TCNJ Helps revamp teacher recruitment on njhire.com

The New Jersey Department of Education in cooperation with the College has announced the launch of a new set of media marketing and recruitment software as part of its free educator and staff recruitment web site, NJHire.com©. Potential applicants can use these new advanced technologies to apply for positions in four school districts piloting this software: Ewing, Pemberton, Trenton, and Vineland.

USteach, Inc. developed this new, web-based software as part of a Teacher Quality Enhancement Recruitment (TQE-R) research project funded by the U.S. Department of Education in cooperation with the New Jersey Department of Education and The College of New Jersey. USteach, Inc. also developed NJHire.

TCNJ Professor of Elementary/Early Childhood Education Sharon Sherman, co-principal investigator of the TQE-R grant said, “This new, web-based media marketing and recruitment software provides school districts with innovative opportunities to showcase themselves in ways that will attract outstanding applicants. This resource will give our New Jersey school districts a recruiting advantage in an education market with a growing shortage of teachers, especially in math, science, bilingual, and special education.”  

The new software allows school districts to display videos with greetings from their superintendents along with school district and local community highlights to capture the interests of job applicants.

Podcasts provide information about instructional programs, staff benefits, and interactive maps unique to each district. There is also a calendar for special events and job fairs.

All videos, podcasts, banners and texts can be easily inserted, updated, or removed by each district through the included simple to use, but powerful software tools.

This software contains a large set of customizable, personalized, web-based tools for people seeking jobs. Applicants can access interactive job listings for each district and submit their on-line portfolios that may include videos, applications, resumes, and required documents. An applicant can create one profile and use it for multiple portfolios and applications. This software will then automatically track each separate application process.

For the next two years, data collected from research project will be analyzed to provide feedback for modifications and to determine the benefits for the recruitment of teachers and staff in school districts throughout New Jersey.

Dr. Mary Gruccio, assistant superintendent in Vineland, sees several benefits to this new software. She said, “Using this latest technology will not only provide us with a much larger base from which to recruit, but it will become an excellent marketing tool for our district. I anticipate a higher rate of teacher retention due to the personalization provided to those seeking jobs.”

This software can be accessed at:  www.njhire.com