Hiring for a traditional educator or school admin role was one thing. But, ever since online classes have become the norm, educational institutes are tasked with finding the right remotely-friendly teachers and support staff to fill vacancies. This can be tough, especially with a lean (and mostly telecommuting) HR team. Then, there are the delays owing to issues coordinating with candidates located in different time zones, or misplaced or delayed contracts that come with remote hiring for education jobs.
This is why your institute needs a fresh and flexible approach to bagging those elusive candidates. High on the list of changes to be made is digitization of paperwork (a la eSignature solution, Signeasy).
Digitally transform to fast-track hiring for education jobs
From sourcing and filtering resumes to interviews and getting employment contracts signed, with stay at home orders in place, everything is just a little more complicated. The good news is: technology can simplify these hiring workflows.
To stay relevant among the talent pool, in an increasingly tech-first world, schools and universities must digitally transform.
Here is how technology can aid in productivity and better candidate experience along each step of the hiring process (and beyond):
Step 1: Source candidates - Since candidates can’t check out physical notice boards for listings or drop off their CV at the institute anymore, you need to amp up your website’s ability to promote and accept job applications. Additionally, link this portal to a powerful ATS (applicant tracking system) that automates the collecting and sorting of thousands of resumes.
Additionally, don't forget to hold virtual job fairs, where you can engage in workshops and Q&A sessions with applicants. At such events, to get instant sign-up for vacancies from the candidates, you could send them a simple application form via an eSignature solution.
Step 2: Conduct remote interviews - For interviews to be hygienically conducted face to-face, video sessions are most convenient. You could also send candidates teaching assignments or quick lesson plan templates to fill, via online assessment tools, for a bias-free shortlist of applicants from the existing pool.
Step 3: Run background checks - Gone are the days of requesting physical copies of referrals, teaching certificates, professional experience reports and official university transcripts etc. Now it can all be attested and shared electronically via eSignature platforms such as Signeasy.
Step 4: Confirm appointment of new hires - Another part of the hiring workflow that eSignatures helps with is sending employment contracts and confidentiality agreements to remote applicants and other signing parties (head master, HR etc). With just a few clicks they can e-sign the document and send it back. Hiring documents that used to take days to get signed by all stakeholders, can now be completed in minutes with eSignature solutions. With Signeasy, you can also set whether you want the document to be signed parallely by all the stakeholders, or first by the candidate and then by the school administrators.
Step 5: Inducting new hires into the institute - There is a lot of paperwork in the induction phase including employee handbook acknowledgement forms, employee benefits forms, employee equipment inventory lists, IT policy form, W-4 form (or W-9 for contractors), I-9 employment eligibility verification form and state tax withholding form.The sooner you get all these filled-in, approved and out of the way, sooner your new hires will be entrenched into the system. In turn, this will mean that the new staff can be productive sooner! To speed-up the induction paperwork, all these forms can be sent, signed and managed from within your HRMS (with a Signeasy integration). No wonder the HR team of Echo Education, a professional institute in China, uses Signeasy to onboard new teachers from across the world.
Step 6: Storage of signed forms - Staff details cannot be stored in physical filings bins anymore. What you need is a secure, cost-effective and eco-friendly way to manage these files. Most eSignature solutions of repute store all personnel files on the cloud, making it possible for authorized users to access these documents from anywhere and anytime!
Why Signeasy is essential for an A+ for candidate experience
Hiring norms are changing all around us.
But one thing is still important - setting the right perception about your institute within the minds of job seekers.
Here is how Signeasy helps endear employers to candidates:
- Regular reminders: Once a form is shared with the candidate, automated reminders will be sent to them until the form is filled and submitted. This is a helpful feature for job seekers as they may forget to fill in a form , once in a while and therefore lose out on an opportunity.
- Delay free hiring process: With Signeasy candidates will not have to worry about delayed contracts or other onboarding documents. By making the entire hiring paperwork speedy, you can enable candidate delight.
- Remote signing: Job seekers can be located anywhere and cannot be expected to come to your office every time a hiring document needs to be signed. By allowing new hires to sign documents from anywhere and on any device, Signeasy makes telecommuting much more convenient.
- Eliminate boring paperwork: Candidates won't always have the time to print, scan and courier documents, everytime some hiring-related form needs to be signed. With Signeasy, candidates can receive, electronically fill in the form and send it back in just a few clicks. Et voila! They can worry less about the job application paperwork and more focus on their current job more.
- Ensures candidates have a copy of the signed forms: Once all parties sign the offer letter and other forms, Signeasy sends a copy to the new hire as an email attachment.
Whether it's hiring admin staff, teachers, school nurses, or janitorial staff, don’t let paperwork get between you and the perfect candidate. Click here to check out Signeasy’s 14-day free trial. You can send a few offer letters and induction forms to see how incredibly intuitive and seamless the singing experience is.
