Students who have just graduated from teacher education programs are excellent candidates for positions in your district. But don’t wait until they are about to graduate to begin recruiting them! Use an email campaign that starts at the beginning of their school year to build a meaningful connection.
Email campaigns have specific goals. In this case, you want to build a relationship with potential job candidates that raises awareness of your district and its opportunities. You ultimately want to turn email recipients from readers to eager candidates who are applying for positions in your district.
How do you get email addresses for teacher education students?
Contact the field services coordinator at the post-secondary institution and ask them to forward your email to their students. Include a link to an email list sign-up form on your website or social media pages. You can also collect emails when attending events like career fairs or information sessions.
This email campaign assumes you are targeting students who have just entered a 12-month teacher education program that starts in September:
- September: Send an email to teacher education students at the beginning of the year wishing them luck with the year ahead and introducing them to your district. Let them know what positions you will likely be recruiting for in a year’s time and the qualities and qualifications you are looking for in a candidate.
- After students complete their first practicum, invite them to attend an in-person information session you’re holding. This could be an on-campus event or a webinar.
- Each month, send an email that includes links that might be of interest to new teachers (such as on instructional strategies or articles on interesting things happening in your district). The email should also include links to your most recent job listings.
- Send an email asking students if they’d like you to set up job alerts on their behalf. If they say “yes,” they would receive emails from you as new job postings for your districts come up throughout the year. Even if they aren’t quite ready to enter the workforce, they’ll see what opportunities are available with your district!
- Spring: Before you begin recruiting in the spring, send teacher education students a heads-up outlining when you will begin accepting applications for different types of positions.
- Late summer: When students are about to graduate, send them a congratulatory email and encourage them to contact you if they are looking for help relocating to your district or advice as to how they should prepare and submit their applications.
Helpful tips for your email campaigns
- Create a strategy to plan what email content you will be sending and when.
- Use email marketing automation software to set up your campaign ahead of time. You can write your emails in advance, and they will then be sent automatically to everyone on your list on the specified date.
- Consult the person in charge of communications or marketing at your district to ensure the messaging and visual identity you are using in your emails is consistent with what is being used at a district level.
- Test your email templates to make sure they work on all technology platforms (such as tablets, smart phones, laptops and desktop computers).
- Try sending out your emails on different days and times of the day to find out what days and times generate the best responses. Studies show that when you send an email on the weekend you are more likely to get a response.Check out our article on how to use email to build relationships with candidates for tips on writing emails and links to email automation software that can help streamline the process.