Education Recruitment Agencies - The Pros & Cons

The latest government data shows that they missed the secondary trainees target by 50 percent, which highlights how challenging it has become to recruit teaching staff. This is where a recruitment agency can be seen to offer a variety of benefits to both schools and job seekers alike.

What are education recruitment agencies? 

First and foremost, education recruitment agencies are specialists in sourcing candidates with specific skills and qualifications tailored to the needs of schools. Whether it's teachers, administrators, or support staff, these agencies can have a deep understanding of the unique requirements in the education sector, saving valuable time for schools and colleges. 

Moreover, they streamline the hiring process by handling everything from initial screenings to final interviews. This allows educational institutions to focus on their core responsibilities while leaving the difficult task of candidate selection to the experts. These agencies have access to a large network of potential candidates. This includes passive job seekers. These individuals may not be actively looking for new jobs, but they are open to the right offer. 

For job seekers, recruitment agencies provide access to a range of job opportunities within the education sector. Whether you're a professional looking for a new challenge or a recent graduate eager to kickstart your career, these agencies can connect you with employers who are actively seeking your skills and expertise. 

Furthermore, education recruitment agencies can offer additional support such as CV writing tips, interview coaching, and career guidance, helping job seekers put their best foot forward in a competitive job market.

What are the benefits of working with an education recruitment agency?  

Education recruitment agencies specialise in recruiting teachers and staff for schools. They will work to a specific brief and will typically be paid a fee on the successful placement of a candidate – this can be up to 20% of the new teacher’s salary. But this is a business model with significant risk. To earn this, they will need to identify and approach specific candidates, sometimes through placing their own job ads on job boards, but also through nurturing their own network of potential candidates. They will also seek to identify more ‘passive’ job seekers who may not be actively looking, but open to offers should the right opportunity come along. Often this is on a ‘no win, no fee’ basis. 

They will usually screen, review CVs, conduct initial interviews before presenting a short list of candidates to schools for consideration.  

In addition, they can offer candidates assistance with their CVs, coaching on interviews and on-going support.  

In summary they can offer a suite of services as follows: 

• Specialist expertise: They will often have years of experience working with the same schools and develop a deep understanding of the culture as well as role and what candidates will need to offer to be successful. 
• Time benefit: By managing the recruitment process from start to finish, recruitment agencies can save significant time for school staff. 
• Talent pool: Through their own contacts and networks they can have access to a select talent pool including more ‘passive’ job seekers. 
• Tailored support for candidates: They will offer tailored support to potential candidates such as CV writing tips and interview coaching. 

But there can be drawbacks: 

• Cost: Because of the risk in the ‘no win, no fee’ model, agencies will charge fees for their services which will significantly add to the recruitment costs for schools 
• Loss of control: There needs to be a high level of trust with the chosen agency that they clearly understand the school’s exact requirements 
• Misalignment: If communication isn’t clear, there can be misunderstandings on requirements which lead to delays in recruiting the right candidate 
• Quality concern: In addition, poor briefing and/or communication can lead to wasted time for the school through interviewing unsuitable candidates. 
• Dependency: By relying solely on recruitment agencies schools can neglect to develop their own more cost-effective recruitment capabilities. 

There are clear benefits from working with the right recruitment agency. Schools will benefit from specific expertise in identifying the right candidate and minimise time pressures on stretched staff. But there is a risk that poor communication or working with a new agency can lead to poor candidate selection and lengthier time to recruit. Other solutions, like developing in-house capabilities and using established job boards may offer more viable and cost-effective solutions that better align with the needs of the school.

What is a better alternative to recruitment agencies for schools?

For over 100 years, Tes has sought to support schools and educators with the best insights, products and services that enable them to make the greatest difference in education.

Staff Management from Tes is our sophisticated staff recruitment platform with a built-in applicant tracking system (ATS) that also includes additional features to help you both recruit and retain your staff. In addition to giving UK and international schools unlimited job advertising to the largest global talent pool of teachers, the Staff Management subscription package also includes: 

• Unlimited safeguarding training – full access to Tes Safeguarding, our entire suite of safeguarding courses, tailored to either UK or international schools. Further details can be found here
• CPD training for your whole school – a broad catalogue of CPD courses across such key areas as subject knowledge, leadership and professional studies. Further details can be found here
• Anonymous Wellbeing Surveys - Do your colleagues have a voice? With our anonymous survey tool, you can give your school community a voice and gain an in-depth insight into morale and key aiding insights that help with staff retention. More details can be found here

Tes Staff Management vs other education recruitment options 

A key benefit of Staff Management when compared to using both education recruitment agencies and other job boards is that it can save schools money. 

In Spring 2023 we surveyed over 1200 teachers and senior leaders in UK schools and nearly 1,900 in international schools that use a variety of recruitment solutions as well as working with Tes. The findings were illuminating.

Tes is roughly the same cost per hire as other online providers – but we are the only ones able to deliver on quality and quantity of candidates too. Switching to another online provider will reduce your candidate pool by at least 75%. Over 90% of teachers who got their jobs through these other providers last year were already applying for jobs on Tes – so schools don’t benefit from going anywhere else. 

This equates to approximately £6,000 wasted by an average school each year, mainly on agency fees where schools have paid to hire teachers that they could have hired on Tes. 

Providing better value for money 

As part of our survey, we asked 136 secondary school leaders in the UK what they thought of the options they use to recruit. They told us that they thought Tes provides better value for money than other online providers – and far better value than agencies – because our high candidate quality and volume comes at a sensible price. On average, Tes represents half of a school’s recruitment budget – but provides 60% of costed hires. Used properly and implementing our best practice approach to attract more candidates (our customer success team is there to help with all this), Tes could provide you with up to 86% of your hires, for no additional spend.

And Tes is not just for UK schools. Last year, Tes saw 134,000 teachers applying to 1,150 international schools. The average international school got 728 applications from Tes last year.

We surveyed over 400 international school senior leaders who reported that the quality of candidates they receive from online recruitment channels is significantly higher than those from recruitment agencies or from word of mouth. On a scale of ‘very poor’ to ‘very good’, more international leaders rated candidates from Tes as good or very good than any other website. 

And most importantly, teachers love using Tes. Across UK, IB and US curriculum our Net Promoter Score (NPS) of +60 is a lot higher than any other provider.

What’s best recruitment solution for your school? 

There’s no doubt that specialist education recruitment agencies can provide a bespoke service that is both specialised and time efficient. But in a time when school leaders continually face budget pressures and the on-going challenge to retain your best staff, it’s good to know more cost effective and holistic approaches to staff recruitment and retention are available.  

We’ll leave the final word to one of our customers and if you’d be interested in learning more, Contact us here. 

“Tes’ online recruitment platform is quite clearly the market leader, with a wide reach. It works brilliantly for us. It’s incredibly easy to use and ensures that we remain compliant in the way our search and shortlisting works. It’s also cost-effective, and when bundled with safeguarding training and staff surveys, offers outstanding value.” 

Simon Larter-Evans  

Headteacher, St Paul’s Cathedral School