Thursday, 09 February 2012

Call for schools job board to go

11-November-2009 | By Colin Cottell

A new government-backed free recruitment service for schools and local authorities threatens jobs and should be scrapped, according to the chief executive of an education job board.

The Schools Recruitment Service (SRS), launched in September, allows schools and local authorities to post vacancies free onto a website, www.schoolsrecruitment.dcsf.gov.uk, and aims to establish a talent pool from which schools and local authorities can draw.

Described by schools minister Vernon Coaker “as a watershed in how schools recruit”, according to the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF), more than 50 local authorities have already signed up to the £1.3m initiative backed by the DCSF.

Paul Howells, chief executive of education job board eteach.com, told Recruiter that the new service was “a disaster” and “a total waste of money”. And he warned “if it gains traction in the marketplace, it will lead to a loss of business and jobs in job boards, recruitment agencies
and headhunters”.

Howells accused the government of creating a direct competitor to private business “with our own money”. That’s not in their mandate,” he argued. “It doesn’t offer anything new that isn’t already offered by existing providers,” adding “the market already has three or four players who are already driving the cost of recruitment advertising down”.

Indeed, he said it would cost eteach’s customers more because SRS charged eteach for using it.

Dean Kelly, chief executive of Synarbor, also criticised the SRS. Schools already had a variety of alternatives, he said, that were better than what DCFS was offering. These included the Times Educational Supplement and other job boards.

In contrast, he said the DCSF “haven’t got a database of candidates to give it traction”. In addition, he said the site only had about 20 part-time or job share jobs “that can’t be filled anywhere else”.

Kelly claimed that that the “IT enabled system” was likely to end up as a box-ticking exercise. This was inappropriate for recruiting professionals working with children, where “personality and people matching” are important, he said. “You might get the odd school placing a vacancy on the DCSF site because it is free, but when they find it doesn’t work they will go back to what has proved successful in the past,” said Kelly.

A DCSF spokesperson told Recruiter that it was “a bit ridiculous to knock the new service when it has only just been set up”, adding “it will take some time” for vacancies to build up. “We don’t agree that there are better services out there. This is about improving current recruitment practice in schools by using the latest applicant tracking technology in advertising and recruitment, the service will save schools huge amounts of money and time.”

Readers' comments (7)

  • Iain Cheeks | Fri, 13 Nov 2009 5:06 pm

    'A DCSF spokesperson told Recruiter that it was “a bit ridiculous to knock the new service when it has only just been set up”, adding “it will take some time” for vacancies to build up. “We don’t agree that there are better services out there. This is about improving current recruitment practice in schools by using the latest applicant tracking technology in advertising and recruitment, the service will save schools huge amounts of money and time.”

    A fairly pointless quote as obviously they are not going to admit that there are more comprehensive and efficient services out there. I can't see how a service that requires the school to still do everything themselves can save them time? It is also free for schools to advertise in lots of places, but as they don't work they don't advertise there and still pay for TES.

    This service seems to have been very well marketed without a lot of substance behind it. From what I hear nowhere near 50 LAs are signed up and the schools in those LAs that have are not interested.

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  • Roger Juniper | Tue, 11 May 2010 10:42 am

    Yet another service funded by the tax payer that competes unfairly with the private sector. Whatever government we end up with, this is one cost saving that is crying out to happen. There are plenty of private sector options that are more efficient.

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  • Darren Revell | Mon, 17 May 2010 5:57 pm

    Recruiters need not fear the site in question has broken every single rule for search engine optimisation which presently exists. The board will never be found by teachers looking for work in Google of which there are 1,937,721 searches per month for the major search terms and well several million more for long tail search terms. I have lots of research onthe subject if anyone needs it.

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  • mark | Mon, 24 May 2010 1:20 pm

    Sorry, all wrong I think.

    Firstly, the government has every right to set this up. Are you saying that a school can not advertise in the local paper for a vacancy they may have, or they cannot advertise on their own, LEA or government website? You might not agree with it, but there is little you can do to stop it. Your only argument that might have a case, is if this service is offered to private schools. Is it?

    Secondly, Google searches. They will beat everyone of you very soon, look at their stats in Alexa, they already have 1,561 links form such sites as the BBC. There is no way any of the education recruiters can compete with this, unless you have a few £1m a year to spend. Even more important than their SEO is Word of Mouth. This will be promoted in schools, in the class rooms and in the staff rooms; Google will not come into the conversation.

    And lastly, where do you think £165bn is going to be found over the next few years?

    Over the last 10 years, education recruiters have made HUGE money, sadly for a lot of you that time will be over. As Bill Gates once said: "Middlemen...BEWARE"

    Mark

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  • Kerrie | Wed, 2 Jun 2010 1:43 pm

    I agree with Mark, we may not like it but nobody is going to have much sympathy with recruiters and jobsites complaining that the schools are saving taxpayers money by using free advertising.

    The NHS advertises all NHS jobs free on nhsjobs and set up its own UK-wide in-house temp recruitment agency, NHS Professionals. The REC went to Europe to argue this was unfair as it was effectively a state run agency, funded by taxpayers and with an unfair advantage as all roles come to them first. The Courts disagreed. Despite all this, there is still plenty of NHS work for good recruiters of course.

    At the moment, it is working in education recruiters favour that schools are still working on a relatively autonomous basis. I don't know how long that will carry on - health and social care recruitment is now virtually 100% contracted.

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  • Oliver Chettle | Tue, 13 Jul 2010 2:25 pm

    Private businesses that make their money from taxpayers have no right to complain if the taxpayer finds a way to cut them out. Middlemen rarely add much value, and there are currently far too many of the leaching from the taxpayer. Instead of complaining, these people should go out and get some real private sector work.

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  • CRN | Thu, 15 Jul 2010 12:51 pm

    Is Paul Howells on another planet? What a joke of a comment. If it gains traction Paul, then it's ultimately a good business model and saving the public lots of cash which, of course, is very unfortunate for your pockets. Don't dress this up as pity on the staff that will lose jobs. They will find work with more innovative firms who moved with the times.

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