Remote interviewing - General - HR in Schools and Academies

14 Remote interviewing

30 Mar, 2020 12:24

Hi,

I'm the HR Advisor for a medium MAT (13 schools currently). One of my primary schools is looking to hold a skype/remote interview soon whilst the school is closed. Has anyone got any tips or advice on do's or don't's or anything they should be doing differently at this time? Ordinarily we would have three people on the interview panel, the head, a governor and potentially the deputy head or myself or another member of the central trust team. We are thinking in the current circumstances we might have to limit this to just two people although I'm also thinking that if we used the right software, there is no reason why we couldn't have a panel of 3 as normal.

Obviously the teacher they are interviewing won't be able to do a micro teach but is there anything else they could do that works well remotely? Otherwise I have advised that they should treat it like a normal interview and ask the applicants to talk about what they would teach, the tactics they would use and why etc.

Any help gratefully received.

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Peter | 0 Posts

30 Mar, 2020 12:32

Forgive me if this sounds like a fatuous question, but why is it necessary to carry out this interview, accompanied by these difficulties (or possible risks) when the schools are closed? Why not just wait until it is all over?
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Jacqueline | 0 Posts

30 Mar, 2020 15:01

In reply to Peter:
Because presumably they will still need to fill this post from September which if it's a teacher means that they would have to hand their notice in by Easter or May half term, so they need to interview now rather than wait until September. ;-)
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Peter | 0 Posts

30 Mar, 2020 15:05

In reply to Jacqueline:
Ah.... I see.

Thank you Jacqueline.
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Jacqueline | 0 Posts

30 Mar, 2020 15:12

We're setting up Skype interviews for this Friday and asking our candidates to do a presentation over Skype. Maybe you could ask your teachers to show how they would start a lesson and introduce a particular topic to the children.
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Jacqueline | 0 Posts

30 Mar, 2020 15:18

In reply to Peter:
To a certain extent we have to keep looking forward and hoping this will all end sometime and life will go on. ;-)
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Peter | 0 Posts

30 Mar, 2020 15:28

In reply to Jacqueline:
Lol. I sincerely hope so! :-)
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Amanda | 0 Posts

2 Apr, 2020 10:21

Hello Angela - we undertook our first virtual interviews this week. We actually have a video of a class running (permissions received from pupils to share it of course) and we asked the candidates to observe the lesson virtually and give feedback. The panel interview is undertaken by webbex so more than one person can ask questions. A range of tasks including a presentation were emailed across to candidates beforehand with a timescale to submit them. Admittedly it was a senior teaching role - but it worked well.

I am also aware that the DfE have issued some guidance and that there are lessons to observe on U tube if you don't have access to videos of your own Trust academies in practice. Good luck!
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Sarah Trueman | 0 Posts

3 Apr, 2020 09:32

We have interviewed for two posts in the last week using Microsoft Teams which was very easy to use with some tech support from the IT team. Candidates were asked to prepare and submit their lesson plans in advance and then discuss a small section with the panel. One of our posts was for Subject Leader of Dance and we asked candidates to submit a video of them dancing one of the GCSE pieces. We also sent in advance a written/data task and timed the response. It just takes a little more thought but all very achievable. Also worth thinking about your school website and how good it is for prospective candidates to get a feel for the workplace. A completely new venture for us all but has also made us more open to interviewing overseas candidates in the future via this channel. Good luck
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Elizabeth | 0 Posts

3 Apr, 2020 16:28

We are just looking into this. We are recruiting a head and really need to interview candidates before we lose them. Will follow with interest.
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Elizabeth | 0 Posts

3 Apr, 2020 16:29

In reply to Amanda:
Hi, do you have a link to the guidance please? Just did a Google but couldn't fine it. Thanks.
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Amanda | 0 Posts

6 Apr, 2020 13:18

In reply to Elizabeth:
dfedigital.blog.gov.uk/.../

There you go Elizabeth - there are more links within this to take a look at.
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Sarah Trueman | 0 Posts

7 Apr, 2020 10:39

In reply to Elizabeth:
Good luck Elizabeth and what a difficult position to recruit for right now. Enhance that creativity that schools possess at the best of times. Could the candidates deliver an assembly to a selected audience. When we recruited our Head a few years ago we had a whole variety of tasks over 2 days so don’t be afraid to compromise just because it will be online. We are an LA maintained school so had support from our recruitment team centrally. Do you have anything similar you can call on?
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Elizabeth | 0 Posts

7 Apr, 2020 16:30

In reply to Sarah Trueman:
Hi Sarah, we do have support from the diocese but I guess this is mostly new to them as well. We have been told that a successful applicant will still have to resign by April 30th so remote interviewing looks like the way to go. We do have an assembly on the list of things for them to do. So difficult when there are no children for them to interact with though.
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Elizabeth | 0 Posts

7 Apr, 2020 16:30

In reply to Sarah Trueman:
Hi Sarah, we do have support from the diocese but I guess this is mostly new to them as well. We have been told that a successful applicant will still have to resign by April 30th so remote interviewing looks like the way to go. We do have an assembly on the list of things for them to do. So difficult when there are no children for them to interact with though.
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