Assessing Your Effort to Attract Quality Candidates

KEEB has now been in place for 7 weeks and there are approximately 1300 applicants in the system as of press time. A number of the applicants are in the system to learn how to use it or are considering applying for positions, but many are actively applying for positions. There a number of steps you can take to attract quality candidates from this pool to your posting. The former KEEB system inundated you with resumes, while the new system requires a little more work up front to receive resumes. The new features are intended to provide 10 really good applicants rather than 100 resumes to sift through for 10 candidates. There are a number of ways you can increase the rate of quality applicants.

• Branding – It is important to brand your district so that candidates with similar philosophies apply. This can help you find a good fit with a candidate. You can include branding by utilizing the employer description, images, and podcasts.
• Review Your Posting – Look at your posting from a job seekers perspective, rather than the employer side. When you read your posting do you get a feeling for where your located, what your districts beliefs are, what the job is, and the kinds of benefits that are available?
• Keyword Rich – Visitors to KEEB from popular search engines like Google, MSN, and Yahoo are increasing every day. You can take advantage of these search engines by utilizing keywords in your postings. For example, let’s say I have a PT position to post. I would be better off listing it as Physical Therapist and including those two words in my posting several times, not just in the title. For example, when I search Google for Interrelated Special Education Job, the first search result is a link to a posting on KEEB. The district that posted this position included the title of the position in the job description as well.

If you aren’t getting the applicants the number of applicants you might consider looking at these three areas. Remember also, that KEEB provides you with data so that you can learn more about how many job seekers are viewing your postings. This can be helpful information when analyzing your recruitment effort.