How to create the perfect teacher job advert

Demand for excellent teachers in schools is high, creating a job market where candidates can afford to be selective about where they apply. If you want to attract the right teachers to your job adverts, it’s essential to make them eye-catching and attractive.

When posting a new role on Teaching Vacancies, the job listing process will walk you through the main pieces of information that jobseekers need to know.

Job details

The first few steps will ask you about the type of role you’re recruiting for, the working pattern, the subject areas it covers and whether it has any SEND responsibilities. As well as being summarised on the final job advert, this information feeds into the search and job alert options we provide to jobseekers. By ticking the right boxes you’re immediately putting your role in front of a relevant audience.

You’ll also need to select a job title. Our research suggests that jobseekers respond to short, simple job titles. While it’s tempting to cram as much information as possible into this field, we recommend putting yourself in the shoes of applicants and considering how they search for jobs.

Your job title will not only be displayed on Teaching Vacancies but also on search engines like Google. So pick a job title that people will be actively looking for, and keep information like start dates and additional responsibilities for the job details section.

Salary

Naturally, a jobseeker’s eyes are often drawn to the salary field. They want to know whether the compensation being offered meets their expectations, and many will move on at this stage if it’s not what they’re looking for.

Teacher salaries can be complicated compared to some other industries, so when listing a job there are three separate fields to give you space to be transparent and explain the exact remuneration related to the role.

Annual or full time equivalent (FTE) salary

This is simply what the role would pay per year, regardless of any particular working patterns. If it’s a full time role, enter the full basic salary (or a salary band) here. If it’s not, calculate this from the number of days or weeks per year the role covers.

Actual salary

For part time, flexible, job share or term time roles, provide the candidate with specific information on the money they will receive. You may decide to state this per year or per month, depending on the nature of the role.

Additional allowances

Many schools offer teachers benefits beyond their monthly wages. This is your opportunity to list salary sacrifice schemes, cycle to work vouchers, tax-free childcare, and any other bonuses related to working at your school. You may also want to detail the training and career development opportunities you offer.

However you decide to best describe the salary on offer using these fields, avoid referring to pay in a way that doesn’t make sense to people outside your organisation. Those you work with may have an understanding of the grades or bands you use, or acronyms such as MPS or UPS, but don’t assume your candidates will. Make it easy for them by providing a straightforward numerical value.

Application method

On Teaching Vacancies we offer two ways for you to receive applications, either through our built-in application form, or through your own method.

Read our guidance on how to accept job applications on Teaching Vacancies.

If you choose the former you’ll have the benefit of managing candidates in one place from the start of the process all the way through to offering someone the job. If you choose the latter, you can point applicants to a form on your website, or ask them to submit attachments via an email address.

Whichever route you go down, make sure it’s clear to the candidate exactly what you want them to do, and by when. By giving them guidance on what documents they need to submit and what to include in their personal statement, you’re more likely to receive information in a way you can easily manage.

It’s also recommended to provide some basic information about the interview and selection process. Will candidates be able to visit the school? Will there be a single interview or a series? Will they be conducted by an individual or a panel? Are there any tests or presentations involved? Let candidates know exactly what they’re letting themselves in for.

School details

Jobseekers are just as interested in where they’ll be working and who they’ll be working with, as they are in what they’ll be doing.

Beyond the basic address and contact information, we recommend providing a brief summary of the environment your school offers pupils and some of the values that you expect to see across the school community.

This is a chance to demonstrate what makes your school different from the rest, so think carefully about how you want to sell yourself and look to write a unique description tailored to the role you’re recruiting for, rather than copying and pasting something from your school’s website.

What should be included in a teacher job description?

While the information above is essential to get right, it’s the job description section where you need to spend the majority of your time and effort.

Job description length

Analysis of applications made through Teaching Vacancies suggest that around 300 to 500 words is the optimal amount of text to present to jobseekers. Any less and you’re potentially leaving out something important. Any more and you’re in danger of providing too much unnecessary information.

Within this space, the tone should be overwhelmingly positive. Readers can form a lot of impressions about a school from the writing style of a job advert.

Lengthy paragraphs containing dull and formulaic explanations of tasks related to the role suggest a stale workplace, whereas a job ad full of enthusiasm and active verbs suggest a bold and progressive environment in which to be a teacher.

The first 20 to 40 words of your job description are essential for two reasons.

Firstly, they set the tone for the rest of the job advert. In the same way hiring staff make snap judgements on candidates from the first line of their personal statements, jobseekers will do the same when looking through job descriptions.

Secondly, this text is often displayed within search engines, and could be the difference between someone clicking through to read more, or not.

Quickly summarise what the role is and who you’re looking for in a sentence or two so jobseekers are able to make an instant assessment on whether it’s the right role for them.

Explaining the role

Once you’ve got the reader over the first hurdle, you can summarise the main duties of the job.

Do this as succinctly as possible, sticking to 3 to 5 of the main aspects of the role. Remember that job descriptions are different from job specifications, which outline all the duties and requirements in detail. If there’s a need from a Human Resources perspective for you to provide this information, consider uploading it as an attachment so it doesn’t distract from the main message of the job advert.

On Teaching Vacancies, we don’t provide options for you to bold text, add bullets or make other formatting changes when creating a job advert. This is to ensure accessibility and a consistent candidate experience across all parts of the service.

But you can still make your job description aesthetically pleasing and readable within a plain-text format. Use short sentences, plenty of line breaks, and create lists by adding hyphens or numbers at the start of new lines.

Describing who you’re looking for

It’s useful for candidates to be able to understand what criteria you’ll be using when assessing whether they’re right for the job. Add in a handful of skills and attributes that you’re hoping to see from applicants.

It’s important you make a distinction between which of these are required or desired. Candidates are likely to take literal notice of this information, so don’t state that they must have a certain level of education if in reality you’d be more lenient with that.

You don’t want to put anyone off applying by making the criteria too strict, but you also don’t want to have a flood of applications to wade through if you’re too vague with your description.

The final step of posting a job on Teaching Vacancies offers you a chance to preview how it will look from the jobseeker’s perspective. Remember that job ads should be written for them, not you.

We highly recommend taking off your hiring staff hat and looking at your job advert with an objective eye and asking yourself the following questions.

How does it look on a mobile?

The majority of candidates search for jobs on smartphones, so look at the preview link on a small screen to ensure it flows as you’d like it to and it’s pleasing to the eye.

Is there any duplicate information?

Some schools post job ads including salaries or working patterns within the job description, despite these already being summarised at the top of the job advert template. Remove anything that’s already included elsewhere.

Does it comply with employment legislation?

While you’re perfectly within your rights to ask that candidates meet certain criteria, it’s illegal to refer to age, gender, and various other personal characteristics. This also applies to phrases such as ‘recent graduate’ or ‘highly experienced’, so focus more on what you want candidates to be able to do, rather than how long they’ve been doing it.

And finally, edit your text thoroughly. Like any piece of writing, your first draft should look very different from your final version. Don’t rely on your computer’s spell checker, and make use of the many online tools that help you write in a simpler, clearer and more persuasive way.

Published on 18 March 2022

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