TalkingCV Teacher Technology

Mercer Shaw Matthews "It is a revolutionary way of communicating CV’s", says Peter Thomas Deputy Head of Uxbridge High School - "it certainly brings the written page to life." Recruiting suitably qualified teachers has become one of the biggest nightmares for a Head Teacher. To fill the shortage there are an increasing number of internationally qualified teachers looking to fill the recruitment gap in the UK. They are not able to have a face-to-face interview so a telephone interview is about the limit. Jane Mercer, MD of Mercer Shaw Matthews explains "Recruitment agencies have a shocking reputation for service and quality in this sector. We wanted to do things differently giving Head Teachers an amazing service. Specialising in the placement of International teachers who want to work in the UK we source candidates from many global locations like India & South Africa and needed an effective tool to gather & present candidate data. The result was TalkingCV. " Janet Cullen-Cornelius, Principal of Lea Valley High School has become an advocate of this method. She said, "Recruiting teaching staff from overseas has given us access to a wide choice of good experienced teachers. Using TalkingCV enables us to get a positive overview of potential candidates in an interview type situation which would be impossible from paper CV’s and telephone interviews. For us at Lea Valley it has proved to be the way forward." MSM first approached Janet at Lea Valley with a faxed CV of a Jamaican qualified Spanish teacher. Lea Valley phoned and expressed an interest so MSM sent them the TalkingCV link. Their immediate response was "I want her"! MSM arranged a phone interview for the following day which went immediately to offer and acceptance. The next placement was an Indian qualified maths teacher. The Candidate flew to the UK for one week MSM arranged 4 interviews. Lea Valley had booked to see her on the Friday and we constructed the TalkingCV on the Monday of that week. Upon sending the candidate’s profile to Lea Valley they phoned to say that such a good teacher was bound to get offers and she would offer on the basis of the TalkingCV. MSM insisted that the interview take place, but that we would advise the candidate not to accept any other offers until meeting with Lea Valley on Friday.

Lea Valley then went on to recruit Mark Maidens, a South African qualified teacher as head of their inclusion unit on the basis of TalkingCV and phone interview. Mid term, they recruited a Botswanan ICT teacher, again based on TalkingCV and a phone interview. In most cases, Janet’s mind has been 90% made up prior to the phone interview - which serves to re-affirm her impression of the teacher, gained through the TalkingCV process.