From Candidate to Employee

Hiring season at Hudson has been quite a bit busier than normal and the building administrators have had their hands full this spring. We are always sad to see our employees move on and wish them all well in their future endeavors. Unfortunately turnover is a part of normal operations in any organization as people move on to new challenges, retirement, or opt to stay home with young children. The quirk in schools though, is that the bulk of our hiring is done during the spring and early summer; whereas in other industries, hiring tends to not be compressed into such a small window. Today's missive is designed to give our community a peak behind the curtain as to how our hiring process works, as well as to offer some advice to those would be job seekers. 

Technically speaking, the Board of Directors has the ultimate responsibility for the hiring of personnel. The boards role then is to complete the legal process of the hire and authorize the issuance of a contract based on a recommendation from the administration. If you have ever looked at our board agenda, you'll notice a standing agenda item for our meetings: 5.3 Approve Consent Personnel. This includes appointments of new personnel and resignations, which are handled as a class action each month. From a practical standpoint, the hiring of personnel in Hudson is delegated to the superintendent, who in turn delegates it to a hiring agent. In our case this is the administrator or department head who will be tasked with supervising the employee on a day to day basis.

Once a position has been vacated, the administrator and I will typically meet to discuss the vacancy and determine whether or not it truly needs to be filled and if any restructuring should be considered. We'll discuss desired qualifications and I'll provide some guardrails before authorizing the posting. In the majority of cases I'm not involved in the interviewing of candidates and leave that to the building administrator and team of teachers who will be working with the employee. I'll re-enter the hiring process at the tail end right before the administrator is prepared to make the offer of employment and give final approval for the hire. 

The process begins with the development of the pool. Exactly what is it that we are looking for? That is going to be clarified in the posting, which not only will include the specifics of the vacancy being filled, but the endorsements that are legally necessary, as well as those that are desired. Preferred endorsements are typically used as a primary screener when sorting out which candidates are deemed 'viable' for closer scrutiny. Here's a tip for those would be candidates for elementary teaching jobs at Hudson: a literacy endorsement is considered the 'gold standard' for ensuring your application gets a closer look when it crosses the principals desk. 

Generally speaking, an elementary teaching position is going to attract a lot more candidates than a high school teaching position. Consider this: We recently had a pool for an elementary position that garnered 86 applicants before ultimately being filled. In roughly the same time period, a high school teaching position had a pool with 19 candidates. Keep in mind this isn't an anomaly, but rather the norm. It is also worth pointing out that the more specialized a position is the smaller the pool will be; and we do have a number of specialized positions that attract less than a handful of qualified applicants.

For those who make the cut and are invited to an interview, I would strongly recommend you take some time and familiarize yourself with the school district. It would be wise to understand what that district values, the current initiatives the district is engaged with, and a generalized understanding of the community. In a recent interview for our music positions (I do sit in on those because of my background) I was impressed when a candidate went into detail about how they had learned about the history of our jazz program and offered specifics about how they envisioned taking the program to the next level. I was less impressed when a candidate for the same job told me that he knew we had high test scores because he looked up our report card and saw that we were designated 'High Performing'. While both statements were true can you guess which one was hired?

Typically reference checking is done once we are very close to making the offer of employment. While there is usually some reference checking that is done in advance of the interview, a much deeper dive will happen after the interview is completed. This is a signal that we are pretty serious about the candidate. I think it is also fair to point out that we are astute enough to realize that the references that are listed on the resume are going to provide a positive endorsement. That is why we also take the time to look for other reference sources. And my favorite interview question: What will we find if we Google your name?

Finally I want to discuss the value of an advanced degree and how that factors into the hiring process. One might think an advanced degree automatically gives the candidate a leg up on the competition. That is largely a myth. However, endorsements that provide the district (and employee) with flexibility in assignment are very valuable. 

We do still have some great positions open for the 2021-2022 school year. You can view those postings here.