$30,000 Recruiting Tool Will Help Hire, Retain Great Staff: Valley View Officials

Valley View’s Executive Director of Human Resources Sharon Hawks normally has to sort through 300 applications when hiring for a new teaching position. 

To find quality candidates, the school board will vote March 25 whether to purchase “Ventures for Excellence,” a hiring and selection recruiting tool.

The program will cost $31,026 for a three-year agreement. The money would be taken out of the human resources budget. Each administrator would also be required to use $1,200 from their professional growth monies to pay for their training within the next three years. 

Hawks said she spoke with Human Resources Directors from two other districts who use this system.

If the program is “implemented correctly, consistently and with fidelity, this program can be a tremendous asset in hiring and retaining great certified staff,” Hawks wrote in a board document. 

How it works

After competing an application, every applicant will be required to complete an online questionnaire, also known as the "style profile builder." The applicant is asked a series of 32 questions, which present real-life professional scenarios. 

The program looks for answers that are “student-centered” and “exceptional,” Hawks told the board. Those applicants then move on to a phone screening. That screening is based on, “a select group of questions that relate to the characteristics of an excellent teacher with specific parameters for the appropriate answer.”

Each administrator that conducts these phone interviews is required to participate in a four-day training, where he or she learns to listen for “evidence of excellence” in applicant answers. 

If an applicant makes it through the phone screening phase, he or she will be invited to a face-to-face building interview. 

“This process allows us to move forward with hiring certified staff that have the characteristics of an ‘Excellent’ teacher,” Hawks wrote in a board document.

By the face-to-face interview, candidates are "willing to invest in students, committed, able to communicate, personable, compassionate and motivated to learn and teach, can generate alternatives as needed, possess a positive attitude and have the knowledge of what components are necessary for good lesson plans and design and can put their knowledge into action."

Next steps

The Valley View school board will vote to purchase or not purchase the tool on March 25. If approved, the district will begin using the questionnaire during April or May. Staff will be trained for the phone interviews in the fall.