Leander ISD Faces Teacher Hiring Crisis Head On [Case Study Highlights]

The candidate shortage affects all industries, but only some have been hit as hard as the education industry. With fewer people graduating with education degrees and many teachers and support staff being lured away to competing institutions and private organizations, public school districts have been scrambling to find new and innovative ways to compete for top talent, as well as retain the dedicated employees they currently have.

One such school district found the answer in the form of virtual and hybrid recruitment events. Located in Texas, the Leander Independent School District educates more than 42,000 students over 46 campuses in the cities of Austin, Cedar Park, and Leander. As one of the largest and also fastest-growing school districts in the state (with over 1,000 new students added every year), greater demand for teachers pushed Leander ISD to push the boundaries of their in-person hiring fairs and venture into the world of virtual recruitment and engagement events.

“I think as educators, we need to take advantage of as many things as we can that are modern and cutting-edge, because the reality is that many teachers are now leaving the field to go into companies and corporations. So while we may not be able to compete with these organizations on perks and benefits, we can definitely do so with hiring technology. That’s how we’ll be on the same playing field with them when we’re trying to recruit,” Jennifer Dunn, Campus Recruiter for Leander ISD said in their recent case study with Brazen.

Virtual Tools Give Education Recruiters a Competitive Edge

Increasing engagement in your recruitment process is all about creating connections. Remote interview tools that have video, audio, and text features actively facilitate positive interactions between candidates and recruiters, and offer higher levels of accessibility to a greater number of potential candidates, regardless of where they’re located.

In Leander ISD’s case, virtual tools extended their reach well beyond the boundaries of Texas (which is a very large state in its own right) and allowed them to attract candidates from all over the world, giving the hiring team the opportunity to select candidates based on their individual merits and experience from a more competitive and diverse candidate pool.

Hybrid-Enhanced In-Person Hiring

Leander ISD’s ambitions didn’t just end at virtual events: in fact, they actively sought out ways to apply virtual tools and technologies to their traditional in-person hiring events as a way to further optimize their hiring practices. In the Spring of 2022, they hosted a virtual recruiting event on one day and an in-person job fair on the other across 34 schools within the district, encouraging interested prospects to submit their resumes digitally regardless of which of the events they attended. This small yet highly-impactful innovation not only allowed hiring managers and principals to view and evaluate applicant resumes ahead of time, but it also enabled them to act quickly, scheduling in-person and virtual interviews on the Brazen platform with their top picks the very next day.

The results? A 95% attendance rate and offers of employment extended to 1/4 of the candidates who went. Amazing!

Relationship Building is the Key to Better Retention

The candidate experience doesn’t end after hiring. Relationship building throughout the employee journey (from candidate to hire) is a critical part of reducing candidate ghosting and increasing long-term retention. That’s why Leander ISD continues its awareness-building efforts with partnering colleges and universities through informative webinars hosted on the Brazen platform, and also plans to further leverage this technology to create engaging events for their current staff on an ongoing basis and further support their growth in multiple ways.

As Dunn said in the case study, “retention is a big thing for us. We’re very good about making sure that we keep those connections with the people who we’re hiring. And I don’t just mean people who have been here for 0 to 3 years, but people much like myself that have been here 15 or 20 years. We need to make sure that we’re still cultivating those relationships and providing adequate support for whatever position they’re in, whether it’s

child nutrition, transportation, special education teachers, etc., so we’re creating an atmosphere where everyone wants to come to work every single day.”

To read the full case study, click here or on the image below. 

Like this post? Try these!

• The 2022 State of Hybrid Recruiting Report 

• Your K-12 Recruiting Questions: Answered
• Educator Shortage Insights from the AASPA Whitepaper

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