Valentine’s Day has us feeling all warm and fuzzy and got us thinking about the many reasons why we love working in education recruitment (nothing to do with it being half-term tomorrow, of course). Anyway, these are the 10 reasons that we love working in education recruitment.

Early finishes 

Education recruitment isn’t your normal 9 to 5 job and we usually work from 7:00 am to 5:00 pm. Working around the school timetable means we can get a few more hours in bed over the holidays with our days starting at 9:00 am and finishing at 3:30 pm during the school holidays. Who doesn’t love a lie-in?. 

Meeting lots of new people

Being an APSCo Compliance+ accredited company we are required to interview everyone who registers with us face-to-face which means that we get to meet lots of interesting people. As a full-service agency we meet people from all walks and life looking for all sorts of school job roles this includes headteachers, teachers, teaching assistants, caretakers and cleaners.

Helping people to find their dream job in a school

We love being a part of the process that sees people set and achieve their career goals, find their perfect school and improve their wellbeing. Knowing that we have the ability to really have an impact on someone in this way makes being a consultant a really fulfiling job.

To be able to do this, we have to spend time getting to know both our teaching staff and our schools. This means spending time with our schools to really get an understanding of what they are looking for and their ethos. Education recruitment is not a stuffy desk job - it’s a fun one and our team spend lots of time out of the office helping out at school fairs, sports days and supervising school trips. 

Make a difference to children’s lives

It’s not just the school staff that we have the ability to make a difference to, we also have the ability to change children’s lives too by placing great teachers, teaching support staff and school leaders into schools. Doing so improves children’s learning, wellbeing and helps them to grow in confidence and gives us the warm fuzzies! 

We also each play our own parts too by supporting schools with their events and running voluntary careers workshops around CV writing and interview techniques - skills which all students need.

No day is ever the same 

Recruitment can be a whirlwind and education recruitment is no different. What makes it such an interesting job to do is that there is so much variety. You might spend your morning talking to schools who need staff urgently, then meeting with new teachers who are looking for work, in the afternoon you might source CVs or head out to meet a new school. No day is ever the same and that’s the way we like it! 

Competition is exciting

Education recruitment is just as competitive if not more than any other form of recruitment. You get a rush from competing with other education agencies for staff and for roles which drives you to work harder to make the placement. Of course, when you do finally make the placement you’ve been fighting for you feel a sense of accomplishment. 

Progression opportunities

We have progression and development plans in place for everyone in our team from consultant to admin to marketing. Everyone has goals, measurables and targets so they know exactly what they are aiming for and what they need to do to progress.

Olivia is a great example! She started her journey at Smile as a Trainee having recently graduated university, she is now, having worked her way up, Operations Manager and leader of our secondary team.

 You never stop learning 

We have the opportunity to enhance our skills further with training. Regular training is offered to our team with lots of courses you can attend. Developing our knowledge can help us to access new and different approaches to help people.

It’s fun 

To keep our team motivated we run incentives throughout the year and offer some incredible prizes. As a result of winning incentives, our team have enjoyed weekends abroad, spa days and even trips to the theatre.

We also do lots of fun things for charity such as bake-offs (move over Mary Berry!), Easter eggs hunts and have an annual conference every year, where we celebrate our successes and give out awards. 

If you would like to work in education recruitment, send your CV our way today.