Recruitment, of School Administrators

Recruitment refers to both formal and informal processes aimed at eliciting applicants for administrative position vacancies. The goal of recruitment is to replace or enhance the supply of administrators. Common recruitment activities include alerting prospective applicants to current or upcoming job openings, identifying individuals believed to have the potential to succeed in a particular leadership role, sharing information about employment opportunities, and encouraging the completion of certification, licensure, and application requirements.

Formal recruitment processes can entail personnel officials: advertising administrative vacancies in public media internal or external to schools, establishing structured relationships with the placement offices of colleges and universities that prepare educational leaders, accessing the resume databases of administrators' professional organizations, participating in job fairs and conference sessions attended by administrative aspirants, offering training programs for career change into administration for teachers, and hiring search consultants or firms that specialize in administrator placement. (The latter have been more frequently relied upon for superintendencies than for other administrative roles.)

Informal recruitment can involve more exclusive and less publicly visible processes such as incumbent administrators; networking with others who share [Page 854]common interests, affiliations, or backgrounds; seeking personal referrals from experienced leaders or others in positions of power and influence in education; selectively communicating job opportunity information to friends, acquaintances, and other preferred prospects; mentoring, sponsoring, or promoting protégés for position vacancies; and grooming favored successors by providing special counsel, coaching, or opportunities to enhance leadership skills.

The history of K–12 schooling in the United States includes deep-seated traditions of informal recruitment leading to administrative hiring. That is, employment in the field has not relied exclusively on unsolicited applications submitted in response to publicly announced job openings. Instead, college professors and veteran administrators have always played active, influential roles in targeting, supporting, and paving the way for selected associates' career advancement.

Because of these traditions, recruitment practices have been criticized for being more closed than open and for contributing to the demographic homogeneity that has characterized educational administration historically. In the vernacular, such practices are sometimes referred to as a self-perpetuating “good old boys'” system at work, since most incumbent administrators, college professors, and search consultants are White males.

Affirmative action and the enforcement of equal opportunity employment laws are often cited as means of making recruitment and selection practices more inclusive. Advocates for greater diversity in educational leadership underscore the importance of recruitment practices that include and support people of color, women, persons with disabilities, and other populations historically underrepresented in educational administration.