Hiring the Right Person Right
The Hiring Process

 

By: Dennis W. Mills, Ph.D.

There are three things that kill schools: (1) no mission statement; (2) no written policies & procedures; and, (3) no understanding of how to hire the right person. The primary focus of this session is on the process of hiring the right person for the right position in a Christian school.

A sound employment process consists of three major functions. These are (1) recruiting, (2) interviewing, and (3) verifying information. Each function uses a number of tools and techniques to accomplish its specific objectives.

Recruiting

 

In recruiting, the objective is to attract as many qualified candidates as you can in order to produce the one candidate that can not only do the job, but also excel at it!

The search for candidates may involve the use of advertising, employment agencies, employee referrals, or internal job posting. If your search has not captured the one you're looking for, don't "hire the best of the worst." go back into the recruiting mode.

Expediency has no place in the Christian employment process. It has to be God’s person, in God’s timing, at God's prepared place. When you hire someone, it is for a long period of time, so don’t rush into something you may regret.

Develop a profile or characteristics of the specific person who is being sought. Use a team approach to develop a selection strategy.

 

Recruiting Tools

1. School reputation.

2. Long-range planning. Plan for several years ahead. Publicize personnel needs in advance. Keep a file of names of persons whom you would like to attract to the staff. People will come who may not come at the first invitation.

3. Promotional materials. Develop a good general-purpose brochure that describes the school positively. Student handbooks and faculty handbooks help candidates to understand the school philosophy and lifestyle. Quality printing communicates a quality school. Re-evaluate your letterhead and business cards. What is the first impression a stranger makes? Promotional materials are essential for staff recruitment and student recruitment.

4. Advertising and announcements. It can be helpful if one has access to a periodical that serves a large part of the supporting constituency. An ad place in a denominational magazine or in an evangelical publication may be inexpensive and effective. Explore the possibility of Christian radio and television. this could stimulate student enrollment! Use the regular school newsletter to report vacancies to school board members, to parents, and to pastors.

5. Philosophy of Christian school education. It is absolutely necessary to have a written formal philosophy statement on which to base every decision that the board makes. that statement should include the criterion for choosing every person whom they hire, the philosophy must be clear, concise, and communicable.

6. Employment policy. The school administrator or the school board needs to develop written standards of employment. Policies will assist you in the decision-making process. The policies need to be sufficiently detailed to provide specific direction, but not so restrictive as to require constant exception. Don't put yourself into the dilemma of having to terminate a loyal, but inefficient employee, who should never have been employed. Evaluate the person's capabilities before placing them on the payroll.

7. Application form. Each school needs to develop an application form that meets its own needs. It fills most of the voids generally found in a resume. the application blank also suggest areas for investigation during subsequent interviews. A carefully-worded application can help you reduce the number of applicants that you will need to interview. The length of the application is directly proportional to the seriousness and quality of the applicant. It doesnit have to be longer than necessary, but it should require enough information to enable you to determine whether the applicant has the basic employment prerequisites to justify a personal interview.

8. College visits. An administrator ought to pay an annual recruitment visit to bible colleges and to Christian liberal arts colleges that graduate the kind of candidates that he or she and the board desire. Placement offices will be glad to help you set up interview facilities. Be specific in telling them the grade level and/or subject fields for which you are recruiting. Offer to speak in chapel, to education classes, or to conduct seminars on Christian schools.

9. Encourage your seniors to attend the colleges from which you recruit teachers. The number of college students to sign up for interviews with you on your recruiting visit is influenced to some extent by the image of your school given to the candidate through association with the alumnus of your school.

10. Appraisal of credentials. After screening the resumes, you may want to request the placement credentials of the selected individuals to be sent to you before you set up interviews. Along with the request for credentials should be an application form, it is my personal and professional opinion that every administrator should call a candidate for an interview only after the credentials, application form, resume, and cover letter have been thoroughly evaluated.

 

Before Teachers Are Selected

 

  1. Written philosophy of Christian school education.

  2. Mission statement. Why does your school exist?

  3. Current, accurate, written job description for each position in the school. Use the faculty and staff to develop the job description.

  4. Descriptive literature about the school and the community.

  5. Profile of the "ideal employee" to be hired. Have the faculty and team leaders draw up the profile.

  6. Develop an effective application form that gathers the information you need to warrant calling an interview.

  7. Construct a list of interview questions that will help you screen the applicants.

  8. Create an evaluative instrument that is used during or immediately following the interview.

  9. Develop a series of form letters for standard school business communications: letter of response to inquiries for positinns that do not exist, invitation for an interview, confirmation of interview time, contract offer, letter of rejection .

  10. Current employee handbook

  11. Employee retention plan - why continue to always recruit when it is more productive to retain!

  12. Salary schedule; period

 

Before An Interview

  1. Developed a position description and a profile of the successful applicant. Let the faculty help you!
  2. Listed the position in places that qualified candidates are likely to know about your needs.
  3. Written letter of recruitment for the position. Sell!!
  4. Sent letter and application forms to all potential applicants that meet your requirements initially. Just send a polite letter to those for whom it is not appropriate to send application forms. Expedient public relations.
  5. Requested a transcript from each institution the applicants attended.
  6. Initiated a file-folder for each candidate.
  7. Established a faculty search committee to review and recommend calling candidates for interviews.
  8. Telephoned and sent a confirming letter to the candidate.
  9. Arranged interviewing schedule with the administrator in charge of personnel, the faculty search committee, and possibly a board representative.
  10. I recommend a day at the school, which allows for interviews, and having the candidate teach several classes.

Rejected applicants should receive a write-off letter thanking them for their interest in your school and wishing them well in their job search. I would avoid telling a candidate after an interview of my decision outright. Instead, thank the applicant for his or her time and advise them that they will be hearing from you within a specified time.

Verbal turndowns just don't work. The applicant frequently wants specific information as to why he or she was rejected. Try the following: "I will be interviewing a number of candidates after which time I will analyze the results. Based on those results a decision will be made and all the candidates will be advised of the results."

 

Interviewing

Note: The most important aspect that you as an interviewer gains out of an interview is a subjective feeling. You are trying to find out what kind of person the candidate is, and the questions you ask are the tools to get at the inner person.

Techniques of questioning

The quality of information that is gathered during a job interview depends to a great extent on the techniques that are used in the questioning process.

It is not good enough to ask good questions. The questions, in addition to being good, must be asked in a manner that elicits a response that provides relevant and meaningful information about the candidate.

 

Ineffective techniques

  1. Asking too many questions that can be answered merely "yes" or "no" which can also come through as an interrogation.
  2. Asking a series of routine, unimaginative questions for which a sharp applicant has already prepared answers.
  3. Asking leading questions that suggest the proper answers, to the applicants. For example, an interviewer should not say, "you do believe in corporal punishment, don't you?" Instead you might ask, "what do you think about using corporal punishment in Christian schools?"
  4. Don’t ask questions or make comments that reveal your own attitude or feelings.
  5. Don't ask questions that are already answered on the resume, application form, or in other correspondence with the applicant.
  6. Don't ask questions that are not related to the job nor to the task at hand.

Rule of thumb: the more talking the applicant does, the more information you will receive. The interviewer who takes up a third or more of the interviewing time talking is a poor interviewer.

 

Open-Ended Questions:

 

Direct Questions: questions that can be answered adequately in a few words,

 

Reflection Questions: repeat or rephrase a portion of what the applicant has said.

 

Try To Avoid List

  1. Irrelevant, illegal, or stressful questions.
  2. Not asking enough questions to keep the interview flowing.
  3. Questions already answered on the resume or employment application

 

Illegal-Questions

  1. Are you married, divorced, separated, or single?
  2. How old are you?
  3. Do you go to church regularly?
  4. Do you have many debts?
  5. Do you own or rent your home?
  6. What social and political organizations do you belong to?
  7. What does your spouse thing about your career?
  8. Are you practicing birth control?
  9. Were you ever arrested?
  10. How much do you weigh?
  11. How tall are you?

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 makes these questions illegal unless you can show that these area directly relate to bona fide occupational qualifications.

 

Six Rules For Conducting Effective Interviews

  1. The interviewer will be sensitive to the candidate, respect his or her intelligence, and not act superior.
  2. The interviewer will try to put the candidate at ease rather than create stress.
  3. The interviewer will immediately state the objective of the interview.
  4. The interviewer will try to get the candidate to talk as much as possible without drilling him or her with questions.
  5. The interviewer will seek valid information and not interject personal opinions into the interview. He or she will be professional at all times.
  6. The interviewer will know when and how to close the interview this includes clearly summarizing the candidate's interview statements so there will be no misunderstandings about what was communicated.

 

Offer Letters

  1. Position title
  2. Proposed starting assignment
  3. Assigned department
  4. Person for whom applicant will work
  5. Location of employment
  6. Salary
  7. Benefits
  8. Relocation provisions
  9. Special condition such as physical examinations or teacher certification
  10. Time for consideration (if applicable)
  11. Means of accepting (or refusing) the offer
  12. Proposed starting date
  13. Employer's next actions

 

Copyright © 1997 CSRnet
This publication my not be reprinted in any format without expressed written permission.
This page was last updated on: March 19, 2001

Christian Web Hosting provided by ChristianHosting.com