Recruitment Ideas & Best Practices

OVERVIEW

Purpose: The purpose of this guidance is to provide out-of-school time (OST) providers with ideas for how to recruit community members to serve as tutors. These ideas are curated from a set of general equity-based recruitment practices as well as current practices shared by OST tutoring programs. Depending on the population of tutors you intend to recruit, some of these ideas may be more relevant to your context than others.

Initial reflection questions to strengthen an organization’s capacity to recruit and hire community-based tutors. 

1. Recruiting practices: Are there any unnecessary required “qualifications” or criteria that may limit potential tutor candidates?
2. Hiring Manager/Search Committee Tasks: Do all search committee members participate in meaningful trainings to minimize implicit anti-Blackness and other forms of bias (with an understanding that biases are rooted in interlocking systems of domination: white supremacy, male supremacy, hetero supremacy, and class-based hierarchies)?
3. Selecting candidates to interview: Are candidates with “non-traditional” training and experience considered?
4. Site Visit: Do all tutor candidates have a chance to visit their tutoring site and/or view a video of a tutoring session?
5. Selecting Final Candidates: Do hiring teams intentionally discuss potential evaluation bias and implicit bias as they review tutoring candidates?
6. Hiring Practices: Are tutors from the community hired in clusters? In other words, are community-based tutors who share similar backgrounds hired together in order to foster an inclusive experience for recent hires? (Consider race, ethnicity, language, age, immigration/citizenship status, parental status, etc.)
7. Development Practices: Is there coaching and honest feedback about tutors’ progress? Is there support and skill development to enhance effective tutoring and small group management capacities?
8. Continuous Assessment and Improvement: Do hiring teams assess why community members turn down tutoring offers or leave before the tutoring contract expires?
9. Organizational Climate: Do hiring teams regularly assess their ability to recruit tutors from the community? (Consider intentional reflection both during and after each hiring cycle.)

RECOMMENDATIONS

Goal: Strengthen organizational structures that facilitate opportunities for recruiting community-based tutors. 

• Utilize networks (whether internal/external the organization or community-based) to advertise openings and recommend community-based tutors who reflect the race, class, gender and language background of the populations being tutored
  • Strategies: 
    • Expand (and/or develop) relationships with regional colleges/universities and community-based organizations (CBOs) with education-related programs and services
    • Expand community networks to include organizations that serve the needs of people of color and are a potential source of contacts for candidates, nominations, etc. 
    • Create opportunities to network with recent/pending college undergraduates from education programs in the region 
      • Consider partnering with your local higher education institution to recruit tutors 
    • Form a regional consortium with other OST programs to partner in advertising, recruiting, etc. 
    • Create a list of CBOs and professional organizations that OST staff participate in, and develop connections with those various organizations (i.e., fraternities and sororities with graduate chapters, religious-based organizations)
    • Develop relationships with historically Hispanic serving institutions, historically Black colleges and universities, and Tribal Colleges    
• Recruit year round for potential tutors to build ongoing pipeline of mission-aligned candidates
  • Strategies:
    • Encourage all OST staff and tutors to continuously recruit potential candidates for future tutoring openings (connecting with school-based and community-based colleagues, friends, family, etc.)
    • Continually update your list of promising candidates for future OST tutoring opportunities
    • Identify the networks and connections of recently hired OST tutors for potential candidates
    • Attend before and after school drop-offs to network with families to encourage their participation as community-based tutors 
    • Attend regional career fairs for students associated with undergraduate education programs and advertise OST programs
    • Attend community-based career fairs and workforce development programs and advertise OST programs
    • Assign one staff member who is responsible for developing a deep bench of potential of community-based candidates for OST programs 
    • Consider adjusting staff member load to ensure sufficient time for developing a deep bench
• Promote the OST providers image as an organization committed to recruiting, hiring and retaining community-based tutors to their program
  • Strategies:
    • Create a list of presentations/talks that staff can offer at regional community organizations, colleges/universities, undergraduate education programs, etc.
    • Prepare a list of talking points for any staff who can present a talk/program at regional organizations and can share the OST programs explicit commitment to serving the needs of all students, and attracting and retaining OST tutors who come from the community
    • Proactively contact regional organizations, especially those with community-based programs and services, and offer OST staff as guest speakers  
• Expand advertising efforts to increase the number of community-based applicants to become OST tutors 
  • Strategies:  
    • Review the data about the demographics of applicants from current advertising locations/venues for OST tutors 
    • Assess the current advertising locations/venues of peer institutions and LEAs who attract and retain community-based tutors 
    • Send all position descriptions and lists of preferred competencies and experiences to all staff, and ask them to help recruit applicants through their individual networks 
    • Send the posting to key colleagues at undergraduate education programs, religious institutions, community-based organizations or LEAs, and key stakeholders within school communities who could recommend potential candidates and/or pass along the tutor posting 
    • Seek recommendations from current OST staff and tutors
    • Send the tutor position announcement to all contacts and networks who have access to potential candidates who are community-based; invite nominations and ask them to circulate job announcement throughout their networks
    • Send a email/letter/communication to all people who have been nominated and invite them to applies
    • Ask OST leaders and colleagues to make personal contact with potential candidates and invite them to apply
• Seek feedback on current recruitment and hiring processes and procedures to inform ways to improve OST tutor recruitment  
  • Strategies:
    • Gather feedback from recently hired OST tutors to understand their recruitment and hiring experience to inform and improve the tutor search process
    • Gather feedback from OST tutors who were not hired to understand their experiences and to improve the search process
    • Track the experiences of applicants by demographics to determine if there are gaps in experiences by those demographics that need to be addressed
    • When/if community-based applicants are disproportionately having a negative recruiting experience in comparison to non-community-based applications, seek to understand the underlying role of the OST recruitment process in these disparate experiences
    • Adjust recruitment practices when they disproportionately exclude community-based applicants on a systematic bias in order to address this internal/systems bias  
• Create minimum benchmark for a racially diverse pool of tutoring candidates who are community-based to increase the number of community-based tutors 
  • Strategies:
    • Set goals that community-based applications will represent approximately at least 50% of the recruitment pool at each stage of the recruitment process
    • Set goals and targets for the number of community-based applicants at each stage of the recruiting process (with an emphasis on social identity markers of race, ethnicity, gender, language, social class, and parental status)  
    • When possible, overrepresent community-based applicants at each stage of the OST recruitment process to ensure a robust set of community-based tutors   
    • When community-based applicant pools are below the 50% threshold, if possible, its recommended providers revisit the recruitment process to reach closer to the approximate goal of 50%
    • For providers who have current applicant pools that are significantly lower than 50%, consider developing a multi-year recruitment plan that aligns to the tutoring program’s design to increase the percentage of community-based applicants towards 50%
• Training anyone engaged in recruiting tutors to explore biases
  • Strategies:
    • Review potential for unconscious bias within the recruitment process 
    • Discuss how bias shows up in the tendency to assume people of color, particularly Black people, working-class and poor people, disabled people, people with accents and/or immigrants are “less qualified,” and discuss how hiring teams may unconsciously require greater evidence of the skills and competencies in comparison to white candidates, middle and/or upper-middle candidates, able-bodied candidates, and/or candidates without accents
    • Discuss the tendency to hire people who are similar to you by demeanor, style, values, interests, educational background, experience, etc. 
    • Discuss how the potential for “elitism” can eliminate promising community-based candidates; explore possible unconscious preferences for certain community-based candidates 
    • Discuss how promising community-based candidates may have developed the preferred competencies through alternative job experiences and pathways (i.e., community organizations, business, volunteer work, leadership within religious-based institutions, etc.)
    • Reinforce the need to ensure that all candidates have a very inclusive, welcoming, and supportive experience through the recruitment process 
• Review and rewrite (as needed) the current tutoring position to align with the org’s commitment to hiring community-based tutors
  • Strategies: 
    • Ensure that the stated “minimum requirements” are essential to the position and aligned with High-Impact Tutoring Standards
    • Ensure that the listed core competencies and preferred experiences specifically align with culturally responsive and sustaining competencies (p. 25-28)
    • Include language such as this suggested phrase to emphasize the organizational commitment to culturally responsive and sustaining practices: “Our tutoring program is committed to being culturally responsive and sustaining and reflecting the background of our community. Tutoring candidates who can contribute to that goal are encouraged to apply and identify their strengths and experiences in this area.”
    • List any credential(s) as preferred, unless mandated by law and regulations
    • List any years of experience desired as preferred
    • When possible, do not specify a deadline for applications; instead state,  “Our program will begin reviewing applications (weekly/monthly).”
    • Refer candidates to the OST provider’s website where they can review the organization's strategic plan, mission, values, mutual expectations, benefits for tutors, etc.
• Develop effective relationships with promising tutor candidates to support their ability to have a positive recruiting experience 
  • Strategies:
    • Ensure timely communications via the following sample methods:
      • Acknowledging receipt of the application
      • Call candidates prior to the interview to answer any of their questions and provide information about the interview
      • Contact candidates to gather their questions about the tutoring position so this information can be shared with them during the interview or through other means
    • Make personalized contact with promising community-based candidates:
      • Learn candidate’s interests and areas of expertise 
      • Discuss how a candidate’s interests and areas of expertise are valued and how OST providers can support their future professional development and career paths
      • Avoid sending generic emails and letters to promising community-based candidates