what to expect when offered a teaching job

instructor interview

Instructor Interview Process: What To Await From Hiring Schools

This commodity describes the typical interview process for teachers seeking a new task at a Pre-K to 12 school: what to expect and how to successfully become a educational activity job offering.

Jan 3, 2019 • 17 min read

Each school'south recruitment and interview process is unlike — it is shaped past the school's goals and circumstances, including the positions that need to be filled, time of year, and internal dynamics. This commodity volition cover what happens behind the scenes, the almost eatables interview steps, and how to laissez passer each step to get a educational activity job offer. We endeavor to describe the most typical interview process as a starting bespeak for your preparation. Our insights are based on conversations with hundreds of recruitment teams hiring teachers on Selected, and thousands of candidates that we passenger vehicle through the interview process.

Who is this for?

This commodity is for all teacher candidates looking for a new teaching job, including first-fourth dimension teachers and experienced, mid-career switchers. The goal is to provide insights into the interview procedure based on constant conversations with a range of schoolhouse recruitment teams — from individual customs charters to large districts. This article is geared towards candidates seeking full-time, pb or co-instruction positions at a Pre-M to 12, public or private schoolhouse. We volition encompass process nuances for different roles, experience levels, and schoolhouse types in the future. The intended outcome is for you to understand how the process works and then you can strategize, prepare, and excel during your interviews.

Backside the Scene: Who at the Schoolhouse is Involved?

A school isn't a monolith, or a edifice, information technology'south an organisation of people with competing thoughts, motivations, and interpersonal dynamics. When you interview, at that place are a variety of roles and personalities involved in making the conclusion to hire you lot, including:

Recruiters and HR Squad Members: Their function is to discover the right candidates, convince them to apply, screen out candidates that are not a fit, bring people on site, and hand off to other interviewers. A top goal for this group is to efficiently "source" as many, loftier-quality candidates for on-site interviews, while filtering out wrong-fit candidates.
Hiring Managers: A main, banana main, caput of school, dean of faculty, or other senior school leader is the decision maker and has the power to offer you a job, or not. A cardinal motivation is sustainable team building — not simply filling open positions but building a collaborative team of people who volition stay and abound for years to come. Teacher turnover is a top business concern due to the loftier effort and cost or re-hiring and, ultimately, because information technology is confusing to students.
Other Interviewers: Content and grade leads, head of upper and lower schools, or other experienced teachers and leaders have significant influence over hiring decisions.
Executives and Senior Administrators: If you lot are interviewing at a larger school commune or charter schoolhouse network, there may be an additional tier of senior leaders (e.g., superintendent or CEO) who may be directly or indirectly involved in hiring decisions.

Regardless of championship, participants in the interview procedure will adopt various roles that you volition need to manage to proceed to subsequent rounds:

Insider: Having a friend or associate at the schoolhouse is a huge advantage (if you don't take one, Selected can be your Insider). Any positive relationship with a current teacher or administrator can dramatically heave your chances of getting a job. This person provides social proof that you lot are a fit for the part and schoolhouse, and tin can take the disquisitional office of your Champion. Improve your odds by leveraging your network. If you don't know anyone at the school, start developing relationships today, and leverage Selected, before interviewing.
Screeners: It is disquisitional to avoid making mistakes and giving recruiters or others a reason to exclude you before yous brainstorm. Even if yous are qualified for a position, potential character or "soft skill" issues, such equally being rude, missing scheduled calls, or having a bad resume can result in elimination (the conclusion can happen in seconds). Later in the procedure, Screeners tin can become Influencers by providing of import information, specially from the early phases.
Influencers: Experienced teachers and front end-line leaders (e.k., content or form leads) exert significant influence on whether yous volition get offered or non. For instance, during the demo lesson, these interviewers are assessing yous on a range of criteria, so it is important to convince each and every Influencer that yous are a not bad addition to the team.
Champion: It'due south important to secure at least ane person to get your strongest advocate. The more than champions you have, the better your chances are. The inverse situation is having a group of interviewers who are lukewarm to you — resulting in the school hiring a different candidate (your unknown competitor). Have y'all e'er experienced the situation where things were going actually well and then suddenly the school goes radio silent? What might take happened is that the team didn't feel strongly well-nigh you lot and is now pursuing someone else.
Saboteur: Anyone involved may also get your strongest detractor. For whatever reason — they don't think you have the right stuff, you said something that turned them off, or they are biased against you in some way — this person can sink your chances in an instant. Candidates ofttimes underestimate the power of simply one negative vocalism in the process. That's why we advise candidates to be engaged and pleasant with everyone, including people that aren't officially interviewing y'all (e.g., the person who greeted y'all when you outset checked in). You should try to win over every person you see (e.g., office admins, students in the hall, other staff), as it is a strong signal to your interviewers on how you volition behave on-the-job. The best recruitment teams will proactively solicit feedback from everyone who interacted with you. If they have enough candidates to cull from (the best schools will), they won't have to have any chances with a candidate even one person has doubts nigh.
Decision maker: Ultimately, this is the person (east.grand., Hiring Manager) who you need to win over, particularly during the final, one-on-1 meeting. Typically, this person won't get involved until afterward rounds (to save time), and volition be the last evaluator of your fit. This person volition also be the principal person trying to sell you on the opportunity and school (due east.yard., schoolhouse culture, community, professional evolution opportunities).

How is the decision to hire you made?

It depends on the school — no two school interview processes are exactly the same. The determination to offer you a chore (and how you are evaluated) varies from casual to rigorous and individual to group-based. A process is the issue of the school'southward planning and execution of its hiring goals. Below are key factors that implicitly shape your interview experience:

A good identify to showtime is constraints, because a school doesn't have a pick on:

Type of schoolhouse: Needs of an individual community charter school are very dissimilar than those of a large district or lease management organization (CMO). Factors to understand include the community and students served (e.g., high-need, multi-lingual, first-generation college), besides as, legal and financial structure (e.m., individual vs. public, district vs. lease, secular vs. religious).
Full-blooded: The mission, values, cultural traditions, pedagogical behavior, and past and nowadays leaders are inextricable from the schoolhouse's identity, and may be hard or incommunicable to change. A school's "cultural Deoxyribonucleic acid" will directly influence the line of questioning you become. For example, a progressive schoolhouse might ask questions near exploratory, projection-based learning while a depression-performing schoolhouse might enquire nigh responding to data on pupil outcomes for standardized testing. Understanding the context is a shortcut to preparing the right approach.
Type of part: The role is the role. Regardless of how cracking yous are, a school desperately seeking a high schoolhouse physics teachers will not requite you the time of day if you are an uncomplicated art teacher. Focus on schools that need what you lot offer — deeply understand what the school needs and its requirements, such every bit certification needs, minimum years experience, and extracurricular participation.
Budget: If a school doesn't take the coin, this will automatically shut out teachers that take higher salary expectations (e.thousand., more experienced teachers).
Timing: Many candidates nosotros speak to underestimate how much timing plays in the process. A schoolhouse's decision volition exist pressured by when it has to hire — immediately vs. for the next schoolhouse yr. Unexpected mid-year departure and early on vs. belatedly in the hiring season are factors. Public and private schools have dissimilar hiring seasons.
Organizational habits: Schools have skillful and bad habits, biases, and preferences for specific candidate types. For example, some schools focus on hiring more inexperienced teachers to railroad train them on their system (versus having to "re-program" seasoned teachers with entrenched opinions and habits). This factor is peculiarly difficult and unpredictable to candidates, particularly if a school does not systematically check its biases based on age, race and ethnicity, gender, superficial personality traits, among many other qualities. Your best bet is to learn nearly a school'southward idiosyncrasies from an Insider (or online research), or observe them early in the process and suit your approach.
Macro trends: At that place are other, larger factors that are difficult to see but are major drivers of your experience and career trajectory, including your locale's political and economic situation, changes to education and administrative policies, legal mandates, arroyo to standardized testing, curriculum changes, student population growth, and supply of bachelor teachers (east.g., shortage of Stem, special instruction, or multilingual teachers). The more you sympathise the big picture show, the improve you volition exist at strategizing your interview approach (and long-term career plan). Did you small in math? Did yous speak a 2nd language growing up? The tendency is your friend — highlighting and positioning yourself advisedly tin can make a large divergence.

Beyond the circumstances described above, a school'south hiring goals ultimately dictate how a decision gets made. A recruitment squad is trying to find candidates that meet the school'southward needs by assessing leading indicators of on-the-chore success. The types of people schools look for vary widely, but hither are common assessment dimensions nosotros encounter time and again:

Character: These are the indispensable characteristics a teacher needs to be successful in the classroom (and greater schoolhouse community). Examples: self-reflective, growth mindset, coachable, adaptable, experimental, gritty, problem solving, dependable, and goes the extra mile.
Culture: Are you a great (non just good) fit with the school's mission, values, educational activity, and interpersonal dynamics? Do y'all raise or lower the bar?
Competencies: Do you lot have the hard and soft skills and experiences to exist a successful teacher at the school? Examples: Classroom management skills, content expertise, advice effectiveness, organization, and data-driven decision making.

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Common Interview Process Steps

Here is the virtually typical teacher interview process that nosotros see:

Application

Before modern tools like Selected, a candidate would take to apply to hundreds of job postings (through a job board or school website) and wait to see if they hear anything dorsum. On the schoolhouse'southward end, your application, along with anybody else'southward, is fed into a single repository. Many schools employ a software tool called an Applicant Tracking System ("ATS") that lets them post and manage open jobs and have all the applications feed back to the organization. Even if a schoolhouse is non actively hiring for a role, they may keep a job postal service upwards so they can collect resumes as leads in case they need them in the future. Adept for them, non for y'all.

School's goal: Source equally many leads as possible for current and future hiring
What to expect: In the background, HR or marketing team members (e.g., recruiters) are creating job postings and sharing them on their website, chore boards and sites, electronic mail lists, and other channels to get a task-seeking teacher to apply.
Your goal: Go your application noticed past a human. Ever apply into a blackhole and never hear back from anyone? This may exist because your resume is collected and stored with hundreds or thousands of others and difficult to notice. This is where an Insider can be a huge help — shortcutting the line and guaranteeing eyes on your awarding.
What to avoid: Not following instructions, giddy errors such as typos or leaving items bare, non post-obit upwards, not trying to get in bear on with a human.
Selected Resources: How tin I learn more than about a detail school?

Resume Screen

Your resume and awarding are quickly reviewed to assess your candidacy. Often, a recruiter will review every resume, but only spend a few seconds to a few minutes, max (east.k., thirty to 60 seconds).

School'due south goal: Efficiently review as many resumes as possible to find the all-time candidates to speak to while eliminating those who are not a fit.
What to expect: Cess by a recruiter (larger school or network) or someone with this responsibleness (east.grand., master, head of school, experienced teacher, someone from Human Resources, operations, or administration at a smaller school or network). The recruiter has yes/no/perhaps criteria used to decide whether to laissez passer y'all through or not (sometimes in a formal, documented checklist, just often an implicit listing in their caput). Frequently, for the sake of efficiency, they wait to chop-chop disqualify candidates (eastward.g., using technicalities such as certification, years of feel, minimum GPA) while looking for stand up-out candidates (eastward.g., part-fit for class and subject, quality of experience, extracurriculars) to curate a smaller pool of likely best-fit candidates.
Your goal: Become a chat with a existent person so y'all tin can explain what you bring to the table.
What to avoid: Simply, don't go butterfingers. Much of this footstep is defense — avoid mutual mistakes on your resume, then work to stand out from the crowd.
Selected Resources: Get a free, professional resume review within 24 hours. Top v Resume Tips. Revamp Your Resume (full-length workshop video).

Phone Screen

For instructional roles, you'll have a 15- to thirty-minute call with an interviewer — a call is a depression-cost, low-commitment way to proceeds much richer insight into your communication mode, thought process, and personality.

Schoolhouse's goal: Assess if a candidate is worth the time and endeavor to bring on-site and putting in front of a larger group of interviewers.
What to await: A recruiter (or experienced teacher, administrator) is assessing yous live to tease out any crimson flags to eliminate you, or find evidence that y'all are actually a good fit.
Your Goal: Go by this final screening round and in front of real people so you can testify how keen you are. Don't give the interviewer whatever reason to dubiousness and eliminate you. Simultaneously, you have to smoothen by actively selling why you are a good fit with several compelling, easy-to-think reasons.
What to avoid: Rambling. We cannot emphasize strongly plenty the importance of being curtailed and direct. Think before you respond and actually answer the question. Many candidates are eliminated at this pace because they are nervous and fill silence with words. An interviewer has several, specific questions they need to become through — answer the question and movement on after a minute or ii. You tin can ever ask if y'all should elaborate, but empower the interviewer with the option. Expect for cues that encourage you to speak less or more (e.k., interviewer has to cutting y'all off, or asks you to expand), ask for feedback, and clarify the question if you don't understand. Separately, avoid silly mistakes that indicate grapheme issues, such as being tardily to the phone call, canceling terminal minute with excuses,, rescheduling multiple times, a noisy background during the call, or poor phone service.
Selected Resource: Iii Things to Know About a Telephone Interview with a School Recruiter. What a Former Instructor Recruiter Wants You to Know.

Demo Lesson (aka Sample Lesson)

Congrats on reaching this stride, the vast majority of candidates won't make it this far! At present, the hard part — the technical round.

Schoolhouse's goal: Assess if they tin can put y'all in the classroom with students, and how y'all might actually perform on-the-job.
What to expect: A group of 1 to five interviewers (depending on the size of the school'south team and time of twelvemonth) will ask you lot to teach real students in a classroom for 15 to 45 minutes. The duration of the demo depends on the part and your experience level, and varies from school-to-school. Associate positions and kickoff-time teachers see the lower end of the range. It's rare to not have students nowadays (e.thou., kinesthesia members pretending to be students), fifty-fifty during summertime! During decorated times, there might be but one observer, other times you lot might see a full panel including a Hiring Manager, Other Influencers, Recruiters and HR Members, and sometimes, fifty-fifty Executives and Senior Administrators. An example group is the principal, an assistant principal, head of English Language Arts, an experienced teacher, and the recruiter who screened yous. During this time, there is little to no interference from the group — you are on your own.
Your goal: Testify that y'all have the character and competencies to manage a classroom and drive learning outcomes. This is your fourth dimension to shine. Y'all will need to bank check a lot of boxes for each of the interviewers across a range of criteria (sometimes formally documented as a Hiring Scorecard, simply oft implicitly in their minds). Example criteria are show of arrangement and thoughtfulness, a stiff lesson plan, ability to keep students prophylactic, authority, behavior management, appointment techniques, communication effectiveness, and, oh ya, your actual instruction skills and content expertise.
What to avoid: Losing control of your emotions or the classroom, anger, yelling, assuasive unsafe behavior, non having procedures, not setting expectations, and countless other things that can go wrong in the classroom.
Selected Resources: Ace the Teacher Demo Lesson. Acing the Demo Lesson (full-length workshop video). Apply Non-Exact Communication to Amend Classroom Engagement. Improve Student Beliefs Without Shame or Punishment. Determine Constructive Consequences. How to Take Difficult Conversations with Students About Their Behavior.

In-Person Interview

In rare cases, if the candidate is clearly non a good fit or non qualified, the Demo Lesson can be cut brusque and there will be no more interviews. Just more often, regardless of how the Lesson went, yous will be given the opportunity to debrief with a smaller group, often one-on-one with the Hiring Manager.

School's goal: Make a final assessment on if they believe they tin can work with all the strengths and development areas that you bring to the tabular array, if they would actually savour working with you, and if yous would fit in with the schoolhouse's culture and customs.
What to expect: A Hiring Manager will enquire you lot to reflect on how the lesson preparation and execution went. The school leaders tin ask loftier-level questions (e.g., your perceived development areas) to low-level questions (east.1000., tactics of preparing supplemental materials). You lot tin can besides expect them to provide feedback and ask you how you might re-implement certain aspects of the lesson. Many questions volition address perceived risk areas, including any concerns the Hiring Manager or any other Influencer has.
Your goal: It is disquisitional for you to use this opportunity to be self-cogitating and demonstrate a growth mindset. Can you prove that y'all are constantly cocky-improving, coachable, data-driven, and won't requite upwards trying to be a better instructor everyday? The interviewers might provide disquisitional feedback, which is never easy to hear. What they are trying to practise is to see how you respond to feedback. You're not a perfect teacher, no i is. The question is how you choose to continue. Finally, you want to be genuine, likable, and bear witness that you volition bring great things to the schoolhouse.
What to avoid: Flat answers with no self-sensation, humility, or acquittance of improvement opportunities. Unfocused rambling and not answering the question. Negative or emotional responses to feedback (eastward.g., defensiveness, acrimony, attitude, not taking personal responsibility). Existence ho-hum and non showing off your personality and passions. It's not but about answering all the questions "correctly " — y'all need to proactively convince them that you are a person they would love working with.
Selected Resources: Pinnacle v Tips to Ace the In-Person Instructor Interview. Acing the Teacher Interview. Peak Instructor Interview Questions. Instructor Interviewing 101 (full-length workshop video). Ace the Teacher Interview: What to Expect & How to Succeed (full-length workshop video).

Reference Checks

If you fabricated it this far, you are well on your fashion to getting a task offer. Some schools will ask for references upwards-front to save time and use it to appraise you. Simply for many schools, this last due diligence is a sanity test that you are the real deal (and not a fantastic liar).

School's goal: Validate that you are not misrepresenting yourself and that they are making the right decision to offer yous.
What to expect: Most schools will ask for around 3 references — they want to speak with your electric current supervisor, a previous supervisor, and a colleague or erstwhile colleague. If you lot are a recent grad or First-Fourth dimension Job Seeker, you should be able to provide at least i professor who tin vouch for yous.
Your goal: Option the correct references! This may seem like a no-brainer, simply information technology is critical to line up advocates (external Champions) who will speak effusively (not tepidly) about you. This is one of the few steps in the interview process that is completely in your control.
What to avoid: Casually picking people who don't actually know you, or who may offer generic recommendations, reddish flags, or create doubt. Concluding minute issues can derail your offer, especially when in that location are other potent candidates. It's almost always better to get a strong and specific recommendation from a lower-level leader, such as a form level chair or department head, versus a generic one from a principal. Also, line up references early on! Give them a heads upwards with plenty of time to prepare. You might recall all the details or your feel, but a main or professor interacts with hundreds or thousands of teachers over the years. A common error is when a recruiter reaches out to a reference and they are defenseless off-guard — that usually doesn't end well for the candidate.

Offer

This step may happen in parallel with Reference Checks. This is arguably the near important step in the process. Exist deliberate and decide advisedly.

School'south goal: Make a concluding decision whether to give you a job offering or non. If yes, and so "close" you (get you to sign an employment contract) as quickly and cheaply equally possible.
What to expect: A Hiring Manager will sell you lot on how slap-up the opportunity is — wonderful students, supportive leaders, growth and professional person development opportunities, a compelling career path, schoolhouse culture and values, fifty-fifty facilities and perks. A school may fifty-fifty create pressure to get you to sign with a deadline to take and communicating that there are other candidates who were offered.
Your goal: Fully understand what the deal is. Ask all the questions y'all need (you are interviewing the schoolhouse) and negotiate to optimize the offer. Selected helps thousands of teacher go amazing jobs at schools they love — we have learned that the single well-nigh important factor we see for teacher job satisfaction and long-term growth is picking a school where both the teacher and school marshal on civilisation, values, pedagogy, and other important criteria. And then practise yourself a favor — convalesce pressure by getting several, compelling options. Ask yourself if this school is right for you lot. Also, are you the correct instructor for this schoolhouse? It'southward about mutual fit.
What to avert: Not request whatever questions. Not actively interviewing the school while they interview yous. Asking perfunctory, not-consequential questions instead of the real questions, such every bit teacher turnover. Not assessing the quality of leadership. Not asking school staff and outsiders almost the bodily schoolhouse's culture and values. Taking the offer as-is without negotiating. Only getting i offering from one school and being forced to take information technology. Not focusing on mutual fit.
Selected Resources: Is this School Right for Me? Finding Your Ideal School Fit (full-length workshop video). Negotiating Your Next Educational activity Job Offering. Stories from Teachers Who Have Negotiated for More. How to Write a Great Electronic mail to a Hiring Director.

Your Feel May Vary

The interview process that you actually experience may vary wildly from school-to-school, including based on the blazon of school, role, and even time of twelvemonth. Interviewers are humans so the procedure they depict versus their actual practice may not reconcile, particularly because of:

Style and feel level of a recruitment team: Our candidates report a wide range of interview experiences — from delightful to tense and structured to less-than-organized. Every school is dissimilar so it's of import to adjust your strategies and arroyo each process differently.
Supply and demand: It'southward hard to see merely your experience will also depend on how many quality teachers applied for the job you lot want. You can do a great job interviewing but may yet not get a job if the supply of teachers is loftier and the contest is fierce. For example, currently on Selected, nosotros meet more elementary general pedagogy teachers than there are bachelor jobs, and less high school math teachers relative to open roles. If you are currently at a graduate school of education, future school demand is something for y'all to consider. Even for experienced educators, it'due south never besides late to grow into different areas and develop marketable skills.

Finally, if a schoolhouse says "no," hiring needs can and exercise change. We piece of work with hundreds of actively hiring schools and notice this all the time. We even see some schools drastically change (ahem, subtract) their standards late in the hiring season or for immediate hires. It may exist worth reaching back out to schools that you really similar at different points in the year to see if they are more receptive to hiring y'all. We can help, check out our costless instructor-school matching platform.

What has your experience been? Request for an article? Reach us at hello@getselected.com.

Well-nigh Selected

Selected helps teachers find jobs at schools they love. We offer a free schoolhouse matching and career back up platform for teachers that connects them with 1,200+ PK-12 public and independent schools in urban metro areas in the Northeast and Due west Declension, including New York City, NJ, CT, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Boston, and Los Angeles. Make a FREE profile and start speaking with hiring schools immediately!

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Source: https://blog.getselected.com/2019/01/04/the-teacher-interview-process-overview-of-what-job-seekers-should-expect-from-hiring-schools/