Chloe Humphrey shares how Teacher Booker helped DoNESC digitalize and standardize recruitment processes, significantly improving efficiency and oversight for their supported schools.

Favourite Feature: “Easily the reference automation and the swimlane function. Sending out reference requests and interview invites used to take quite a chunk of time, and now it literally takes a minute.”

Chloe Humphrey is the Recruitment and Apprenticeships Officer for the Diocese of Norwich Education Services Company (DoNESC). DoNESC plays a crucial role in supporting two multi-academy trusts, DNEAT and St Bennet’s, by assisting their academies with all recruitment processes, from adverts and recruitment packs to the applicant tracking system.

Before implementing Teacher Booker, DoNESC’s recruitment process was largely manual and fragmented. Everything was communicated via email, and application forms and reference pro formas were Word documents. A significant challenge was ensuring that all academies, especially those that hadn’t recruited in a while, were using the most up-to-date versions of these forms, leading to potential inconsistencies across the trusts.

Chloe also faced a disconnect in her role, lacking oversight of advert success and the sources from which candidates were applying. This made it difficult to collect valuable data that the trusts increasingly wanted to track.

The entire process was time-consuming, particularly given the stringent safer recruitment practices required in the education sector. Ensuring compliance consistently across multiple academies added another layer of complexity.

“Before Teacher Booker, everything was being communicated via email to candidates and referees and we had word document forms for the application forms for the reference pro formas and one of the main pain points was just ensuring that academies were using the most up to date versions of those.”

DoNESC recognized a clear shift in the education sector towards applicant tracking systems, driven by the need to improve efficiency within academies. The recruitment process, with its many safer recruitment requirements, consumed a lot of time. Investing in a dedicated system like Teacher Booker was seen as a way to streamline these tasks while ensuring consistency and compliance across all academies.

Beyond efficiency, an applicant tracking system also conveyed a modern, developed IT approach to prospective employees, enhancing employer branding. The trusts DoNESC supports were looking towards data more and more, wanting to track recruitment data, candidate numbers, and sources. This was not easily possible with paper-based processes, whereas Teacher Booker offered an instant solution.

Importantly, the system provided standardisation that the trusts wanted while still giving academies freedom to run processes the way they wanted to on the ground. The implementation also provided an opportunity for a strategic refresh. Rather than simply digitising old paper forms, the DoNESC team sat down together and refreshed all their application forms and reference pro formas, making sure they were collecting the data they actually wanted, before putting those into the system.

Since going live with Teacher Booker about eight months ago, DoNESC has seen all the anticipated benefits come to fruition. Chloe’s assessment is simple: “Nothing but positives.”

A major benefit has been the increased accessibility of the recruitment process. One headteacher commented to Chloe that because their school business manager had been away, they had to cover recruitment processes, and the system made their lives easier. Anyone who needs to dip in and out of the recruitment process can have user access to the relevant sections. If colleagues need to view application forms, they can have a login and see what they need to without any admin work sending documents around. This means staff can support each other when needed, accessing the system at their appropriate level.

For Chloe, the system has provided invaluable oversight of adverts and application numbers. She can now easily check in on processes and even jump in to support an academy directly. Because she can see their system on her side, she can visually see what they’re looking at and work through things together with them.

While specific quantifiable data is still being collected, the time savings are evident in daily practice.

“Even this morning I have to send out a couple of invites where usually you’d be finding an old version of an email that you’ve sent before, collecting all of the information… Whereas this morning I sent the invites in a couple of seconds using the Swimlane, I just had to add in the date, time and location and everything was pre there written.“

Tasks like sending interview invites, which previously involved manually gathering information and finding standardized text about which documents candidates needed to bring, now take mere seconds. The system filters in all the candidate’s information automatically, including their name, email address, and contact details.

The automated reference process has been another significant benefit. The system handles pro formas automatically and when it sends them through to referees, it gives them an overview of what job the candidate has applied for, including the job description and person spec. This provides referees with proper context for the reference they’re providing, something that previously required manual compilation and sending of multiple documents.

The academies are also excited about features they’re still discovering. Schools are slowly picking up other functions and are particularly interested in the potential use of the shortlisting function, which will help ensure that everything is done in the same way across the trust.

Schools and hiring managers have provided overwhelmingly positive feedback, praising the time savings and the system’s ease of use. The bite-sized training videos have been particularly appreciated because rather than sitting in one large training session and having to remember everything, staff have a resource to go back to. If they don’t have any recruitment for a while and need a refresh on the system, those bite-sized training chunks are right there for them. They can watch a training video at each stage as a refresher before they do the next step, which makes their lives as easy as possible when doing a process that can otherwise be quite time-consuming.

Schools are also excited to see the developments that keep coming out. When they have feedback, they bring it to Chloe, who discusses it with Teacher Booker. There have been little tweaks in the system and changes that have been implemented based on user feedback, and schools enjoy seeing those come in, particularly when it’s been an idea they’ve had or discussed.

The Teacher Booker team has been highly supportive throughout the process. Che and Ollie provided valuable support from the onboarding process through to going live. The separate onboarding system, Trumpet, which had the key tasks and steps for the onboarding process, was really useful because Chloe could log in and see what needed to be implemented next for the rollout to go successfully.

The ongoing support has been equally strong. There’s a chat function within the applicant tracking system that Chloe uses frequently, and there’s always someone from the team who replies really quickly. This function is also available to the academies, which means that if Chloe isn’t available to help with a query, they can go to Teacher Booker directly. Chloe appreciates knowing that the service they’re getting from Teacher Booker is speedy and supportive.

One of the benefits that has emerged is the improved candidate experience across multiple academies. When you have multiple academies sitting under one trust name and candidates apply for one job at one school but aren’t successful, they might really love the culture and values. Now they can apply to another school and they’re going to get the same messages about recruitment and the same information. This consistency speaks volumes for employer branding.

The system ensures that all templates have been set by Chloe and the team, and they know those are all being used across the trust and across the academies consistently. This creates a professional, cohesive recruitment approach that reflects well on the entire organization while maintaining the flexibility for individual academies to manage their processes locally.

When asked what she would say to another diocese or multi-academy trust sitting on the fence about digitising their recruitment, Chloe suggests starting with these questions:

• What do they want to get out of the system?
• What’s their aim when they look at their current processes?
• What are the areas of improvement?
• Where do they want more consistency within their process?
• Where do they want more efficiency?

She believes that if organizations look at the features of an applicant tracking system like Teacher Booker, they would see that those features plug a lot of gaps and address many of those concerns. The implementation can also serve as an opportunity for a refresh and a reboost, ensuring you’re collecting the right data and presenting a consistent, professional approach to candidates.

DoNESC has already started to evidence the benefits, and Chloe knows they will continue to do so as the academies use the system more and more. There’s a learning curve, but the system is already making such a difference, and that will only continue as schools build more into the system and get more comfortable with it.