turn, teachers will feel fresh, enriched, and empowered on their return to teaching. A win-win for all!

3. Establish your school’s reputation

Schools that have a good reputation within the area or internationally tend to be more attractive to skillful teachers. Some ways that you can develop your school’s reputation include being actively involved in international schools’ organizations and applying for international schools’ awards.

4. Share what your staff are doing

Generally, schools that offer opportunities for teachers to promote what they’re doing and to grow their professional reputation are incredibly attractive to teachers from abroad. For instance, your school can host an educational summit in the region so that existing staff can share their expertise.

Similarly, the school will benefit from being recognized as a center of excellence for leading the summit while the event will end up being a prospective candidate open day by attracting teachers to the school.

5. Work on your social media presence

Without a doubt, the generation of young teachers who grow up using social media is increasing, and they’ll want to work with colleagues who think like them and share what they’re doing professionally.

Something that you can do for this cohort of teachers is to establish an effective social media strategy and have in place your very own social platforms such as Facebook or Instagram. If you already have these in place, you could encourage your tech-savvy teachers to share their positive experiences at your school. In turn, this will help bump up their connections on social media. You could also create a professional network group on LinkedIn for all your past and existing teachers.

Your established social media platforms will also allow prospective clients and parents to connect and engage easily. Just note that you’ll need to set up a social media team to monitor comments, uploads, responses, and more. This is so nothing negative will directly or indirectly impact your school’s reputation.

6. Recruit through your website

School websites are usually designed to offer information to parents for their children to join. However, they can also be used to recruit staff. One way to recruit through your website is to create a dedicated careers page. Such a page will help highlight what it’s like to work at your school. You could also provide testimonial videos of the school environment and community.

Likewise, you can create a blog that combines contributions to educational debates regionally and globally. You could also cover other topics like the benefits of teaching at the international school, etc.

All in all, try to optimize your website so that it is easy to navigate for your prospective teachers. The style, tone, design, and content can help create a good impression and make your school live up to its reputation.

7. Offer comprehensive employee benefits or wellness plans for teachers

If you are not already offering a well-thought-out employee benefits plan, then it may be time for you to review the ins and outs of your current plan with a broker like Pacific Prime.

Further reading: 5 metrics to evaluate the impact of your employee wellness program

Given the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, more and more teachers are looking for benefits like group health insurance plans. Additionally, other non-monetary benefits like wellness programs are also growing in popularity.

Further reading: Employee wellness programs: What you need to know

By offering and promoting these plans, you’ll likely draw more interest and applications from talented teachers locally and worldwide. However, creating a plan is not as simple as you may think. The process requires extensive benchmarking and reviews from a specialist account manager. This is to ensure financial aspects like the loss ratio don’t affect your premiums year-on-year.

You can learn about the benefits of working with a broker by downloading the International School Survey Report 2021, which also looks at the medical and non-medical insurance trends in the international school sector across the globe.

How can Pacific Prime help you?

For more than 20 years, Pacific Prime has developed extensive experience in working with international schools worldwide. We can help you secure the right benefits and insurance solutions for your educational institution such as teacher health insurance, employee benefits solutions, and more.

Our trusted experts also provide a wide range of insights across trending topics such as insurance and COVID-19 from our blog page. A few are mentioned below:

Our value-added services from our 12 global locations mean we often go above and beyond the offerings of other brokers. Discover what we can offer you by downloading our School Insurance Guide.

To learn more, contact us today and speak to an expert!

Senior Copywriter at Pacific Prime
Jantra Jacobs is a Senior Copywriter at Pacific Prime with over 10 years of writing and editing experience. She writes and edits a diverse variety of online and offline copy, including sales and marketing materials ranging from articles and advertising copy to reports, guides, RFPs, and more.

Jantra curates and reports on the results of Pacific Prime’s monthly newsletters, as well as manages Pacific Prime’s Deputy Global CEO’s LinkedIn posts. Complemented by her background in business writing, Jantra’s passion for health, insurance, and employee benefits helps her create engaging content - no matter how complex the subject is.

Growing up as a third-culture kid has given her a multicultural perspective that helps her relate to expats and their families while 8 years of working remotely have given her unique insight into hybrid work arrangements and enthusiasm for employee benefits.
Jantra Jacobs
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