Using Your School’s Glassdoor Reviews to Boost Teacher Recruitment

In the increasingly competitive world of teacher recruitment, it’s no longer enough to just have a good school — you need to make sure people KNOW your school is a great place to work.

While word of mouth is a great place to start, what about the people who DON’T already know someone at your school or who aren’t familiar with your district? How will those prospective teachers find out whether or not your school is the right fit for them?

They’ll look online. And in addition to your website and social media, they’ll likely look at your online reviews. In fact, according to Glassdoor, up to 86% of job seekers will look at your organization’s reviews before applying for a job.

Glassdoor Reviews for Schools 

While we know that sites like Niche and GreatSchools are important for prospective students, Glassdoor is one of the most important sites for prospective employees.

Glassdoor allows employees to leave anonymous reviews for their employer on everything from leadership to benefits to overall experience. As the teacher shortage continues to worsen, prospective teachers have more and more choices on where to apply, interview, and, ultimately, accept an offer.

This means that before you even see their résumé, great teachers might be passing on your school because of what is — or isn’t — said on your Glassdoor profile.

You might be wondering, “How much sway do these online reviews REALLY have?”

A lot, actually.

A recent study showed that one in three people have declined a job offer due to negative reviews online. When you desperately need good, qualified teachers, you CAN’T risk them turning down a job offer because of a negative perception based on reviews. So what do you do?

Listen and Respond to Concerns

The first step you need to take might seem obvious: You need to know what employees are saying about working at your school.

It can be disheartening to read negative reviews, especially as someone responsible for the culture and climate of your school, but it’s critical to identify and understand patterns.

If most of your reviews are negatively mentioning administrative support or poor benefits, you know where you need to start improving. You can claim your Glassdoor account and politely and non-confrontationally reply to reviews. You can add context and give information that might be helpful.

For example, on a review citing that benefits costs are too high, you might respond back, “Thank you for letting us know how we can improve our benefits package. We really appreciate the feedback. We are excited to share that we are offering XYZ in the coming school year.”

By responding in a calm, collected, and constructive manner, you’re not only showing support to the employee who left the review but also demonstrating to future employees that you genuinely value employee feedback and use it to make decisions.

Encourage Feedback 

Schools often tell us that they’re afraid to ask for feedback because they don’t want to risk getting negative reviews. While that mindset is understandable, it actually isn’t helping you.

Most people who are upset enough to leave a truly negative review are going to do it regardless of whether or not you ask them. On top of that, if you don’t encourage people to leave positive feedback, you’ll have nothing to counterbalance the occasional negative review that might come your way.

Remember that most prospective employees are pretty savvy. They’ll look at the overall sentiment and patterns rather than taking one or two negative reviews at face value.

You can encourage your current employees to leave Glassdoor reviews through email, staff newsletters, or even asking them in person when you see them around the building.

This is great not only for building your base of positive reviews but also for giving you the opportunity to hear authentic feedback from your staff about what they love and what could use some work.

Ensure Your Account is Accurate 

Glassdoor, like most other review websites, allows you to claim a business account in order to respond to reviews, post announcements, open positions, and ensure your page is accurate.

This is really important because if a prospective employee is checking out your page, you want them to have the most up-to-date information possible for the basics:

• Physical address
• Phone number
• School website
• Benefits

Make an effort to post updates, respond to reviews, and ensure that all information is accurate regarding your benefits and other perks.

This is incredibly important because in an increasingly competitive hiring market, things like benefits, salary, and culture make the difference between whether a job seeker applies at your school or your competitor’s.

So What Do I Do Next?

First, claim (or update) your school’s Glassdoor account. You can do that here (or by clicking the image below).

Once you’ve claimed your school’s Glassdoor account, check out the reviews. If there are significant negative reviews, figure out if there’s a pattern and what you can do to improve moving forward.

Then start soliciting reviews from your staff. The more positive reviews your school has, the more likely a job seeker is to believe that your school really IS a great place to work.

If you need help with sourcing future teachers, we’ve got your back!

SchoolMint offers a teacher recruitment service, where we’ll help you attract new teachers, vet their applications, and conduct a one-way video interview process to send you only highly qualified, interested candidates.

Click below to learn how we can help you find, attract, and hire highly qualified teachers!