How Ruckus Makers Interview Teacher Candidates

How Ruckus Makers Interview Teacher Candidates

Danny
00:03
Welcome to the Better Leaders, Better Schools podcast, a show that ranks in the top 0.5% of over 3 million worldwide podcasts. Now, I don’t share that because it’s about me or my success. I share that as a way of setting the stage for gratitude. This show would not have ranked that high, have gotten millions of downloads, or become the most downloaded show in school leadership unless it was serving you. And you are a Ruckus Maker. You’re somebody who wants to do school differently. And today we’re going to talk all about that in a very unique episode. I can’t wait for you to listen. And in today’s conversation, we speak with my buddy and friend and Mastermind member. Loren, who is a principal somewhere on the east coast of the United States. We want to talk today about attracting and interviewing ideal candidates to school. Now here’s the thing. Most schools are doing it wrong. They’re doing it all the same ways. It’s super boring, it’s very institutionalized, and it’s certainly not how Ruckus Makers do school differently. So if you want to stand out, if you want to stand ahead of the competition, then you need to start thinking differently. You have to be creative, which requires a lot of unlearning and a rethinking of the interview process. So we’ll begin talking about the old way Loren used to do it and probably how you’re doing it right now. And then the second half of the conversation, we do a deep dive in the new way.

02:02
Some of the things Loren has already been discussing with me through a coach call, and he’s put those changes into practice because he has a bias for action and he’s seeing the results. Then this becomes sort of a coaching episode, and we start exploring more of the process and different changes he can make, and he gets really excited about that. I hope you do, too. I promise if you implement these ideas, you will see a positive result. And if you consider yourself a Ruckus Maker who wants to do school differently. Then this episode is for you and you will attract higher quality candidates to your campus. So once again, thanks for listening, and we’ll be right back after a quick message from our show sponsors.

Hey, Ruckus Maker, I’ll make this quick. If you’re listening to this message right now, you’re missing out. When you subscribe to the Ruckus Maker newsletter on Substack, you get access to micro books focused on how to do school, different tools, and other resources that will help you make a ruckus and do school, different stories and case studies of the world’s most legendary ruckus, makers of all time. Access to my calendar to schedule coaching sessions, and you’ll also get bonus podcast content that won’t be released on the main podcast feed and podcast episodes without any advertisements. If you love this show, if it’s helped you grow and you want access to more tools and resources that will help you make a ruckus and do school different and become a paid subscriber at Ruckus Makers dot substack.com. That’s Ruckus Makers dot substack.com.

The Secret to peak performance is not complicated. It’s a plan on how to optimize the five fundamentals found in the Ruckus Maker mindset tool. This simple tool will help you consider where you are now and where you want to be in the next 90 days. For each area, you can complete the tool in five minutes or less. Download it for [email protected]. Mindset IXl is a go to support for classroom teachers because its adaptive platform makes differentiated instruction easy. See for yourself and get started [email protected]/Leaders that’s ixl.com leaders.

04:43
How would you like to increase student talk by an average of 40%? More student ownership, more student discourse? Check it out for yourself by trying out Teach fx. Go to teachfx.com/betterleaders to pilot their program today. What does your school cafeteria make you think of? Chaos. Headaches? Quality food? Quest stands apart in the school food service industry as a partner that provides high quality food for your students. This is food you can be proud of learning more at quest food management [email protected] Or follow Questfood on social media. That’s questfms.com.

05:33
All right, so I’m here with Loren, good friend and member of the Ruckus Maker Mastermind for a while. I really appreciate you and to start off with gratitude. Loren is somewhere on the east coast. That’s how we’re going to describe it because we’re going to reveal some, you. Pretty interesting details about, like interviewing and stuff. And the reason I asked him to join me right now is that it’s hiring season. News flash, in case you haven’t heard, nobody wants to be in education and those that do are trying to leave. I think a challenge many Ruckus Makers and certainly all principals face. Is attracting the right talent, keeping them, onboarding them, retaining them. And today we’re going to do a bit of a deep dive into how to attract candidates. Basically, if you think of fitness. Fat guy and then turns into. The fit guy, that’s the before and after, we’re going to look at the old, old way of doing interviewing and then some of the things that Loren has really skillfully done, made some changes and has seen some really great results. And we’re doing this and putting it out for free on the podcast because if you’re smart, you might do something similar. Without further ado, Loren, welcome to the show.

07:25
Loren
Thanks, Danny. It’s always good to speak with you and to learn alongside you.

07:32
Danny
I’m going to be mindful. I want to coach you because we’ll be in recording mode and you’re just going to default back to this is where I work and stuff. When we talk about your school. just make that anonymous,I promise to do that. If you end up saying the school’s name, we’ll zap it out. But anyways, just to remind you there. Loren, where I want to start is talk to me about what, like before some of our conversations, what was interviewing, recruitment fairs, attracting candidates to your school, like?

08:07
Loren
It’s definitely been an interesting several years in terms of interviewing and recruiting teacher candidates. It’s been tough lately. As you mentioned in your intro that there aren’t as many candidates. Everyone hears about the challenges that educators are facing and so really finding candidates who are who are interested as part of the challenge. And then you want candidates who are going to do a great job with students and with colleagues and with families in your school community. The last several years went through the COVID pandemic and we did all this interviewing and recruiting through Zoom, and then we’re on the other side of a lot of those barriers, having learned some things from that experience and also, though, wanting to do more and more in person recruiting and get back to that. I think that’s a space that we’re in right now. And then also just learning.
How do we find candidates in this environment? How do we find the right candidates in this environment? Before you and I talked, I was just trying to grapple with that space that we’re in right now. I was going to some in person recruitment fairs for teacher candidates that were helpful, and I was trying to think through, am I doing the right things when I’m at this kind of event? Because there are candidates there, but there are lots of school divisions and schools there. Am I attracting the right kind of attention? How do I do that? And also just with meeting candidates, what do I tell them about my school and what their experience with our school would be like? And so I think I fell back on what I was used to from before the COVID pandemic with maybe a little bit of flexibility sprinkled in there because we did experience Zoom interviewing candidates that way and that sort of thing. All those things from before weren’t so bad. It’s really helpful to know what kind of candidate is successful at your school. I thought that ahead of time was really important. I continued to lean on that with my school team, and we even have that written out as a document for our school. Like, what is ours? What does the ideal candidate look like you do? And then also think, yeah, we do. And thinking through what we have to offer in terms of support for new teachers? That’s something that we’re ready to talk about. But when it came to, like, introducing our school and greeting candidates. It was kind of plain what I was doing, to be honest with you. I was introducing myself, and we have a wonderful school, and we have a great arts partnership that’s really wonderful, that supports our school. And I will talk about it. I do talk about that when I meet Kenneth, but I don’t think I was really differentiating for candidates what the difference would really be like working with me and working with our team and what’S so unique about our school community. I was stuck in that space of not sure how to stand out and not sure how to be more bold in the environment that we’re in and getting a chance to have a coaching conversation with you. I was actually out or right after I’d been at a Recruitment fair, it’s opened my eyes to how can I change how I’m making this pitch, the candidates.

12:03
Danny
Was that just one of my random calls to you? Did you call? Do you remember what happened?

12:15
Loren
You were calling about some Mastermind business and checking in with me, and I happened to, you’re like what’s going on? I’m like, oh, I’m at this recruitment fair. I’m meeting all these candidates. I don’t know if any of it’s gonna work out. And you just started asking me a few questions. You’re like, oh, okay, well, what’s the setup of the fair? What are you doing? And you kind of just asked a few questions like that, and it made me kind of think about the experience not right through my own eyes, but kind of as an observer looking at what I’m doing and what’s going on around me 100%.

12:58
Danny
Paint a picture for the Ruckus Maker listening to, like, the fair setup pre our talk. What did it used to look like for your school? And then how about even other schools that you may have. May have seen as well?

13:19
Loren
There are two different settings. You can invite candidates to your school, right? And that’s one of the ways that we did it before you can go to an event in terms of, like, when we have candidates come to us, we’ve always been welcoming I always want them to feel that they’re being greeted well and that we have a plan for them and we’re going to take care of them while they’Re with us, that kind of thing. But when they come in and we have a written question for them to do, to kind of work on the panel, because we had a group of teachers that helped to do interviews because I want them to help me choose the best I can I also want kids to learn about. About our school by meeting our teachers. While we’re getting a panel ready the candidate will have some kind of written question to work on when. They meet people in the main office and that kind of thing.

Danny
Let me pause you there, because we’ll talk after the call. You kind of describe if somebody comes to your campus. When I called you were at an event. Maybe it was like a hotel or some kind of a boring, institutional sort of building, a university campus conference hall. A little bit of liveliness to it, but it’s still a conference. A large conference room. I’m a candidate. I walked up to your booth prior to our conversation. What do I see? I see you. Your handsome face and your smile. You’re wearing a suit. You dressed up and a bowtie. Don’t forget to. Do you have posters? You got tvs? I don’t know what it was. We got just like a lot of the other schools in school divisions.

Loren
We’ve got a table set out with different swag on it. We’ve got flyers with information, salary information, health benefits information is available as well. There’s the stats on the school district, things like that we have there and fun gadgets.

15:32
Danny
What’s a fun gadget?

15:38
Loren
A clever little hand sanitizer. Not in a regular hand sanitizer bottle, though, but it has the logo on it and stuff like that and they get to take it with them, or is it just there? Pens, pencils, those things with logos and that’s what everyone’s doing stuff like That’s all over the whole, like, conference hall. Some people have candy. We didn’t have candy last time. Had some jokes. We had some candy that can detract people for sure.

16:15
Danny
I think it was really important to highlight for the Ruckus Maker. The booth looks like everybody else’s booth, pretty much. You got the posters, you got the stats, the flyers. That kind of thing. Who is at the booth? You’re there. Are there any other teachers?

16:33
Loren
We’re going together as a team with other schools from the school division. So there’s a couple other principals. Another principal. There’s a teacher from one of the other schools. There’s a human resources representative.

16:46
Danny
Gotcha. You’re representing the system? And also representing the school and that sort of thing. Is it during the school day, this event? Most educators don’t get into education to work with other adults. And that’s sort of one of the dirty secrets about k twelve education. Many educators are great with kids and terrible with adults.

17:24
Loren
That’s an interesting.

17:26
Danny
I don’t know. Educators are weird in that sense. But my point is, if it wasn’t during school, one thing that you could do to set yourself apart is have kids there. And maybe they even somehow lead the interview process and I don’t know the rules around the event and that kind of thing. And of course the system has to be open minded as well. But if there’s some cool cafes, And my point was, you could do the interview anywhere else. Like, you can meet people there, but then you could set up stuff and do walking talks. You could go to a coffee shop. If you’re on a university campus. Many universities have beautiful quads, you know what I mean? They probably have some kind of art school. Like, what if you held stuff there? Just thinking outside of the box, like, okay, this is supposedly the boundaries of the event, but can we dream a little more creatively in terms of where it happens and that kind of thing. Again back to something you said that’s really important for the Ruckus Maker to hear. How do we differentiate? How do we show ourselves different? Because Ruckus Makers do school differently. Is there anything else before we go to, like how you’ve made changes, anything else like pre changes, you think is relevant that we should bring up?

19:56
Loren
I think pre changes just reach out to candidates, whether it’s in person like at an event like we just described, or whether you’re calling candidates, trying cold calling, looking at resumes or emails, which are more common now, or other kinds of messaging for candidates, whatever your method is. My approach before was just as I said, plain, and here’s my name. I’m the principal at this school. We have this many students. We’re a diverse school community, we’re a great, vibrant place to work. Are you interested in interviewing for this position or that position and that outreach was just basic like that? Introducing the school and that kind of thing.

20:54
Danny
I think that’s good for part, one in terms of, like, what stuff used to look like. I think actually we’ll take a break here for a message from our sponsors. When we come back, let’s talk about how you’ve made the changes and what those changes have resulted in.

21:14
Teachers love the support that IXL provides in the classroom, and Ruckus Makers love it as well, because IXL also gives school leaders meaningful insights into every level. Put your finger on the pulse of student performance via the IXL dashboard or drill down to see progress and growth for individual students. You can even customize reports to hone in on the information that matters most to you. IXL helps Ruckus Makers make data informed decisions that will benefit their student growth goals. Get started [email protected]/leaders. That’s ixl.com leaders. In post pandemic classrooms, student talk is crucial. And when classrooms come alive with conversation. Teachers and students both thrive.

22:07
Teach FX helps teachers make it happen. The Teach FX instructional coaching app provides insights into student talk, effective questions, and classroom conversation quality. Teach FX professional development complements the app and empowers teachers with best practices for generating meaningful students in this course. Teachers using Teach FX increase their student talk by an average of 40%. Imagine that, 40% more ownership over the class by students. Ruckus Makers can pilot Teach FX with their teachers. Visit teachfx.com/betterleaders to learn how. That’s teachfx.com/betterleaders.

22:53
When it comes to your school’s dining experience, it might feel like one more thing on your plate. And it is, which is why you need a collaborative partner who will proactively. Listen and respond to your individual cafeteria needs. When you bring on Quest food management services, you can expect support around school cafeteria facilities and equipment design, concept and station creation, menu and nutrition development, employee management, technology implementation, marketing, communications and day. Today guest food service and operations with Quest, you get it all. Learn more about Quest food management [email protected]. Or follow Quest food on social media. That’s questfms.com.

23:44
Danny
All right, and we’re back with Loren, somewhere on the east coast. Real deal principal. He’s a good dancer. And thank you again for being a member of the Mastermind for eight years, I think it is. And so we want to talk about some of the changes you’ve made and the results you’ve seen. To reflect back some things that I found interesting. You said in the earlier part of the conversation, I do want to hear more about you defining what the ideal candidate looks like in what you offer. You talked about wanting to be more bold as well. Where do you want to start?

We could start talking about what kind of candidate we’Re looking for and how we’ve kind of ramped up that part of what we do because we’re looking for candidates who are resilient as we started the show talking about all the challenges educators are facing.

24:42
Loren
That resilience is so important, and that’s part of it. Experience working in diverse communities with different cultures, backgrounds that can be really helpful and play into that resilience, as just the overall strength of a canned field to collaborate in a school community. And so one of the things we did really recently as a team is we adjusted some of the questions that were asking candidates based on what we realized we’re really looking for. And one of my favorite interview questions. That we ask now, I’ve got a couple of favorite ones, but my top favorite one is we asked Ken to describe a time they learned about a culture different from their own. What did they learn? And how have they used that knowledge? And it can be a personal experience, or it can be a professional experience. Or it can be a combination of the two, but it really helps us get to know the candidate. It gives them a chance to, if they’re ready for it, to be a little bit vulnerable, too. It also gives us a sense of where their passion may lie in terms of their reflective capacity and also their real dedication to the kind of work that we do. So that’s one question I really like. My second favorite question is actually to ask them what questions they have for us. We always make sure we do that in every interview, and that’s also kind. Of a more open part of the interview process where we get to just hear more what’s really top of mind for them.It also gives our teachers, who are part of the hiring process, a chance to share more about our campus and about our community. So that has a recruitment function. Too, which is really helpful. And then we also. I do like to use a question where I share an academic reading growth and achievement report, a sample for a class, and I like to visually show it to the candidate. I tell them right from the beginning. We’Re not expecting that you analyze all this information on the spot just to understand how you would use this kind of information. I walked them through it a little bit, the thought process. It’s a little bit unexpected. And that just kind of shows them how they are maybe with something they didn’t completely expect, but also shows them how we support them in a situation like that. And have that kind of rapport with them. Those are some of my favorite questions that align with the kind of candidates we’re seeking to have and also to set the tone for them to understand what kind of team they’d be joining.

27:41
Danny
I think it’s helpful to connect the questions you’re asking back to the kinds of candidates that you’re really interested in having join your school today. Another question you might ask, too, potentially is something around the idea, assuming you’re a good fit for our campus, what would help elevate our school to be your number one choice? Wonder how they might answer.
And if there’s anything within your control that you might not have covered during the interview that you could then highlight to sort of position your campus as number one. What is an ideal campus you’re trying to join? What does that look like? And if you get a generic answer, just keep drilling and pushing to give examples. And why those examples matter to them. Take it or leave it, I don’t care. But that’s something that came to mind. Let me ask you this from a different perspective on the same topic.

How do you communicate to candidates what an ideal candidate is? It’s okay if it’s in development, but go ahead.

29:00
Loren
One of the things that candidates sometimes ask us when they have a chance to ask us questions is what. What we’re looking for. That’s one way that we communicate now, but we don’t. I don’t think we have a built-in way to always communicate that. So that could be an area for us to develop.

29:23
Danny
I’m writing another book, of course. I love writing books and putting them out. That seems to be something I’ve been doing, and I don’t have a title in the middle. It kind of sucks. I need to make it better. But the premise is good and it’s about what we’re talking about. How do you attract ideal candidates? How do you interview them and then have confidence? You hire the right one. Then how do you onboard and mentor them and ultimately retain them? I don’t remember if I’ve released this in the automatic school. So automatic school for the Ruckus Maker listening. If you’ve heard me talk about the Ruckus Maker, Mastermind. Loren’s been a part of that. It’s our leadership community. The automatic school is kind of like the curriculum, so to speak, that we teach Mastermind members. And once a month I do video training and provide a tool. I don’t remember if I’ve shared this one yet or not. It’s actually also available on the website. But the tool is called the school leadership scorecard. And I also want to talk about the sustainable school leadership summit. This is a shameless plug for the Ruckus Maker listening to come to the Nashville event, which is July 12 -14th. And just check out the website for more information or email me. But one of the things we’re going to talk about is some of the content in this book and do an activity which is this. The school leadership scorecard, something you could download from my website. Essentially, it’s like seven characteristics of the best Ruckus Makers that I’ve worked with, like Loren. And then there’s a scale from one to twelve.

They’re divided into three and there’s four quadrants, so very rubric. And then there’s now and next area. A person can say, here’s where I currently am. Here’s where I want to be in 90 days. I suggest and assert that if your campus, now that you’ve defined your ideal candidate and the Ruckus Maker listening does this too, we’re going to do this in Nashville. What’s your ideal candidate? Create the rubric and send it to the candidate prior to the interview. Right. Now they’re going to know something a little bit more about your school and who succeeds at your school.

If you choose to follow this line of thinking, which I know will work, you have to over communicate. It’s not about scoring perfect on the scorecard. What we’re looking for is where you are and how you want to grow. And we want to have an intentional and real conversation about that because if a candidate comes in and despite your over communication, they’re all tens, eleven and twelve, they’re full of you know what and do you trust that person or want them on your campus? Now imagine a person comes in and says, well, maybe I’m a four or five in this area. Maybe I’m even one or two or whatever. And here’s where I want to be in 90 days. And here’s a bit of a plan of how I can get there that tells you a lot about the candidate. And now you can have a dialogue, too. Here’s how we will develop you to get to this level. My challenge to you, if you accept. This premise is a big idea. If you could turn your interview into an experience where the candidate leaves and says that felt more like professional development. Than an interview, that’s going to help you stand apart from other schools and in places where educators or whoever might feel invisible or not developed or the PD they do get is just like too little, too late, unhelpful, disconnected, they’re going to say, well, Loren, he sees me and he’s going to work on things that are important for my success. I kind of like that. I think I’ll go work with him. So reflect back to me, like, what you’re hearing in what seems helpful, or.
If you have any questions on what I just shared there. I really like this idea of turning the interview into an experience, especially a professional learning experience. Because I really think we always say that you don’t necessarily remember everything your teachers taught you, but you remember, hopefully you remember a lot. You don’t remember everything, but you remember how they made you feel. That’s one of those famous sayings, right. And your candidates as a candidate, they remember how they felt in that interview, in that experience. And if they generally felt the learning vibe from the team and they were going to learn and grow. That can only work in your favor.

34:38
Loren
I’m definitely intrigued by this. I’m starting to think about what that rubric would look like for us. I guess the one hesitation, not necessarily playing devil’s advocate, but just to think through, is, are you giving away, too? Do you have the answers? Are going to try and mold themselves, but that’s not really who they are. If you give them all that information upfront. But I don’t know.

35:03
Danny
In this kind of process, I think it’d be okay. If you have a real conversation, right and then you think of ways to test that, they actually exhibit this thing.
Just like your culture and what you learn from the culture experience, questions, brilliant. That one’s gonna be a bit hard to fade what I mean? But even if you create some kind of exercise around it as well, that’s that’s a way. That’s a way to test. Here’s what I do know every other school is not doing what I just shared with you. They’re not. And so therefore, the usual b’s and fake it till you make it. And I’ve learned how to interview well.
Doesn’T apply because they didn’t know. You know what I mean? Yes, you sent it ahead of time, but it’s still like, what is this? What am I getting into? It’s different. I’m still pretty confident it’s a good idea. It’ll work.

36:03
Loren
And the idea you shared might even.Kind of dovetail with something else that can happen in an interview experience. If you’re able to bring candidates to your school and you can have them do, like, a mini lesson with students. And you could even. . But you could have a feedback conversation with them. I’ve kind of always been a little bit of wanting to try this, but having fully tried it, where you have. An actual feedback conversation about the experience. That they had with the students that’s kind of substantial. Not to be critical, but how can they learn and grow just from that many experiences they had with students in the classroom in our school?

36:49
Danny
I hope you found value there. How else? I know your email that you sent out to candidates has changed.How you changed it and what the results have been so far?

37:08
Lorne
I’m really pumped about the changes we’ve made in the email pitch, for sure. I think it’s just because the language is exciting. And the language means something real. And before, again, just to go back. To what I said, it was plain before. There wasn’t anything wrong with it, but. It’S like, hi, I’m Loren Brody.I’m at this school. We’ve reviewed your application and we’re really Interested in you as a candidate. Which of these times are you available to meet with us? Kind of thing? And now it’s. And now it’s the email pitch is

Have you heard about our school? We are not your average public elementary school. We’re not business as usual. We’re an arts integrated learning team dedicated to grassroots community building across our diverse staff and families. We have this arts partnership. And I say you don’t need to be a musician or an artist to join our team, but you do need to have a passion for the craft of teaching and openness to collaboration and a desire to inspire the next generation. And then I go into when are you available? But I’ve actually had a couple of candidates get back to me already, enthusiastically right after getting this email and the tone of their response is different than any responses. I used to get plain, I sent out a plain email. I get plain responses. I’d be interested in interviewing for your school at this time. I’ve gotten a response, for example, that, wow, that’s exactly the kind of school that I’m looking for. I love the arts and I’d be really interested in getting to meet your team. And I didn’t get responses like that before. We’ll still see did the candidates come in? Do you hire them and that kind of thing? But even in just getting the responses, that’s different.

39:05
Danny
And even running my business, I know. , I send out emails and it’s like, do you get a response or not? The fact that people are engaging with you is something that’s great. So how did your thinking change when trying to craft this email? Because it is a bit different and you’re getting this response. But what were you trying to communicate?

39:27
Loren
I was trying to communicate what’s special about our school community, what’s at the core of our identity about our school. Is trying to communicate passion. I was trying to tap into the candidate’s passion for teaching and for education. If they see the passion that’s in the message that I send out.
I believe that they’ll want to connect with that if they have that passion, because it’s a calling, it’s not just a job and certainly, given all the challenges we’ve talked about that we face in education, like candidates, teachers, they want to be inspired. They need to be inspired. I wanted to show, share a snippet of my inspiration and our team’s inspiration and my outreach to potential candidates.

40:16
Danny
Cool. I think a big idea, hopefully, for a Ruckus Maker list and that you caught is like, how do you show you’re different? I say I’ll help Ruckus Makers do school different, which is about making shifts from old, traditional, and broken ways of educating to new, different, and creative ways. And this is exactly what Loren is demonstrating right here and seeing good results. But basically, you want to have the same sort of message as well. Like, if you’re not like every other Public school and not business as usual, you might even have some visuals around this, but even a few bullet points, business as usual looks like this, and if you want that. But here’s how we do it at our campus and then some bullet points there. Again, an opportunity where you could talk about your ideal candidate, too. You get straight up in that email, our ideal candidate is XYZ.

4Your school is different from others. You might even ask, hey, you’re shopping around for your teaching position. Do you know anybody else like you would be a great fit for us, right? And now you might build a bit of a pipeline too, of interesting candidates that would be a great fit for your campus for the Ruckus Maker listing. And for you, Loren, this work is important because even if the candidate says, actually, I’m looking for the business as usual school, I don’t want to work at your campus. If they’re in one of their teacher events or whatever, let’s say a party where people their age that are also educators like, and they meet somebody who would be interested. They’Re going to tell you, right? I know this for a fact because it works for me, because after I go through the old and the new sort of shift about Ruckus Makers, is school different? I say, there’s two kinds of principles. There are safe principles who maintain the status quo, Ruckus Makers who are visitors from the future, showing us how education will be. And then I look at somebody like Loren, and I say, and every leader needs to answer this question, would you rather be a play it safe principal or a Ruckus Maker? And what’s interesting, everybody uses the language. That’s when you know you’ve nailed it. They say, no, I’m not a Ruckus Maker.
Using the words. Or they say, yes, I’m a Ruckus Maker, sign me up.

43:09
So even for the people again that say, no, I’m not a Ruckus Maker, if they meet another Ruckus Maker, they say, oh, you gotta meet Danny. I’m not into his stuff, but you’re gonna love it. Do you see the connections here? Is that making sense?

43:23
Loren
Yeah, definitely. mean, like you said, when everyone’s starting to use the language, yes. Even if they’re not interested, then you’re spreading your message and you’re gonna find fits for your organization.

43:42
Danny
I know you operate within a bureaucracy.You go to the event, the interview event, as a system. You might not have this autonomy. But if you do, and if the Ruckus Maker listening does, I would even like job posting. Stop posting for teachers. Don’t say you’re looking for classroom teachers or 6th grade science or whatever. Like, what is your version of Ruckus Maker? Like, what is the. What’s the language? Because business as usual, they hire teachers at our campus. We hire. Ooh, fill in the blank. And are you. Are you a teacher that just distills knowledge and pours knowledge into people? Right. Or you. A boom that facilitates the co-creation of wisdom with a deep integration of parts, a respect for culture, blah, blah, blah. So are you a teacher? Do you see what I’m saying here?

44:40
LOren
It’s powerful stuff, and if you get it’s going to be a great filter, and a lot of people will choose not to join. You don’t want them anyways. But when you get the people that raise their hand, they’re going to be a great fit for your campus. My brain is spinning with the possible words that could replace teacher or compliment teacher. And then that’s something. Now you’re going to have to. You’ll have to retreat your. Your staff will have to do some unlearning here because they think they’re teachers. You’d be like, guys, I had a conversation with Danny. Good luck. Let me know how I could help.

Do you have any questions for me or anything like that? We didn’t cover today’s call. Cause it was half talking about the shift right, from old to new, and we wanted to do this as a gift to the listener of the show, but also, it was kind of a half coaching call, too. Is there anything else that we should cover before we go?

45:49
Loren
This is super helpful coaching. I appreciate it. I’ve got some great notes here to follow up on, for sure.

45:58
So we covered a lot. We covered some new questions, we might add, that really gets at what the candidates are looking for. This whole idea of, like, a rubric and an experience that the candidate has during the interview that’s really like a professional learning experience.

46:17
And this idea of kind of, like, rebranding what we’re doing to.

46:21
Really tap into the heart and the.

46:23
Inspiration of what we’re doing. So that’s really good pushes.

46:27
Those are really good pushes for me.

46:28
To work with my team to take. What were the adjustments we’re already making.

46:32
To the next level.

46:33
So.

46:33
Yeah, yeah, that’s the third evolution.

46:36
And if the Ruckus Maker listening could.

46:38
See Loren’s voice, he looks excited.

46:40
So I hope you can hear it in both of our voices.

46:43
But this is going to be good.

46:45
The only other feedback.

46:46
Can I give you just one more piece of feedback on the email, please?

46:49
So you write in big, blocky paragraphs, right?

46:54
And personally, I don’t like those.

46:57
And it’s up to you if you want to choose it or not. But, like, for a book, that would work, but online reading and emails and.

47:04
That kind of stuff, or social media.

47:06
Posts and blah, blah, blah. It works better if you have short.

47:11
Punchy sentences and, like, one to two.

47:14
Sentence paragraphs, max, right?

47:17
Because what you want to do, if you think of.

47:20
And you’re a musical guy, right?

47:22
If you think of your email as.

47:24
A music score, you want a tempo that’s fast, right? So that people can’t.

47:30
What do I do to get person. People reading to the next line. To the next line.

47:33
To the next line.

47:34
So short, punchy, one or two sentence paragraphs, bullet points.

47:39
You know, I mentioned, the bullets with, like, the bold and then the one sentence description, but that just, that.

47:44
Motivates people reading online to keep going.

47:47
And I bet that will increase the response rate even more as well.

47:51
I guess that’s the other aspect of.

47:54
Like, just visually, how do you know.

47:55
How you present information to grab people’s attention?

47:58
Oh, yeah, that’s right. Yeah, yeah. Well, that’s a visual thing.

48:01
And we didn’t even touch the flyer. I don’t know if you want to. Do you want me to talk about that at all or. No, it doesn’t matter to me.

48:09
Well, yeah, I would be interested. You know, we created a new flyer.

48:13
Recently as a recruitment flyer to have.

48:15
With us when we’re interviewing candidates at.

48:17
Our campus or going out to events.

48:20
And we it basically asks, why choose us? And then we list a bunch of our. The ways that we stand out as a school community and our partners.

48:31
And do you have any suggestions there?

48:33
Or ways to kind of think of how to. How to leverage the most of that kind of marketing, maybe so I like.

48:43
The idea of why choose us? You know, if you go down the.

48:46
Thread of, like, we’re not teachers, we’re whatever.

48:49
And so that could be communicated on a piece like this.

48:52
I love the pictures of kids and.

48:54
Staff, and I’m guessing that’s like.

48:56
Branded colors as well, so that all works.

48:59
And I love that you have the bullet points too.

49:03
So one opportunity might be just like, is there a way to quickly describe an idea?

49:13
So, for example, I’ll just do one bullet point. Our PTA provides mini grants for classroom projects.

49:20
And then, like, what’s the example? So mister Bauer got x amount of dollars to fund, blah, blah.

49:29
Right.

49:29
And that’s kind of like a case.

49:31
Study in a sentence so that, you.

49:34
Know, then you talk about a new teacher mentor program. That’s one way to stand out, too.

49:39
Because a lot of schools kind of.

49:42
Look over that or just kind of pair up a new teacher with a veteran who just wants to make more money but doesn’t really care about developing the teacher. But you know what I mean?

49:50
So that might be stuff.

49:52
But overall, I think it’s pretty good. If it’s at a booth, obviously, that’s printed out. If it’s something you’re sending via email, then you could hyperlink, like, our new.

50:02
Teacher mentor program could be hyperlinked to a longer document or video or something that actually describes sort of the high level what to expect in the mentor program. So those would just be some of the potential changes maybe to make. Yeah.

50:22
And maybe test out two. Maybe test out two visuals. So there’s.

50:25
There’s that one visual.

50:28
Number two is here’s how our campus we’re not business as usual and just, like, literally have a teach.

50:34
Art type of thing. Most schools do this. We do this.

50:38
Right. Right.

50:40
Just a compare, contrast.

50:41
Like, what are you looking for? You could even say that if you like this column, don’t apply. If you like this column, you’re gonna love working with us, right?

50:52
Yeah, I like that.

50:54
So that might be a fun one to create as well. All right, sweet. I think we’ve had a blast, haven’t we?

51:01
Yeah.

51:02
It’s been great learning for me and.

51:03
Fun to talk to you.

51:05
Yeah.

51:05
I don’t want to put words in.

51:06
Your mouth, but I’ve had fun. I know that.

51:08
Oh, yeah.

51:09
What do you think was the number one best thing from today’s call?

51:14
Number one is looking back through all these great notes that I took. I think it’s the rebranding, I think.

51:21
Because that kind of cuts across everything.

51:24
It cuts across how what.

51:27
Questions you choose to ask, what kind.

51:28
Of experience you provide the candidate when they’re with you know, that they’ll really remember you by, and then how.

51:38
You just use language to make. To differentiate what your school is about.

51:45
Yes. All right, cool.

51:47
Love when we get to have a chat thanks for your time today, Loren.

51:50
Yeah, my pleasure. Thanks Danny. This has been great.

51:55
Thanks for listening to the better leader of Better Schools podcast, Ruckus Maker. The how would you like to lead with confidence, swap exhaustion for energy, turn your critics into cheerleaders and so much more? The Ruckus Maker Mastermind is a world class leadership program designed for growth minded school leaders just like you. Go to betterleadersbetterschools.com Mastermind, learn more about our program and fill out the application. Be in touch within 48 hours to talk how we can help you be even more effective. And by the way, we have cohorts that are diverse and mixed up. We also have cohorts just for women in leadership and a BIPOC only cohort as well. When you’re ready to level up, go to betterleadersbetterschools.com Mastermind and fill out the application. Thanks again for listening to the show. Bye for now and go make a ruckus.