The Frontline Research and Learning Institute recently surveyed district and school administrators regarding their organization’s past, present, and future focus of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I). We heard from 567 respondents representing 49 states and small and large public, private, and charter schools. 84.4% of respondents answered very important or important when asked to rate the important of “DE&I as it relates to your school/district’s planning for programs and practices.” Though this data has vast implications, for this iteration of Talk Data to Me, we asked: How might this survey data inform recruiting and hiring practices?

What Can Districts Do to Advance Equity?

Over 63% of respondents indicated that their organization is actively working to diversify their employee base; but how? Many actions were noted to have already been taken to advance equity as it relates to their recruiting and hiring practices. The table below details the most common.

 

 
Further, an additional 19.75% of respondents indicated that their organizations have plans to “revisit and update hiring practices inclusive of DE&I programs” and 19.58% indicated plans to “look for additional candidate sources to proactively attract diverse candidates.”
 
By far, the most common action taken by respondents was not in what talent they are recruiting, but where they are recruiting the talent from. 57.96% of respondents indicated that they are relying on different candidate sources in hopes to advance equity than they were previously. Which referral sources have been most effective at recruiting diverse candidates?
 

 

How a Robust Recruiting and Hiring Solution Can Help

Job seekers want DE&I, too. Over 86% of job seekers who use Frontline’s Recruiting & Hiring, K12 Job Spot, and Frontline Central find working “in a school that values diversity and inclusion” important. Further, over 96% of job seekers noted that working “in a collaborative and supportive environment” and “with supportive coworkers” were important to them. So, how can a comprehensive recruiting and hiring solution help you find your desired candidates to meet your DE&I goals?
 

Software like Frontline Recruiting & Hiring and Frontline Central allows you to:

• Post to a job board designed for K12 education professionals
• Proactively recruit from a large pool of education professionals
• Create automated recruiting campaigns to reach new candidates
• Reach tens of thousands of licensed educators who are in your state or interested in relocating
• Send personalized messages to any candidates who meet your criteria
• Increase your online presence and attract more millennial educators
• Cast a wider net and attract the best applicants, even for hard-to-fill positions
• Easily sort and filter to find the best candidates

 

Dive into data-driven decision-making

 
One way that the Frontline Research and Learning Institute suggests that districts combat their staff shortages is to employ tools to expand applicant tools and to make data driven decisions for where to advertise and find applicants. Many districts are doing exactly that by analyzing their specific recruitment and referral data inside of human capital analytics.
 

 
Districts can quickly access a series of interactive and intuitive data visualizations of their current applicant referral source data and learn where their general applicant pool tends to come from and how that compares to referral sources of the applicants that they tend to hire from.
 
Districts can also see how referral sources change year over year and are able to filter their data by month and year of when applicants are submitting applications, time of year, when jobs are first posted, different job types and categories and are even able to drill down into individual job postings.
 
Analyzing this data is also helpful for districts to analyze their return on investment of certain recruitment efforts and hiring events as well.
 
Learn more about Human Capital Analytics here