Management Information Sheet
Advertising School Vacancies
As you will be aware we are all looking for areas of significant budget savings. In the County Council the issue of advertising costs has come under scrutiny as an area where there is still a high level of expenditure. This is despite a significant reduction in advertising spend in 09 compared with 08, and despite our efforts to advertise only on the schools' jobs website where this was felt to be appropriate. National adverts are only being used where schools judge there is not a sufficient pool of local candidates; however local advertising spend is still high. This is the case despite a negotiated discount of 50% for the recruitment pages of Archant papers.
The question of advertising costs has also attracted the attention of elected members and there is ongoing interest in how we are going to reduce expenditure in this area over the short and longer term. They are particularly concerned about the tendency to use lengthy text to describe jobs when we replicate this information on the website. They are suggesting that this could be an area which could be targeted for reducing costs. In the rest of the county council we have addressed this by significantly reducing the text of adverts, giving only essential details and pointing candidates to the website for fuller details. This has already resulted in savings whilst at the same time still attracting a good calibre of candidates.
We took this idea to the Schools' Forum who strongly recommended this approach be taken to help you reduce your advertising expenditure.
We have been in discussions with the Employee Services Centre, Recruitment Team about how to move forward. We have discussed some actions to be taken with immediate effect as well as working out a longer term strategy.
The actions to be taken immediately are:
1. Cutting advertising copy text to the minimum - to include ONLY School name and location, job title, salary, hours, temp if appropriate and application details.
2. Featuring very prominently the fact that further information can be found online and driving traffic to www.norfolk.gov.uk/schooljobs.
These points will come into immediate effect and the advertisements that appear after 15 April 2010 will be based on this approach.
The DCSF candidate management system is also available to all Norfolk Schools. If you have not registered to use this system and would like to please contact the Schools Recruitment Strategy Team via email: trecstrat.edu@norfolk.gov.uk.
TES HireWire candidate management system is available form the TES free of charge, the TES can be contacted via email on: contact@teshirewire.com.
We realise this is a swift move to a different approach and we hope, that you will be sympathetic to the rationale behind it and will quickly see the benefit of reducing your advertising costs.
If you need any help or guidance please contact the Recruitment Team on 01603 222360.
Elly Starling
Head of Service, HR and OD Children's Services
01603 223476
The question of advertising costs has also attracted the attention of elected members and there is ongoing interest in how we are going to reduce expenditure in this area over the short and longer term. They are particularly concerned about the tendency to use lengthy text to describe jobs when we replicate this information on the website. They are suggesting that this could be an area which could be targeted for reducing costs. In the rest of the county council we have addressed this by significantly reducing the text of adverts, giving only essential details and pointing candidates to the website for fuller details. This has already resulted in savings whilst at the same time still attracting a good calibre of candidates.
We took this idea to the Schools' Forum who strongly recommended this approach be taken to help you reduce your advertising expenditure.
We have been in discussions with the Employee Services Centre, Recruitment Team about how to move forward. We have discussed some actions to be taken with immediate effect as well as working out a longer term strategy.
The actions to be taken immediately are:
1. Cutting advertising copy text to the minimum - to include ONLY School name and location, job title, salary, hours, temp if appropriate and application details.
2. Featuring very prominently the fact that further information can be found online and driving traffic to www.norfolk.gov.uk/schooljobs.
These points will come into immediate effect and the advertisements that appear after 15 April 2010 will be based on this approach.
The DCSF candidate management system is also available to all Norfolk Schools. If you have not registered to use this system and would like to please contact the Schools Recruitment Strategy Team via email: trecstrat.edu@norfolk.gov.uk.
TES HireWire candidate management system is available form the TES free of charge, the TES can be contacted via email on: contact@teshirewire.com.
We realise this is a swift move to a different approach and we hope, that you will be sympathetic to the rationale behind it and will quickly see the benefit of reducing your advertising costs.
If you need any help or guidance please contact the Recruitment Team on 01603 222360.
Elly Starling
Head of Service, HR and OD Children's Services
01603 223476