Setting Up Your Hiring Process

As a studio owner one of the tasks that will eventually fall upon your shoulders will be the interviewing and hiring of new teachers and staff. If you have never done this before it may seem like a scary task. Where do you look for candidates? What do I ask them? How will I know if I have the right person? Below is a list of tasks and links to resources that we use at our studio. If you have any more tips, please add them to our comment section or visit our Facebook Group and join the conversation.

1: What are you looking for?

The first question to ask yourself is “What are you looking for?” Are you looking for a part-time instructor? A full-time instructor? A front desk manager? This may seem like an obvious question to ask, but it will help us decide where we go from here.

2: Put out an ad letting people know you are hiring

My wife is in charge of our hiring process and as such she typically types out the job descriptions, pay rate, positions available, and rolls it all into one neat ad. It’s my job to take it from there and blast it online and work our network for contacts that may be able to help. Typically I post to the following websites. They are not in any particular order.

1. Craigslist.com: Good old CL. Costs $70 to post a job listing. Like all job sites we have had good luck and bad luck with CL, but you can’t deny how many people visit their website every day. It’s a good way to get eyes on your ad.
2. DanceTeacherFinder.com: This website has some amazing potential, I just don’t feel enough people use it at the moment, but I have been beating the drum for it for a while. Teachers can upload their resumes for free. Owners can post job openings and browse resumes for $19.99/mo. They also have discounts if paid yearly. You can search by area and style of dance teachers are trained in. I am secretly hoping this website really blows up in popularity.
3. Namafit.com: This website is for more than just dance instructors. It also has yoga, pilates, and fitness resumes. We have found a couple of great teachers through this website over the years. The best part…it’s FREE! When you post a job opening all matching candidates in their database receive a notification email. The job gets posted to their listings and you can see recommended candidates in your area quickly. They do offer a pay version. For $9 your post can be highlighted and more prominent in the listings. And for $49 they will post your job to other websites as well.
4. Indeed.com: Being from the Bay Area we are familiar with indeed.com and had always thought of it as a place for more traditional jobs or tech type positions. To my surprise however we got quite a few qualified candidates through their system. Again, it’s FREE! You can pay for more exposure. The best part is you can setup 5 questions to ask each candidate that is interested before you even have to contact the individual. It helps weed out some people right off the bat. For example, we require background checks for all teachers. I had one candidate say they were not willing to take a background check, so I just deleted them from my matches. Indeed also posts to hundreds of affiliated job boards for you.
5. Your social media circle: We live close to San Francisco, which as I am sure you know is a major dance hub. Not as big as NY or LA, but it’s up there. So there are a lot of dancers and dance instructors in the area. There are also a lot of NEW dancers that come and go every year into the area. I have made a point to friend as many dancers as possible on my personal Facebook account. Even if I don’t personally know them. It allows me to share our job openings and immediately get it out into our local dance community. Even if the people I am friends with aren’t interested, some they know might be.
6. Local colleges: Check with your local colleges. They typically have a job board available to the community. I have also gone as far as contacting the head of the college dance or theatre dept. Their emails are made public on the school website. I introduce myself, let them know about our studio, and as if they wouldn’t mind passing along a PDF to their class about our job openings.

3: Filter your candidates

Once you start receiving resumes you will want to look over each one to filter out unqualified candidates. Every studio will have it’s own qualifications. We have guidelines but we don’t mind breaking them when we feel a candidate is a good fit regardless of background. The requirements may also vary depending on the opening itself. If we are looking for a new hip hop instructor, their requirements won’t match an opening for a preschool dance teacher. Our guidelines include having a dance degree, having multiple years of teaching experience, and experience teaching multiple age groups. We also require a DOJ/FBI background check. A TB test is required if we are sending them to preschools (we also teach off-site classes). And in some cases we require ECE units, a child development background, or even a psychology degree. Why we require those things are the topic of another post, but I wanted to share the scope of what we cover.

4: Setup Interviews

We typically have interviews in bunches. When possible we do them in the same day/week. That way we can look over everyone and compare while we still have them fresh in our memory. Also, if you interview someone and let weeks go by it’s likely they will have found another job. So we recommend wrapping up interviews in a day or two and making your decision.

Pro Tip: I got this advice from business associates in other fields and I think it’s great advice. You should have at least one interview lined up every month or every other month. Even if you are not immediately hiring. You never know when an emergency may occur. A teacher may abruptly resign, get injured, or any other number of life emergencies may come up. When that happens it’s nice to have a recent interview to be able to reach out to and potentially fill your staffing needs quickly.

5: Have your questions ready!

To save some time I have added a free download of our interview sheet. Scroll to the bottom of this page to download. Another useful thing to have ready is an availability form. Also available to download below. We send this form out BEFORE each interview and ask the candidate to complete it and email it back before arriving. This does two things. One, it will save you time. The candidate won’t have to do it in person during the interview and it gives you time to process their availability and your options before they arrive. Two, you have given them their first task to complete. If they forget to do it, or just miss it in the email you know they didn’t read your email carefully. Which is a red flag. If that candidate then shows up late for the interview that’s two strikes in our book, and we will likely pass.

On the tardy note, we have cancelled interviews when candidates show up late. We simply tell them “Thank you for coming, but we will likely need a full 30 minutes for the interview. I have another meeting/interview setup right after yours and since you were 10 minutes late we will not have time to fit in your interview. Thank you.” And that is typically the last we deal with them. If you can’t make it on time to your interview…we don’t want you. That’s just our take though.

6: Look over candidates and send them an offer

Once our interviews are complete and you have selected your candidate, it’s time to put together a proposal. Time is of the essence at this point. A good candidate likely setup other interviews as well. You don’t want another studio to swoop up their available hours. This is where you would include a pay-rate based on their experience and qualifications. If your studio offers benefits it would like be included in this proposal. If a candidate accepts then we move forward with a meeting to setup their employee file. If you have made a good offer, hopefully you have landed your preferred teacher.

7: Creating an employee file and background checks

This occurs after your candidate has accepted your offer for employment.

Here is a list of things we include in their employee file.

• Application for employment.
• W-4 Form
• Copy of Social Security Card and a form of ID (License or passport)
• Background check with DOJ/FBI
• Negative TB Test (if required)
• College Transcripts to confirm ECE units (if required)
• Direct Deposit Slip (if offered)
• Benefit forms (if offered)
• Signed form saying they have read your employee handbook (if needed)

After this we move forward with the plan to start classes. Every studio will do this differently. It may also depend on if the candidate is coming in for a new class or taking over an existing class. In the case where a new hire is taking over an existing class, we prefer to overlap the new teacher with the teacher they are replacing for a few weeks. The first week they observe the class. The second class they team teach the class, taking turns on certain sections of class. The last week the new teacher takes over. This allows the dancers to get used to the new teacher. It also allows the current teacher to pass along any notes about the class. Transitions can be tricky without a plan.

CONCLUSION

With all our steps complete, we now have a qualified candidate in our classes, and hopefully one that will last a while! At our studio we have a few very long term teachers who are our core group. And we have a supporting cast of teachers that rotate every couple of years as their career or life goals evolve and change. If this is the same for most schools, you will be hiring a lot of people over the years. We hope the information above helps guide you through the hiring process. If you have any questions feel free to comment below . Have more great places to find candidates? Share it with us!