Ames Community School District

The Ames Community School District Hiring Process

The mission of the Ames Community Schools is to ensure that all learners develop the knowledge, skills, attitudes, values, and personal esteem necessary to grow in and shape a changing society. To meet this challenge, the human resources department needed a system in place that could effectively help locate qualified talent to help achieve their mission. They needed an online hiring solution to provide administrators with easy access to potential applicants, better record keeping and the ability to reduce the amount of upfront work.

The Challenges: We Wanted To Make a Paperless Office

Before implementing SchoolRecruiter, The Ames Community School District relied solely on paper applicants. Because they were not using an online Applicant Tracking and Hiring Management System, they had numerous piles of applications, many of them being stored in old milk crates. Often times, principals looking to fill a staff position would have to carry the milk creates home on the weekend, sort through up to 230 applications and hope other administrators didn’t need the files. Bottom line, with each application ranging from 40-50 sheets of paper, something had to be done to streamline the hiring process.

The Ames Community School District first tried creating a makeshift paperless management system. Not only was the system cumbersome, many of the administrators and staff were unable to spend the time needed to learn the system. After that, they brought in a consultant to help make sense of the daunting piles of paper. This too failed. That’s when Tim Taylor, Associate Superintendent for the Ames Community School District decided to look for another solution.

“We did extensive searches for a solution to help our human relations department to go paperless,” says Taylor.
It offered everything our district needed. Plus, the fact that SchoolRecruiter support would come out and instruct us on how to use it was the tipping point for us. I just remember thinking to myself, man this is slick.”

HSD also needed a better record keeping system. Principals and faculty found it challenging to know which applicants had already been interviewed and which applications were up-to-date. What was more, there wasn't a solid way to manage the new position posting and communicate with applicants. This created numerous hours on the phone for their human resource department, keeping them from interviewing and updating the administration
on which candidates were a good fit for the position opening.

Issues needing to be addressed:

• Applications were all paper, meaning multiple pages to review and track .
• No central location to post open positions within the district.
• No easy way to prescreen applications without juggling numerous paperwork.
• Spending hours trying to touch base with candidates.

The Solution: It’s a high-tech solution easy to implement

The Ames Community School District was in desperate need of an online solution allowing the district to reduce endless paper trails, while making the applicant review process. All these reasons led their implementation of SchoolRecruiter on March 14, 2008

“SchoolRecruiter is so user-friendly,” says Taylor. “People were worried about bringing in new technology. They are so surprised with how it’s changed things. We’re not having a bit of trouble with this system, it’s just that easy.”

SchoolRecruiter helped The Ames Community School District reduce the endless amounts of paper and streamline their hiring process. Taylor says SchoolRecruiter has changed the entire hiring process. No longer will the district accept paper applications and even their job opening ads say so. In addition, he believes that other schools looking for an easy solution are crazy if they don’t implement SchoolRecruiter.

“This system is just way too easy not to use,” says Taylor. If you don’t try it in your district, you’re a missing out. In fact, I have had other companies that offer similar products contact me. My line to them, I’m absolutely not interested in anything but SchoolRecruiter.”

The Results: Our Secretaries Are Smiling

Since implementing SchoolRecruiter The Ames Community School District has seen a dramatic decrease in the amount of paper used to generate just one application. What’s more, the district is also thrilled with the reduction
in time to fill a vacancy within their district.

“I have secretaries in my office constantly smiling,” says Taylor. The paper process was so labor intensive. Now we’re clearing out all of the paper in our office. The ease of operations for us has allowed us to quickly change our system for the better. I appreciate the way SchoolRecruiter set us up, worry-free and working without a hitch.”

With SchoolRecruiter, school districts like The Ames Community School District are able to provide their faculty with up-to-date job postings, applicant information and even an easy way to juggle multiple faculty members’ schedules when setting up applicant interviews. For districts looking for a quick, easy-to-use solution, Taylor has one thing
to say: “You’ve got to see SchoolRecruiter to believe it. It will change your life. So it’s time for you to join the tech age. We wanted a paperless system and we found it with SchoolRecruiter.”

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