California School District Fills 100% of Open Positions

The Solution

After evaluating several digital hiring platforms, The Twin Rivers Unified School District chose to implement VidCruiter into its hiring process.

Video Interviewing

The District uses VidCruiter’s video interviews to hire all of its certificated employees, including teachers and management such as principals, executives, and directors. The District already uses an online application process, so VidCruiter aligned well with its existing paperless hiring process.

Before video interviews begin, applicants are shown a custom video where the superintendent welcomes the candidate. Then, two young students greet the applicant, personalizing the interview experience and making candidates feel more at ease.

The District has refined its interview questions so that what’s most important to principals is asked within the first five questions of the video interview. The video interviews are shared with other teachers in the District to get their feedback on applicants and determine cultural fit. This way, they can rule out candidates who aren’t fit for the position more quickly—and make a job offer sooner.

“Video interviewing changes the conversation. It becomes more about them interviewing us than us interviewing them,” says Robertson. “We can spend more time sharing our story and convincing applicants why they’d want to work here. We can better showcase the qualities of our schools and connect candidates with principals and other people they’d be working with, so we know the people we hire truly want the job. That increases the retention rate.”

Automated Reference Checks

Like other school districts, many teachers and principals go on vacation during the summer. When schools are closed, it becomes incredibly difficult to get references by phone. They needed more innovative ways to change the conversation among schools and potential employees—and VidCruiter had the solution.

VidCruiter’s reference checking tool allows the District to connect more easily with references, especially during the summer months. Now, as soon as a digital interview is complete, an email is sent out automatically requesting reference information. It also sends out a reminder if the candidate hasn’t yet submitted their references. “We love the function because there’s no more phone tag,” says Robertson.

Thanks to all the time it has saved, the District has been able to implement new HR initiatives such as text messaging candidates. Before VidCruiter, they simply didn’t have the capacity to take that on. Texting has dramatically quickened response times from candidates, all while humanizing the District and demonstrating its commitment to modern hiring practices.

The Results

VidCruiter has helped the Twin Rivers Unified School District transform its hiring process to better meet the needs of candidates, administrators, and the District as a whole. Before VidCruiter, the District had 58 unfilled openings, meaning it had 58 classrooms with no teachers. This year, they have zero.

The District has been successful in attracting candidates from all over California, as well as out of state.

For specialized positions like Speech and Language Pathologists, the neighboring district has 55 vacancies; Twin Rivers only has one.

But, perhaps the most impactful difference VidCruiter has made on the District’s hiring process is saving principals’ time. Principals once had to dedicate an entire day to hiring a new teacher, but now they spend about an hour, reviewing video interviews only as time allows.

VidCruiter is happy to have helped the Twin Rivers Unified School District improve its hiring process and it looks forward to helping other school districts, too.