Instructor Recruitment
About
If you are about to recruit instructors it is important to assure a certain level of quality from the candidates who are put in the instructor role. Below you will find guidelines to provide a structured and effective recruitment proces.
four steps when recruiting an instructor
There are different areas and aspects when it comes to the recruitment of Instructors – 1. attracting candidates, 2. what to attract candidates with, 3. job interviews and 4. the onboarding of new Instructors. In this section, we will briefly touch upon practices and recommendations within each of these areas.
Unfold and discover each step below
When attracting instructor-candidates, consider one of the two strategies:
Informal
Procedure
Advantages
Disadvantages
Formal
Procedure
Advantages
Disadvantages
Attraction elements
When attracting candidates for the instructor jobs, there are multiple aspects including learning, benefiting and attracting of the job to emphasise to students. In the following these will be highlighted and elaborated.
Rewarding
Responsibility
Motivation and leadership
Fun
Creative
Own learning
Communication
CV
Challenging
Job interview
The job interview with candidates for the instructor job is an important opportunity to assess whether the person are capable of performing the job and possess the required abilities. In the following there have been gathered some best practice experience and recommandations about how to design job interviews and what to ask the candidates about.
It can be a good idea to ask the candidate about specific challenges they think might occur in the job, and how they would solve them. To guide their reflection, they can use examples from their own experiences. It is important to explicitly give room and time for reflection on this question.
To get the candidate’s reflections upon important qualities in the role, ask them to describe the ideal instructor/teacher and their competences. As an inspiration, it can be suggested that they draw on own examples of good and bad teaching/teachers.
To get a sense of the candidate’s abilities, it can be a good idea to let them instruct/teach in course material – and simulate actual instruction. This can be done by giving them material prior to the interview, which they have to prepare a presentation of or an exercise around during the interview. Besides giving the interviewer a good basis of evaluation, the following conversation can be a reflection on the presentation.
Situating the candidate in specific, tricky scenarios through questions in the interview can give a good idea of how the candidate would act in challenging situations that could occur in the job. This could also enable reflection between the interviewer and the candidate about how to act in pressured situations.
Here are some examples of typical, challenging scenarios to situate them in:
- You ask a question about an exercise/course material in class and no one answers. What do you do?
- You ask a question about an exercise/course material in class and someone answers incorrectly/misleadingly (factually or interpretively). What do you do?
- You are asked a question (about e.g. the exam or course material) that you do not know. What do you do?
- In an exercise class, half of the students has prepared (read the material/done the assignment), and half of the students haven’t. How do you handle the situation? Who do you prioritise?
- One or few students are dominating the class and they are at a higher level than the others. How do you invite more students into the dialogue and make sure they understand?
Onboarding
When an instructor comes on board (at a course), it is important to give them a proper introduction to their new role. This can be managed in several ways.
Introduction meeting
Make sure to sit down and have an exhaustive introduction meeting with the Instructor – and the other teachers.
Talking to former Instructors
If possible, connect new Instructors with former Instructors so they can share knowledge and experiences from the job
Access to former Instructors material
If possible, provide new Instructors with materials from former Instructors/teachers in the same role
Observe first instruction and provide feedback
Give the Instructor a good start by observing their first class and providing them with constructive feedback afterwards. Download a report template to view some suggestions on what element a template could consist of. Download here.