School recruitment conversations almost always focus on teachers, and understandably so. However, that focus can create a blind spot.
Support staff now make up more than half of the school workforce, yet many schools continue to market these vacancies in much the same way as teaching roles. From the recruitment campaigns we support, that approach is becoming increasingly difficult to justify. The National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) continues to report growing challenges around recruiting teaching assistants and other support staff, while exit rates across these roles remain a concern.
The issue is not simply a shortage of candidates. More often, schools are trying to reach a very different audience using recruitment strategies designed for teachers. That is why support staff recruitment now needs a different approach.
Support staff do not behave like teaching candidates
One of the most common assumptions schools make is that support staff search for jobs in the same way as teachers. In reality, their behaviour is often very different.
Teachers are generally familiar with education recruitment websites and sector-specific job boards. Support staff are much more likely to discover opportunities through Facebook, local community groups, recommendations or broader online job searches. Many are not actively monitoring school vacancies because they may already be working in retail, healthcare, administration or another sector entirely.
This changes the role marketing needs to play. Instead of waiting for candidates to find a vacancy, schools increasingly need to place opportunities in front of people who may not yet be actively looking.
Many job adverts describe the role, but forget to sell it
Review enough support staff vacancies and a pattern quickly begins to emerge.
Many adverts explain responsibilities, working hours and person specifications in detail, but say very little about why somebody should choose that school over another employer. For candidates comparing opportunities across different sectors, that information matters.
The strongest campaigns answer questions that are rarely included in a traditional job description. What does the team culture feel like? How will the successful candidate make a difference? What opportunities exist to develop new skills? Why do current members of staff choose to stay?
These are often the questions that influence whether someone decides to submit an application in the first place.
Facebook has become an important recruitment channel
Many schools still view Facebook as a platform for communicating with parents. Increasingly, it is also proving to be an effective recruitment channel.
Targeted campaigns allow vacancies to reach local audiences based on location, interests and demographics, helping schools engage people who may never visit an education job board. This approach is particularly valuable for support staff roles, where candidates often live within commuting distance and are more likely to respond to opportunities that appear naturally within their social feeds.
Alongside vacancy promotion, schools can also use social media to showcase working culture, celebrate existing staff and demonstrate what day-to-day life looks like. By the time a vacancy appears, potential applicants already have a sense of the organisation behind it.
Specialist job boards still have an important role
None of this means schools should abandon specialist recruitment websites.
Candidates who are actively looking for school-based roles continue to use established education job boards, particularly those with previous experience in the sector.
The strongest recruitment campaigns rarely rely on a single platform. Instead, they combine specialist listings with targeted social media advertising, allowing schools to reach both active jobseekers and those who may not have considered working in education until the opportunity appeared.
Employer branding should include support staff too
Employer branding often centres on attracting teachers, yet support staff evaluate employers in remarkably similar ways.
Salary remains important, but candidates also want to understand whether they will feel supported, whether the school values professional development and whether the working environment matches what they are looking for.
Schools that communicate these messages consistently across careers pages, recruitment campaigns and social media often create stronger engagement because candidates gain confidence before they begin an application.
Support staff want to feel part of the wider school community, not simply recruited to fill a vacancy.
Recruitment campaigns work better when they are segmented
One of the biggest opportunities schools have is to stop treating every vacancy in the same way.
The messaging that attracts an experienced teacher is unlikely to resonate with somebody applying for an administration, estates, finance or teaching assistant role. Each audience has different motivations, different priorities and often different online behaviours.
Effective support staff recruitment relies on messaging, imagery, advertising platforms and audience targeting that reflect the people schools are actually trying to reach. Rather than creating one campaign for every vacancy, schools are far more likely to see stronger results by tailoring activity to each audience.
Final thoughts
Support staff recruitment is becoming increasingly competitive, but that does not mean schools have exhausted their options.
Across the campaigns we review, the schools achieving the strongest results are rarely those with the largest advertising budgets. More often, they are the schools that understand who they are trying to reach, communicate the role more effectively and use the right combination of channels to put opportunities in front of the right people.
As competition for support staff recruitment continues to grow, recruitment marketing will need to become more targeted, more audience-led and less reliant on traditional vacancy advertising alone.
If you would like to strengthen your support staff recruitment through targeted social media campaigns, clearer role marketing, segmented job advertising and local audience targeting, get in touch to discuss how we can help.
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