The recruiting and hiring process is even more important during Covid because you cannot have applicants coming into the center throughout the day for interviews.
Recruiting
Maintain an ongoing recruiting process to ensure that you have viable candidates when it is time to hire a new employee. Recruiting is the key piece when it comes to hiring the right person. Have a virtual open house of the center where you highlight the classrooms and staff. If children are in the video, make sure you obtain parental permission prior to making the recording or record the classroom when it is empty. Ask a lead caregiver, assistant caregiver, current, and previous parent to volunteer to provide a testimonial about the center. This can be placed on the center’s website as a promotional for the center. The promotion will provide candidates with information about the center so that they can determine if the center is the right fit for them.
Interviewing
Phone Screening
Applicants can and should be prescreened through a phone interview before a face-to-face interview.
Complete interviews over video streams such as Zoom, TEAM’s, Facetime, or any other form of video streaming devices. If you normally complete a group interview, they can also be conducted with a video stream and the face-to-face could be conducted with just the program director.
If face-to-face interviews must be conducted, they should be scheduled after the center is closed to reduce contact with the children and other staff members. Limit the number of face-to-face interviews to your final two candidates with one interview a day to allow time to thoroughly clean and sanitize.
Face-to-Face Interview
Ask the candidate if they have had Covid or been exposed to anyone with Covid. Clean and sanitize all high contact areas, such as tables and chairs before and after each interview, wear a mask, do not shake hands, and conduct the interview in an area that allows for 6 feet apart.
Interview Questions:
- Have the candidate describe what a typical day in the classroom would look like as the lead/assistant caregiver and how they would manage their classroom. This could take the place of the classroom observation portion of the interview that would have been previously conducted.
- Have the candidate watch a video of a child care classroom, then critique the video, state what they would do differently or the same, and why. This will give you an idea of how they would interact with the children within the classroom. Whenever possible utilize multiple videos with various age groups.
- Provide the candidate with a blank diagram of two of your classrooms and have them submit a drawing of what the classroom would look like set-up for children. You can also provide the dimensions of the classrooms.
Questions 1-3 can all be submitted before the interview to help you to choose the best candidates to interview.
- What is their knowledge base of the precautions that have been required for children during Covid? Such as small group sizes, taking the children’s temperatures upon arrival and periodically throughout the day, and isolating children that are sick. Many states have suggested smaller class sizes and increased health and safety measures.
- How will you maintain social distancing while creating a developmentally appropriate classroom for children?
- What will social distancing look like within your classroom?
- What health and safety measures would you implement?
Each applicant may answer questions 1-4 differently. However, what you should be looking for are well thought out, practical answers that can be implemented.
Because at this point with Covid all caregivers have had time to think about the best ways to keep children safe and healthy at the center.
Covid may have changed the world but it has not changed the fact that you want to hire the best person for your center.
In my book Build Your Dream Teamhttps://www.gryphonhouse.co m/books/details/build-your-dream-team there are additional recruiting and hiring techniques.