Värbamine ja valik sihtasutuses Noored Kooli

The topic of my thesis is “Recruitment and Selection in SA Noored Kooli”. The aim of my thesis is to analyze the recruitment and selection strategies, messages and reception by candidates in SA Noored Kooli. As an important part of the message, I pay special attention to the “Ideal Candidate Profile” as seen by both experts of the organization and by candidates themselves. SA Noored Kooli was founded in Estonia in 2006, following the example of a similar organization in USA – Teach For America founded sixteen years earlier. The mission of the organization is to decrease educational limitations so that each child could get excellent education. The programme aims to recruit the most successful recent college graduates that show significant leadership abilities. The corps members teach in schools for two years. Meanwhile the program offers them leadership- and teacher-training to further increase their impact to the educational field. Similar programs have been founded all over the world. For Noored Kooli the quality and motivation of corps members is the most important factor of success, meaning recruitment is one of the most important processes in the organization. The theoretical frame of the thesis is built on theorists’ work including Luhmann, Habermas, Parsons and Lasswell. In my thesis I give an overview of their views on concepts like system, communication and education as my work is mainly concerned with recruitment as an communicative process within the educational field. Additionally, I place the organization Noored Kooli within the framework of social marketing as seen by Lefebvre, Andreasen and Smith. In the empirical part of the work I give a brief overview of the main recruitment theories and the basis of recruitment in Noored Kooli as well as Teach For America. Both the education and the programme Noored Kooli can be seen as systems. Luhmann (2009) finds that a system is defined by communications that include or exclude elements to the specific system, therefore opposing itself to the environment. The aim of communication according to Luhmann (2009) is to result in a desired change in receiver. Bourdieu (2003) describes terms like “field” and “habitus”, that help us better understand how and why an individual acts as it does. The communication model and functions described by Lasswell’s (2007) views are a good addition to the works of Luhmann and Bourdieu. Lasswell believes that in addition to monitoring the environment, the main functions of communication is creating the correlation of the parts of society in responding to the environment and transmission of social heritage from one generation to another. Luhmann (2009) sees education as an intended and systematic process with results that are difficult to prognose in the long timeframe. Bourdieu (2003) describes it as a way of regenerating the current social pattern, meaning that through education the hierarchy of society is formed. Similarly, Lasswell (2007) sees school as a place to spread the myths and ideas of society. Luhmann (2009) finds that most educational problems are actually problems of communication. The communication of SA Noored Kooli can be seen as social marketing. Noored Kooli uses tools normally used in marketing to convince people to apply to become a corps member. Teacher’s profession in Estonia is not very prestigious among youth, meaning that the values and views have to be changed in order to evoke desired action. The subject of social marketing regarding the project Noored Kooli is teacher’s profession and other education-related positions. Lefebvre’s (via Schwartz 2010), Andreasen’s (1997) and Smith’s (1997) approaches to social marketing are to some extent different: Andreasen and Smith see social marketing and its goals above all at the level of individual, while Lefebvre emphasizes long-term changes in the values of social groups. Andreasen and Smith have emphasized that the aim of social marketing is a change in behavior after which the target group starts acting in the “right” way. Lefebvre describes the change of action as a process and the journey to it more important than the change itself. In my thesis I rely on the named theories and describe social marketing as an action with a goal to change the group’s values so that they would act in a desired and socially useful way, offering them different benefits in return. Classical marketing principles are being used and different leadership processes modelled. In the center of current thesis is the recruitment communication of SA Noored Kooli. Barber (1998:5) has defined recruitment as organization’s practices and actions with the main aim to identify and create interest in potential workers. Similar definitions have been used by Harris & Lasson (2003) and Rynes (1991, via Barber 1998). The process of recruitment can be divided into four stages (Breaugh and Strake 2000): firstly, the purpose of recruitment needs to be set, then a strategy has to be elaborated, recruitment and the selection of the best candidates has to be done and lastly, the results of recruitment need to be analyzed. The process is influenced by different factors such as candidate’s attention and understanding, importance of the message and its suitability to the candidate, general attractiveness of the organization, offered benefits, the realistic perception, knowledge, skills, abilities and needs of the candidate. Thus, the process can be analyzed by both the viewpoint of organization and the recruited- in my work I have done both. To analyze the comprehension of the candidates I carried out two semi-structured interviews with 18 people who had gone through the first application round. The first interview took place before the selection workshop where candidates needed to present a 7 minutes long sample lesson and participate in a group work and a self-analyzing interview. The second interview was conducted not later than 3 days after participating in the selection workshop. The aim of interviewing a person twice was to observe if the sense and motivation during the selection changes or not. The participants were chosen by the principles of constructing a strategic sampling: all candidates had the homogenous feature of applying for the programme Noored Kooli and the heterogeneous feature, e.g. sex (14 female, 4 male), field of study and university, subject to be taught through the programme. To analyze the recruitment from the perspective of organization, I conducted a double-interview with the head of recruitment- and communication and the head of selection- and alumnus-programme. In the analysis I used comparisons with Teach For America and Teach First programmes and the information found in public communication materials of the project Noored Kooli. While analyzing the interviews, it occurred that SA Noored Kooli wants to introduce two main ideas to the candidates. Firstly, candidates should see an opportunity of personal development and secondly, the chance to contribute to society and education. The candidates’ descriptions of motivation showed similar goals. They were interested in the training programme, internationality, possibility to improve the situation of educational system and chance to experience working as a teacher during a specific period without having a corresponding education. Many candidates had been motivated by their friends who had already participated in the programme and described it as challenging but also giving good experience and satisfaction. The candidates described the programme as the most preferable of all available job offers. Personal contacts (including the participation in the programme’s informational gathering) were considered to be the most important channel for gaining useful information. During the recruitment process candidates were motivated by the contacts with participants and crew members of the programme. Some candidates were therefore motivated by participating in the selection workshop. However, others admitted that during the long selection their eagerness decreased. The experts of school pointed out that their analysis have shown that personal communication is the most effective way to find good candidates. Noored Kooli experts say the most important channels of forwarding information are linked to university. Information about the programme is shared through student organizations, social media channels, e-mail lists and student publications. The recommendation for possible participants is also asked from lecturers. Candidates gained information from the programme’s website, participants’ blogs and Facebook page. A number of candidates had heard of the programme from media or noticed the flyers in the university. In many cases, the candidates admitted to have thought of participating in previous years, but not having met the criteria and therefore needed to wait. A good candidate is expected to have good academic results, be socially active or have a leadership experience and the wish to contribute to the educational field. In the process of election, candidates’ suitability with the programme’s competence model is valued as well. The important competences are orientation to achievement, effective scheduling, endurance of stress, ability to work in a team, ability to motivate and influence others, and logical thinking. The candidates need to share the main values of the organization, i.e. caring, hope in the possible changes, constant learning and the courage to take responsibility. Candidates’ view of the ideal candidate profile was similar to the one described by experts. They similarly pointed out good academic results, social activeness, communication- and teamwork skills. During the election candidates understood the importance of coping with stress, flexibility and effective planning. When describing themselves, the candidates pointed out the same characteristics that were expected from a good candidate and considered themselves well applicable. Most of the candidates felt the same after participating in the selection workshop and only few of them thought that they might not be suitable for the programme, since the selection workshop did not go as well as hoped. The experts told that the objective of recruitment period was to find 25 participants for the programme.172 applications were hoped to be received in the first round. Actually, the number of applications was smaller and 23 participants were found. To find suitable people, the places where youth with excellent academic, professional or social activity were most likely to be found, were seeked. Then they are given information about the programme and convinced to apply for the programme. At the same time, they are evaluated to see if they have the characteristics of a suitable participant. In the first round, the candidates need to submit a written application, in the next round selection workshops consisting of a short sample lesson, group-work and feedback interview takes place. After the selection workshop, youth will pass the professional personality test (OPQ test) and a test of specialized knowledge, if needed. All parts of the selection process have the function of helping to ascertain the characteristics of a good candidate as described before. The subject field of recruitment communication undoubtedly offers many opportunities for the researchers to analyze the practice of finding new employees for different organizations. In my thesis, I analyze the recruitment communication of SA Noored Kooli by a quantitative model, examining above all the organization’s recruitment and selection strategy and possible comprehension of potential participants about the organization and recruitment process. Studying recruitment communication offers very different research issues. For example, it is possible to examine one stage of recruitment, to analyze quantitatively the connections of recruitment process and the results of it, etc. The subject field and also the activity of SA Noored Kooli surely deserves more thorough examination in the future.http://tartu.ester.ee/record=b2612122~S1*es