Going global
New recruitment initiative with TES for COBIS schools
In today’s competitive teacher recruitment market, a new initiative from TES Global might make things just a little bit easier for COBIS member schools. Andy Homden reports.
TES Global
Advertising in the Times Educational Supplement (TES) has always been an important part in the recruitment strategy of a large number of international schools. This is particularly true of British international schools, but an ever wider range of schools have also started to use the TES, aware of its reach at a time when competition to recruit has never been tougher. With an estimated digital community of 11.6 million people in 2019, this is a platform that international schools cannot ignore.
TES advertising subscriptions
Since 2017, schools outside the UK have also been able to take out an annual subscription for unlimited advertising on the TES, which has been particularly valuable and cost-effective for new schools who have to recruit large numbers of staff within a single calendar year. A subscription allows a school to manage its TES advertising directly, preparing and placing adverts with the help of an adviser to give extremely flexible access to the TES platform. From experience, when working on behalf of an international school, this can be absolutely invaluable. Subscription holders also have the opportunity to attend the new TES recruitment fairs to meet suitable candidates from the extensive TES database if they are finding it particularly difficult to fill a certain position.
Association advertising and the COBIS initiative
When a school is a member of an association like FOBISIA, BSME, CIS or ISS, schools can generally take advantage of placing free adverts for staff on the websites of the associations they belong to. In 2019 COBIS (the Council of British International Schools) went a significant step further by announcing a partnership with TES Global at their annual conference, which will revolutionise the way in which a member school can post its adverts on the COBIS – and their own – website.
This collaboration has seen the launch of a new COBIS Global Jobs webpage which is linked to the TES global portal, and allows a school to design and format a free advertisement on the COBIS website using the TES recruiting software. The same formatted advert can also be placed on the school’s own website, and if the school already has a TES subscription, the advert will be placed on the TES advertising pages. If it doesn’t have a subscription, the school can choose to take one out, or alternatively pay for a particular advert placed on the COBIS recruiting pages to be feature on the TES global platform.
How the COBIS Global Jobs webpage works
COBIS member schools are now able to post job vacancies on the new COBIS Global Jobs webpage via the TES Portal. Member schools create their job advert once in Portal, and then post it to multiple locations – the COBIS Global Jobs webpage, their TES career site and their own school website, quickly and easily.
Member schools will also benefit from access to TES Portal’s built-in Application Tracking System (ATS), allowing them to manage and track their applications and communicate with candidates throughout the recruitment process in one place, simplifying the recruitment process and saving time.
Competitive advantage and other pathways
Colin Bell, CEO of COBIS sees a range of positives for participating schools, ‘giving a competitive advantage to small and large schools alike – this is a very welcome additional service we are pleased to offer’
Of course, these days, a single pathway for finding good new staff is unlikely to provide a complete recruitment solution for any school. As Bell himself points out ‘The search for top quality staff is now virtually a year-round concern. Having a choice to work with an agency who people can rely on and who can meet their differing needs is, we think, essential. We are therefore also really pleased to have more than twenty high quality recruiting agents among our Supporting Members at COBIS, with whom our member schools have built up excellent relationships over the years’.
TES recruitment tools
Rob Grimshaw, CEO of TES Global, draws attention to the digital expertise that TES has developed to help schools compete for the best candidates now being made available to COBIS members directly:
‘By using the smart recruitment tools we’ve developed for tes.com, British International Schools everywhere who are members of COBIS will have access to a simple, straightforward way to reach more high quality candidates than ever before.’
One thing is for sure – in today’s competitive international teacher recruitment market, and as Colin Bell suggests, a school must use a wide range of approaches to secure the staff needed – and if it’s a free service to members, what’s not to like?
Andy Homden is CEO of Consilium Education, who specialise in the recruitment of staff for new and expanding international schools. To contact Andy at Consilium, follow the link: https://consiliumeducation.com/contact-us/
For more information about the new COBIS Global jobs page and its link with the TES Global portal, see:
https://www.cobis.org.uk/global-jobs or www.tes.com/cobis
To find out more about COBIS Supporting Members who offer recruiting services see:
https://www.cobis.org.uk/supporting-members/our-supporting-members
Or contact:
COBIS
Communications Team, COBIS
Tel: +44 20 3826 7194
TES GLOBAL
Katy Gandon, Head of Communications
Tel: +44 20 3194 3004 Mobile: +44 780 181 3334
FEATURE IMAGE: geralt – Pixabay
Other Image: https://ie-today.co.uk
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