How AI-Driven Recruitment Can Address Teacher Shortages in Education Sector

In the entire world, the educational sector is impacted by an extreme dearth of qualified teaching personnel. Schools, particularly, in rural regions have been finding it hard to get teachers to employ. It would mean that around 69 million teachers would need to be recruited across the globe by the year 2030 as estimated by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Thinning of teachers due to sickness, increased workloads, and insufficient sickness pay had all compounded a state that only grew dire. This blog discusses the benefits of implementing AI-powered recruitment tools in the education sector.

Challenges in Traditional Teacher Recruitment

Recruitment of teachers using the traditional methods is either time-intensive, expensive, and subject to biases. The following are some of the major issues:

• High Volume of Applications: Schools, especially when trying to recruit for a certain class or position that requires better skills often end up with applications that exceed what they had to deal with. Sifting through the resumes and cover letters is time-consuming and can take a long time before a recruitment decision is reached.
• Difficulty in Identifying Qualified Candidates: Sourcing out professionals with appropriate skill sets, and relevant experience even if there are multitudes of applications can be finding a needle in a haystack.
• Bias in Hiring Decisions: Traditional recruitment is deeply flawed with biases, conscious or unconscious and this continues to eliminate participation of multiple other diversified qualified applicants. Such a lack of diversity can also affect the quality of the candidates.

How AI Enhances Recruitment Efficiency in Education

With AI-powered candidate screening, the primary selection of candidates for the position can be achieved more efficiently, in a shorter period. For instance, CVs can be scanned through automated resume scanning and parsing, where candidates who meet conditions such as certification, experience, and subject knowledge are shortlisted. This, in turn, doesn’t just cut down on the time invested but also ensures that only the fittest candidates for the job get an invitation for the interview.

AI-powered matching systems can review job requirements for a teaching post and the profile of candidates and rank the most appropriate candidates for the position. This reduces the manpower, HR management effort, or internal resource effort, making it easier for the schools to look for top talent.

AI can do more than resume matching with specific job requirements. Predictive analytics can analyse historical data to predict future hiring requirements. Predictive analytics tools provide insights on when to start recruiting new employees, enabling hiring managers to be proactive instead of reactive.

Overcoming Resistance to AI Recruitment in Education

The education sector for instance seems to be slow in incorporating AI in their recruitment processes, even though this has evident benefits. This ranges from worrying about data security to the perception that the use of technology will dehumanize the recruitment process. But these challenges should be not too hard to solve:

• Managing Change Resistance: Educational institutions can manage resistance towards AI-powered recruitment by focusing on the significant impact AI plays in supporting—not replacing—recruitment teams. Provide proper training to understand the benefits of AI-powered recruitment that can ease the resistance and encourage adoption.
• Complying with Data Governance Policies: It is equally important to protect candidate data. AI-based recruitment systems should be designed to comply with regulations such as GDPR to build confidence in data use. Schools can address this issue by working with suppliers who put data security as their top priority.
• Maintaining Fair Recruitment Processes: AI systems must be designed so as not to have bias of any sort. Continuous enhancement of algorithms ensures that AI while assisting in the recruitment process, is concerned with qualification and experience to ensure fairer recruitment.

The Future of AI in Educational Recruitment

When it comes to recruitment in education, the reliance on technology seems to be increasing with every passing day. Below are some trends to watch for:

• Conversational AI for Candidate Engagement: AI-powered chatbots can respond to frequently asked questions and schedule interviews, they can also replace low-level candidate interactions that could swallow time and resources. In this realm, AI-powered chatbots can filter out teachers with the required qualifications, endorsements, and certifications, which means that human resources wouldn’t have to waste time on monotonous work that could be automated.
• Virtual Screening and Remote Assessments: As the learning system has shifted to online modes, virtual interviews, and evaluations have also become a trend. AI-based assessment systems can scan candidate video interviews and score candidates based on numerous parameters such as communication, style, and even team fit. This significantly aids in decision-making by providing deeper potential insight about a candidate that employers wouldn’t have found through the typical CVs or a phone interview.
• Predictive Workforce Planning: As the AI-powered recruitment automation tools get more sophisticated, it may also become possible to estimate the new hiring requirements of institutions such as predicting the expected number of enrolled students, the funds required for hiring employees, and the anticipated curriculum changes. This predictive method can enable institutions to have a forward-looking stance towards their recruitment requirements thus ensuring qualified teachers would always be selected.

Embracing AI for Better Recruitment in Education

At present, the education sector is at a tipping point because the traditional recruitment systems can no longer accommodate the demand for qualified teachers. Over the last few years, organizations have begun utilizing AI-powered recruitment tools due to their faster, more efficient, and relatively fair features compared to conventional recruitment practices. In this manner, embracing technology will enable institutions to enhance their hiring processes, reduce the average time to hire, and improve the overall recruitment experience.

If your educational institution seeks to enhance and diversify its recruitment process to source the best candidates in a thriving market, look no further than impress.ai. Our technology is proficient in advanced screening, candidate matching automation, and AI-powered chatbots for real-time candidate engagement to suit your hiring requirements. Get in touch with us to discover how we can redesign your recruitment process to cater to the future generation.