Qualified?
Even though I have an applicant that matches my KSAO and seems to be the best qualified, they sometimes turn out to be the worse instructors I have hired. Where can I find the best qualifed applicants?
I've experienced the same as you. I had a referral from another instructor, they went thru the training period then decided they were not "strong" enough to be an instructor.
I think my next step is going to the current insturctors and asking for previous grads in their class and calling those people up.
For our school the best way to recruit instructors is referrals from our current instructors of word of mouth.
Professional organizations or other professional networking organizations work great. Additionally, if you do not already do a trial teach with potential new hires, it can be a great screening tool.
Has anybody tried job fairs to recruit instructors and if so how did that work for you. We use career builders and I got my job from the newspaper but in a market where professionals are somewhat scarce and due to the level of pay what can be done to increase interest.
I have found, for me, my best "qualified" applicants are former students. I have taught them everything I want them to know and after they have worked in the field for a period of time, they bring the knowledge back to my school and end up being the best instructors. I watch over them all but ultimately, that's my recruitment process.
My final stage of recruitment has to still be to give the candidate a seminar to teach. I don't think there is a substitute for seeing someone teach first hand.
Xander,
There are a number of strategies colleges use when they require a "practice teach" of candidates. Some colleges provide the candidate with a topic and allow the candidate a few days to prepare the lesson before presenting it.
When I was interviewed at a career college, I was given the text book and was allowed 15 minutes to prepare the introduction to a lesson on a subject the Director of Education selected. The faculty members served as my students. Some "students" intentionally presented classroom management challenges, such as falling asleep, to see how I might handle them.
How does your institution conduct the "practice teach?"
Qualifications does not mean you have the best person. Each time the school needs to hire someone qualifications are used to develop job descriptions, and best skills-needed-lists for us to use during interviewing. However, qualifications does not make someone a 'good' instructor for the school. A good practice is to have the potential instructor shadow a good instructor for a day, and then be required to do a presentation or 'teach the teacher'. This way one can gauge the abilities in a role-playing scenario in an attempt to see how the person will do.
