Closing the Deal with Catholic Teacher Candidates

So you’ve now vetted the resumes, met and interviewed the candidate, perhaps invited that candidate back for a second interview,  watched him or her teach a class, and  now you’ve decided to make an offer. This is a crucial step in the process! For one, we have the person we want!  But also, we’ve invested a huge amount of time in this candidate, and it would be devastating to start over! 

So I believe—because I was this principal for years myself—that we don’t realize the flexibility and authority we have at this step in the equation. What I used to do was simply consult the salary chart, factor in years of experience and the degree, find the number, offer it, and then HOPE and PRAY.  

Hoping and praying is good, but we can do a lot more than that. Here are my suggestions:

First, wait for the paperwork to clear. Our archdiocese does background checks for any criminal history, and it takes 3-5 days once the forms are sent to process. 

Before you make an offer, ask the candidate directly: “If we are going to make you an offer, it would have to be something that makes sense for you to consider it.  Could you please tell me confidentially what you are making at your job right now?”  I have never met a candidate who didn’t appreciate that question, as it will only benefit him or her to be candid. 

Notice, I didn’t say, “What are your salary expectations?” We ask that question frequently, but I believe it’s the wrong question. Such a question introduces a subjective element to the equation, based (often) on what the candidate perceives him or her to be worth.  But chances are, ALL of us are working at the school for less than our “worth”—Catholic schools can’t pay people on that standard. (In fact, I will never entertain a current employee’s request for a raise on the basis of “worth,” but will be as generous as I can for a strong employee who has an additional “need.”)

Once I know the candidate is making X amount at their current job, I would like, if possible, to offer at least as much as he or she is making now, if not a few thousand dollars more. In some rare cases, often if they've taught in other schools, I can offer even more than that.  

But what if my “salary scale” cannot meet that amount? 

First, as I have argued here, I would not operate off a hard and fast salary scale unless compelled to do so. Pay scales are not market sensitive. They don’t account for the fact that some positions are harder to find than others. Further, they virtually guarantee that I will overpay employees and underpay others, at least as compared to their work ethic and value to the school. And they don’t give me the flexibility I need to land a particularly strong candidate. So for this reason, I recommend either no salary scales at all, or  "flex scales," which specify a certain number based on years of experience and degree, but then allows you to offer +/- up to $3,000 from that number to make an offer. 

But whether you have a hard and fast salary scale or a "flex" scale, you may not have the ability to match or exceed the candidate's current salary. Even so, there are options at your disposal. First, most of the schools I know which have salary scales don’t have externally fixed stipend rates. As principal, you can decide to stipend a person for various extra-curricular duties, scaffolding his or salary to a level that approximates your target goal. Second, if the candidate is from out of town, you offer to help assist with moving expenses. Or you could simply offer a signing bonus. The advantage of a moving stipend or a signing bonus is they are one time payments, and don’t obligate the school in the future.  And I’ve found a couple of thousand dollar signing bonus, payable after the contract is signed, is a particularly powerful way of landing promising young teachers, just graduating from college. They don’t have any income to make it to the first pay check in August, and the bonus helps get them through.  

Once you’ve crafted a number you’re able to give, always make the offer in writing. I send it through email. It gives you a chance to put your thoughts together—never get into a verbal negotiation and make an instant decision about salaries, as you really want time to consider all the implications, such as what you’re paying comparable teachers on your staff. Also, writing it down prevents both of you from remembering differently. I’ve had to eat crow before, accidentally creating a contract that was less than I had offered, and although I corrected it, I didn’t make a good first impression. 

I also use this written offer as a last chance to “sell” the candidate on the school. Why will they enjoy teaching here? How will they advance the mission of the school? What kind of activities might they get involved in? How do you see them as a colleague on the faculty? These are things that worry new or transferring teachers, and I think assuring them they have a lot to offer and that they’ll fit right in is helpful. 

I also include a copy of all the benefits they’ll receive in this same written offer. I’ve found it helpful to create a one page benefit overview sheet, which I update each year. It includes the benefits available, the premium costs for health care, etc. We need to recognize these are practical concerns of prudent candidates, and the more transparent we can be on the front end, the better they will feel about their choice. 

And after I do all that, yes, I hope and pray! God’s blessings in your searches! 

Interviewing Catholic Teacher Candidates

Many books have been written on how to conduct good interviews, and I don’t pretend to have “inside information” that trumps the wisdom of others. But I’ve been interviewing prospective Catholic school teachers for many years, and this approach works well for me, giving the practicalities of simultaneously running a school: 

First, as I mentioned in my earlier article, I interview as few people as possible, based on a review of their resume and cover letter. The whole interview process is a huge time sucker, and as principal, I have to be judicious about my time.  It may be also wasting candidates’ time,  raising their expectations in so doing. I only interview people whom I may be truly interested in hiring. 

How do I determine who makes the “cut” to be interviewed on the basis of a resume and cover letter?  I look for three things: 

First, do they have deep knowledge in their subject area, which means (at minimum), do they have a B.A. or B.S. in the field of teaching for which I am interviewing, or even better, a Master’s degree? Which university they graduate from matters, too: a graduate from a selective admissions school likely has the “smarts.”  Those from less selective schools may also have the smarts, so I don’t eliminate a candidate on that basis, but the better the university, the more confident I am.  

Colleagues of mine disagree with me, but I don't care whether they are "certified" or not. All "certification" means is that they've taken enough undergraduate education courses to earn a "Class B" certification (what they call it in Alabama). But education courses do not guarantee teaching ability, and I think requiring certification unnecessarily shrinks the talent pool of potential candidates. It's important to note, too, that Advanced Ed/SACS, our accreditation agency,  no longer requires "certification" to teach in our schools as they once did. Instead, the agency relies on the judgment of the principal to determine if the candidate is qualified, and then insists on a program of continuous improvement once hired. 

Second, I am interested in how well they write; if candidates butcher the cover letter, I surmise they are either too lazy to check their work, or lack the intellectual gravitas to present their ideas well. The ability to write compelling prose belies an agile mind, the kind I want leading our students. I’ll give a little latitude to Math or Science prospects, since their academic strengths are elsewhere, presumably.  But I don't give much! Even if one is teaching Math, he or she must be communicating in English.  

Third, though I review this carefully with candidates during the interview, in evaluating resumes,  I pay careful attention to transition points. Do they leave a job every couple of years? Then I’m not interested—I’ve found, over and over, that candidates’ histories are the best predictors of their futures with us, and I don’t want to invest the time and energy enculturating new teachers into our school unless they’re long term prospects. Also, does the transition make sense? Are they moving to a better job, with more responsibility, or more prestige, with (likely) better pay? If not, it may well be that I don’t interview. 

How do I conduct the interview? 

I believe most people who interview folks for a living will agree that they know if they’re NOT interested in a candidate within the first few minutes of the interview. At that point, they’re looking for a graceful way out, in however short a time that good manners will allow. For that exact reason, I tell candidates the first interview is typically short, perhaps 30 minutes, describing it as a “chance for us to get to know each other.” I tell candidates that I will have a second interview for candidates whom I believe will be finalists for the job. That gives me an "out" if need be. 

There are some critical things I need to know in this first interview, some of which are difficult to ask directly. Specifically, since teachers are understood as “ministers” in a Catholic school, I need to know the depth of their Catholic faith and whether or not they are in a sacramentally valid marriage. The way I get at both of these subjects is to ask the open ended question at the beginning of every interview I conduct: “Tell me about your family and faith.”  In so doing, I get them talking—and in every interview, I want them to do more talking than me! But it’s also interesting to see what they choose to focus on, and it gives me the chance to ask follow up questions as they go, like, “How old are your children? How long have you and your husband (or wife) been married? What does he (or she) do? Were you married at a local Church? Do you still worship in that Church? Are you involved in any parish ministries?” etc as part of a dialogue between the candidate and me. If they're "faking" their faith, they cannot speak about parish life very convincingly.   I cannot emphasize this point enough: where a candidate has been is a pretty good indication of where they are going. I want to understand WHO that person is, even more than I want to understand his professional accomplishments, especially in this introductory interview. 

After we cover the personal stuff, just as I have done pre-interview, I want to understand the chronology of a person’s professional career, especially the transition points.  I ask frequently, “Why did you leave that job?” If I get vague answers like “Just wasn’t happy,” or “Wasn’t being stretched,” or things like that, I am suspicious. In general, I don’t expect a candidate to leave a job unless they’re moving to a better situation. For sure, everyone can get into a bad situation through no fault of their own, or have a bad boss, or need to leave somewhere because they’re unhappy. But a candidate should be able to talk about those difficult situations in some detail, without throwing their bosses under the bus, and without resorting to generic answers. 

“If I walked into your classroom on a random day, what would I likely see and hear?” Yes, I want to deduce the teaching methods the teacher employs, but I want to get into that question in a concrete way, not a conversation about abstractions. Good teachers are practical, emphasizing the “how.” Content is important, but curriculum is more than content; it also involves pedagogy. And if they’re experienced, I ask them what their national curricular association thinks about “good English teaching, “ or “good History teaching,” and whether or not they agree with their association. I am trying to determine if they are up on things, or set in their ways, suspicious of new ideas. A lot has changed in the way we think about curriculum. I don’t want a teacher who has not seriously engaged in these new ideas, even if they’re cautious about implementing them lock, stock and barrel. 

Finally, I ask candidates if they have questions. What they ask me tells me how well they’ve thought about the job, whether or not they’ve engaged with our web page, what their priorities are. Ideally, candidates should have good, thoughtful, meaty questions about how we do things. I think it speaks well of them. 

That’s about it. The last thing I do is make a personal note to myself on their resume, giving the candidate a 1 (not interested), 2 (not very interested), 3 (interested) or 4 (hire this person!). It’s hard for me to remember interviews I had a couple of months ago! That number serves as a brief reminder to myself. 

If I like the person—a “3” or “4”, then I’ll do a little follow-up with references. If I can avoid it, I rarely call the references candidates list on the bottom of their resume. These are chosen by candidates for a reason, with predictable responses.  But if I know someone that knows that person, or worked with him or her, or was that person’s boss, I’ll call them and talk. Sometimes people will feel constrained to share things with me, but often, it’s what they AREN’T saying—silent on things where someone should receive praise—which tells me volumes. And I’ll also do a brief internet search on that person—what’s “out there” on him or her? Most people have some sort of online identity. 

If all that checks out, then I’ll likely take the next step: inviting them back for a second interview, to meet other people and possibly, to teach an actual class of students. And at that point, I also send out all the forms they must send me back and ask them to bring them completed to the interview, so we don't have to chase them down. We can't avoid the forms! But by now, they're convinced that we're really interested in them, so filling them out doesn't seem so terrible.  I ask them to bring all the completed forms to the second interview, so we don’t have to chase them down, a piece at a time.

If I decide NOT to hire someone I've rated a 3 or 4, I keep them in an "active file" if I need another teacher in the future  Maybe it wasn't quite the right fit for this "round," but I always want to keep a conversation going with strong candidates, and don't want to lose their resumes! 

So yes, interviewing and follow-ups take a lot of time, which is why I try and do as few as possible for each opening!. But when we have a real candidate of interest, we’re foolish if we don’t do a complete and thorough review of that person. 

Getting the right people to teach at our schools is the most important thing we do as principals.  

Hiring Excellent Teachers--Important First Steps

If we want really talented people to apply for teaching positions at our school,  then the "how" matters, especially in the initial stages of the hiring process!

Here are two suggestions:

We should take time to design a really pro-active, optimistic job description, explaining our vision for the school, and the role of teachers in our school. This is worth the effort! Talented people, the kind we want for our school, have many options for jobs, and it's foolish to believe they'll automatically want to work for us. We have to sell them! We have to tap into their idealism, their desire to do something important with their lives, to use their talents to build up the kingdom of God and make a difference in the lives of kids.  

We should then post all this on a web page, and get the link out using social media sites, in parishes bulletins, and job bulletin boards. Here’s what I’ve written up at St. Michael  as an introduction to our job postings, as an example. 

We should require very little upfront. I emphasize the point of needing to “sell” prospects on the school, because too often we assume the opposite. Too often, our first outreach is “Here are the forms you must send us.” —A diocesan application, a verification of work experience form, letters of reference, child protection screening forms, transcripts, whatever. Forms! Forms! Forms! Once ALL those forms are in, we say without meaning to, we’ll CONSIDER you for a possible interview—maybe. 

I believe a lot of talented people turn away from us, even before we know they’re interested. That's exactly the opposite of what we want! If there’s a talented prospect even marginally interested in a job, we want to be in a dialogue with that person! Yes, in this litigious world of ours, we'll have to fill out forms at some point, but those should come second, after a relationship has been established! 

So all I ask a teacher prospect to do, as a first step, is send me a cover letter, explaining his or her interest, and a resume. I ask for the resume to determine credentials, and the cover letter, to see how well they write.  The ability to write well speaks of intellectual depth; it’s not something a person can “fake.” 

With a resume and a cover letter, we can take the next step, which is deciding whom we want to interview or not. In general, I try and interview as few people as possible, simply because of the constraints of time, so I really do try and "pare down the candidates" from the resume and cover letter. 

I’ll write about the interview next.