Transformative Principal

Molly McGowan Gorsuch of Rhodes Branding shows principals how journey modeling improves teacher recruitment, from job descriptions to automated new hire emails.

Show Notes

Molly McGowan Gorsuch, Director of Client Engagement at Rhodes Branding, explains journey modeling: a way to map every point where a possible teacher meets your school before and during hiring. Used well, it makes teacher recruitment feel personal, shows you where candidates hit friction, and helps you keep good people from accepting another offer.

Jethro Jones shares the new hire on-ramp emails he and his assistant principal built in Kodiak, Alaska. New hires got ten weekly emails about living and working on the island, starting in May, and the team only had to enter each email address once. Gorsuch adds a district that lost teachers during months of silence after applications.

What you'll learn

  • Map each point where a candidate meets your school, then mark the friction points you can turn into touch points.
  • Hold focus groups with staff and families, including the people who never show up at PTA, before you try to change your school's reputation.
  • Write job descriptions with clear, job-specific expectations, and credit the training and skills a candidate brings.
  • Tell applicants what happens after they submit and who they will hear from, so a faster district does not win them.
  • Set up automated weekly emails for new hires and start them when school lets out, not the day you hire.

Chapters

  • 0:00 What journey modeling means for teacher recruitment
  • 3:17 Treat job candidates as people, not cogs
  • 5:55 Turn friction points into touch points
  • 8:26 Change a district's reputation by asking people
  • 14:18 Write job descriptions that set clear expectations
  • 17:36 Make candidates feel wanted during hiring
  • 24:47 Automated on-ramp emails for new hires
  • 29:04 The parts of a journey model

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Questions this episode answers

What is journey modeling in K-12 hiring?
Gorsuch calls it an activity that maps the points where a possible employee meets your district: what they know before they apply, who they talk to and where they look for information. It shows where your messaging needs a tweak and where a friction point can become a touch point.

How can a principal keep new hires engaged between the offer and the first day?
Jones and his assistant principal in Kodiak, Alaska, put each new hire into a free MailChimp account that sent one email a week for ten weeks about living and working on the island. They started the emails in May, not at hire. Hires did not read every email; the point was keeping communication open.

How do you change a bad district reputation with little district support?
Gorsuch says do not assume what people are saying; go ask. Hold focus groups with staff and families, including those who skip PTA meetings, and hear from bus drivers, custodians and students. Then build the school's story with them instead of handing out a canned script.

About Molly McGowan Gorsuch

Director of Client Engagement at Rhodes Branding, the liaison between education leaders and the firm's K-12 services.

Links and resources

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Host
Jethro Jones

What is Transformative Principal?

Jethro Jones interviews instructional leaders from around the nation to learn and teach what it takes to become a transformative principal. Episodes address topics like Response to Intervention (RTI), Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS), Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS), the latest advances in educational research, standards-based grading, and interviews with industry leaders like Bill Daggett, Rick Wormeli, Todd Whitaker and even people outside the education like Seth Godin, JeVon McCormick, Liz Wiseman, and more.

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Welcome to Transformative Principle, where I help you stop putting out fires and start leading. I'm your host, Jethro Jones. You can follow me on Twitter at Jethro Jones.

Molly, so tell us what journey modeling is and what we should understand about that as it relates to the K-12 education space. So journey modeling is an activity. It's actually an opportunity for you to take a look at your constituents or your stakeholders' positions and their thought processes that go into making the decisions that you ultimately want them to make or like the conversions you're looking for, right?

So if in enrollment or recruitment, you're looking at, let's say recruitment specifically, you're looking for someone to choose you as the districts to work at. Journey modeling allows you to look at their touch points with you as a district from hiring and even before that, before they even think about hiring with you, what they know about your district, and then also where they're going to find more information, who they're talking to, and really defining those touch points along that individual's journey to see where you can enhance them or where there maybe needs to be messaging that needs to be tweaked to drive that information that you're trying to bring to that person to make those decisions that ultimately gets them onto your team.

Okay. So we're going, we can talk about a lot of different things around journey modeling, right? And so today we're going to specifically focus on talent and getting people to come and work for you. So we could talk about getting kids to enroll in your school. We could talk about getting businesses to work with you and all kinds of different things that we could do about this, but we're going to focus on the talent piece because that is an interesting and unique thing that I'm opinionated about.

And I think you're opinionated about. So I think this will be, this will be good for us to discuss. So when you, you talked about touch points and, and, and we all know that there's a certain, there's a certain thing like this is what a teacher does and this is what a custodian does. And sometimes they're just a cog in a machine and we just need a body to fill that role.

And unfortunately that is how a lot of schools approach this issue. What's wrong with that kind of thinking to start out with? Well, to start out with that way of thinking doesn't value them as an individual or as someone who brings true value to your company, which ultimately I don't think any company really wants to think about their, their, their staff and their employee family like that, or should they really?

So what we like to say is like, where are you bringing value to your employee? And it also, also where are they going to bring value to you? So when you're talking about those job descriptions, it's not just a cog in the machine. It's, it's what, what elements or what skill sets are you looking for in that individual that is going to provide value to you, right?

But then also what are those benefits that your employee value proposition that are going to provide value to that individual that'll make them want to not only seek you out, but stay.

And I mean, this is, we would all love to be standing at our doors saying, I choose this person from a whole group of people. And the reality is that we're facing a teacher shortage, which means that the imperative to be, to be human first and to welcome people in an effective way is all the more imperative now than it ever has been before. So you talked a little bit about job descriptions and I want to save that conversation for a little bit later, but let's talk about other things before that, before somebody even gets to that point.

Cause there are these other touch points of opportunities to interact and do things. What is, what does that look like? And what kinds of things should we be thinking about before we even get to a job description point? Well, you're, you're talking a little bit too, about the relational aspect essentially of, of onboarding and bringing someone into the fold as your company. Well, the best fortune 500 companies do it.

And everyone outside of K-12 sector seems to, to, to really be grasping the idea that you are wanting to appeal to the individual and you're also wanting to create a customer experience. So maybe it's weird for you to think of, of, of, of these applicants as customers, but in a way they are, they are your customers of your district because you are wanting them to do a thing and you want them to do the thing that ultimately means you're going to hire them.

So before, before even in thinking about the, the touch point, that is the job description, you're thinking about the ways that your brand is getting out in front of them. And, and those touch points, such as where are they seeing you? Are they seeing you on social media? Are they hearing about you through word of mouth? What, what are they hearing? Are those messages being conveyed in the way that you would want them to be?

And sometimes there you can find some opportunities for, for supporting staff, right? Like maybe you've identified one of the touch points along the journey being a individual hearing about a perspective or upcoming opportunity to teach, but they may be hearing some, some not so good things from one staff member and some great things from another, but an opportunity that you as a district may have to streamline that messaging then and identify like, what is a friction point and turn it into a touch point may be pretty simple, right?

And just saying, here's some things about our district that we would love for you to share with any interested candidates or friends that might be interested in joining our district. And from there, obviously here, your, your, your staff can do with that information what they will, but if you've created a culture of, of two-way communication and really just truly embodying your district culture, they're going to share the good news.

And so that's, that's one touch point example, right? And then other touch points along that journey are some, some, some districts are more proactive in advertising and that can look a lot of different ways. One, one thing that we see a lot of area for improvement is LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a huge, a huge area for most industries to, to advertise and recruit. But I think there's a lot of growth potential there in K-12, especially, especially as, as more and more education leaders are, are gravitating towards that area as well.

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Visit IXL.com slash B for a demo. That's IXL.com slash B E. Going back to what you said about people hearing about your district, like this really goes back to establishing and creating a culture from the very beginning. And the challenge that a lot of people face is that they were not part of that culture being created before, but they are certainly part of that culture being created right now.

And so even if it wasn't like that in the past, it wasn't how you think it should be, it now is, and you need to be prepared and ready to manage and deal with it appropriately at the stage that you're at. And so I think my question really comes down to, what advice would you have for someone who's like, man, our district has a bad reputation, like these things haven't been great before.

How do I, as a principal here in this, how do I start changing that narrative with very little support from the district, which is most likely because if you had support from the district, you probably wouldn't have that same culture, just saying. So what would be your advice to how to start changing some of those narratives around what the district is like? Well, first and foremost, you always want to actually engage with your constituents.

So I think my first recommendation would definitely be, don't assume what people are saying, go out and ask. If you're the principal, have those focus groups with your staff and your families, and not just the ones who are already super engaged at PTA meetings and the ones who are showing up. It's the ones who aren't showing up, whose voices may be heard elsewhere, but you're not hearing.

So you want to make sure that you're getting a good representative of your student and your school community. And at a bigger scale, if a district is doing that, they're going to want to be taking in account from, obviously, everyone always wants to hear from the educators. But like you said, there's so many other district personnel. There's the bus drivers. There's the custodians. They are huge players in what makes the district work, and their experiences matter.

And they have so many touch points and experiences as brand ambassadors with the outside world that their involvement is critical as well in shaping culture and also making sure that you're reflecting what you want to reflect. So students as well, never forget the students, their voices are timely as well, because generationally, we all change so much and knowing what they're going to be saying and to their peers and saying how they're perceiving things are going to be different than the way that a 35, 45, 55 year old is going to perceive things.

So having all of those people as part of your stakeholder feedback, and then from there, collaboratively developing strategy to start making things sound the way that you know they should based on the culture within your school. Yeah, it's so important to do that collaboratively as well and to be able to give people a voice in something that they typically don't have a voice in. So going back to what you said before about the opportunity for people to say, this is what's going on at our school.

This is what we believe. This is what matters. And giving people this quote unquote script to say, this is what we want you to tell people, having those stakeholder groups come up with that together so that they can then share something that is not a canned script, but rather something that they really believe is way more valuable than you trying to control that from your office and making sure that everybody's saying the right thing.

People are going to see through that in a heartbeat, right? Absolutely. Please do not hear me saying you should give them this script. And this is it should be coming from, it should be data informed, it should be informed by your stakeholders. Absolutely. Yeah, because if what you're saying is not actually resonating with that with the people and they're like, that's not actually what goes on at that school, then that's going to be that's going to be a backfire, it's going to be completely opposite of what you want.

So yeah, you're right, getting their, their input and their perspective is, is vital. Plus it creates buy-in, they're going to, they're going to know that they're being listened to and then they can say, hey, you know what, I had this really great conversation with my teacher, my kids principal, we've been talking about XYZ. And as they share that information within their community, that also serves the purpose of building that culture and helping you change that narrative.

Yeah, and if you take the time to meet with people, have these conversations, get their feedback, have them create storylines about your school that they can then take out to others. You're going to see the buy-in increase, you're going to see them say, hey, there's that thing that I was on the committee that we said this needs to happen and I see it actually happening now. That's, that's incredibly powerful and very encouraging for someone.

It's interesting, I think about my own students, my own kids' school and during the last couple years, I have really felt like they do not want anything to do with me. They don't want to hear from me, they don't want to engage with me, the process to get into the school is just a nightmare and it feels gross and icky and I feel like I'm unwanted there.

And this is really weird for me, coming from being a school employee to not being a school employee anymore, and basically being able to walk into any school and be, feel comfortable and welcome there before, and now not having any of those relationships, not knowing any of the teachers or anything like that. And, and what I'm feeling now is this different feeling from the schools that they are more interested because they know who I am or they've had, they had my kids last year and so they have this better relationship, but that that's gone on inside my own head.

But it's also been perpetuated by some of the practices and policies that they have in place and, and feeling like they want to hear from me and want to be involved is, is a powerful thing. But those things carry over into the employee perspective as well and so you know if I wanted to go get a job at one of my, the schools in my area, I would, I would take that experience into consideration that's that's what we've been talking about here.

So let's, let's jump to the next piece and there's, there are a lot of different things that we're going to talk about we're just going to highlight on a couple here so we want to talk about job descriptions because I think that this is really important. So many times we think a teacher is a teacher is a teacher and the reality is that we often need very specific skill sets, abilities, dispositions, attitudes, cultural beliefs, all that kind of stuff.

We need different things for, for our particular schools. Talk to us about how to write effective job descriptions that are more than just come be a third grade teacher. Well, again, I think you're right we have seen so many job descriptions that are kind of copy paste from the old school like must be able to pick up 35 pounds or I don't even know what the weight limit is.

But you know, very interesting, weird things that if you were coming from a completely different sector, or maybe a completely different country and reading this is like, what does that have to do with teaching in a classroom. So I think, ultimately, and we've been doing a lot of research on on what what key drivers are for certain generations, and a lot of them coming into the workforce right now, they want that clarity, and they want expectations set.

I know I'm a millennial, and that is something that I can definitely attest to I thrive better when I know what my expectations are. So having those job descriptions with very clear expectations that are job specific and related to that job description, especially like it's not going to be the same for a science teacher for sixth to eighth grade, as it would be for an elementary teacher, you know, elementary music teacher.

But at the same time, there are so many unique characteristics of each that, you know, these, these folks have gone to school and really honed their talents for it. So like valuing their actual talents and skill sets in that job description and saying this is we know what you what you have done, and we know this is your value, again, valuing that person, valuing that person's educational experience.

But, but yeah, also writing those descriptions, setting those expectations, and I think that also carries over into the next step is those expectations need to be laid out for what they can expect if they do hit submit on that application, right? Like, are they going to be left in the void somewhere, and hopefully they'll find out before August, in which case, a lot of, a lot of districts and a lot of schools will lose potential teachers during that timeframe, because they might have gotten a better response or more proactive response from another district or charter school or an independent school and said, you know what, I'm wanted over there.

And I think that is, that's the, that's the thing that a lot of schools are missing is saying like, yes, you want your students and you want that outreach, but you also need to show that same level of interest to the, to the faculty and staff that you have, because they keep you running. And they're going to be your biggest, biggest brand ambassadors or the opposite. So, so showing them and extending them that, that customer service is important from the very beginning.

That idea of making someone feel wanted from the very beginning is so powerful. And I often told people when I was in the hiring process with them, once I said, like, I want you to come to my school, I would say, we're going to enter into a bureaucratic process where it's going to feel like nothing's going to happen. And then all of a sudden, 10 things are going to happen at once, and it's going to be really uncomfortable.

And I would tell them this beforehand because I wanted them to know, like, you reach out to me and say, here's what I'm feeling. And let me know where you're at, because if, if you know that I'm here and I'm listening and I'm going to work with you on this and help you get through this thing, this, we're in a bureaucratic system. And this kind of stuff has to happen, but it doesn't have to be awful.

And so it's going to take time. They got to do a background check. HR is not going to talk to you and tell you what's going on because they're keeping their cards close to their vest, making sure you pass your background check, doing all this kind of stuff. But I want you to be here, and if there are issues, then let's talk about it. And one of my favorite experiences was with someone who was a great teacher or seemed like he would be a great teacher.

And we found some stuff on a social media feed that was concerning. And I called him up, and I said, hey, we're in the middle of the process, and here's what's going on. We found this on your Facebook account. Like, we need to talk about this. And he said, oh, yeah, sorry, I was not in education before, different expectations. I realize if I'm working with kids, then I can't have all that stuff there.

And so I'll go ahead and delete that, no big deal. I said, great, that's exactly what needs to happen. But let's talk about this a little bit deeper. Is that going to be a problem for you being here working with kids? And he said, no, it won't be a problem. I don't have to worry about that. It's not an issue at all. And I said, okay, I'm telling you right now, person to person, human to human, this, if it is a problem in the school, you're going to lose your job.

And I'm telling you that because I care about you, I want you to know, I just want to make sure, is this going to be an issue? And he was like, nope, not a problem. Sure enough, never was a problem. Didn't ever have to worry about it. So grateful for that, because that is always messy and difficult. But the thing is, because we had that relationship, I felt very comfortable reaching out to him and saying, hey, this is the situation.

This is what we're facing. It's not a deal breaker, but it could easily turn into one if we don't have that relationship to start with. Here's the truth. School leadership is demanding. It's rewarding, but it can also feel lonely and so overwhelming sometimes. That's why we created Linked Leaders, to make sure great leaders keep leading and good leaders get the support to become great. At Linked Leaders, you're never on your own.

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Linked Leaders is efficient, personalized support that keeps you moving forward. Sign up for free at LinkedLeaders.com. What other little things would you advise people do in that process between the job description and the getting hired to help people feel at ease, feel comfortable, and feel wanted? Well, and I will reiterate, you said you called it relationships, but I also heard setting expectations. Like in those conversations, you were letting them know what would happen if X happened.

So that's important. As for other things to make them feel wanted and appreciated, you know, you mentioned you're speaking sort of like at the principal and the school level, and we're talking a little bit about HR. I think overall, and a lot of the work that we're trying to do is take it at that broader level. HR does have the opportunity to grow here, and they don't have to necessarily keep their cards close to their chest, as you say.

There are some bureaucratic things that have to be done. There's red tape. You're going to be working if you're working for a government entity no matter what, but you can still communicate and say, this is what's going to be happening next. Here's who you're going to be hearing from, if you have questions, here's who you can contact, and then actually make sure that that person contacts them and picks up the phone.

You know, and a lot of those things can be automated, too. Like all of those, a lot of those sequences and messages can be automated, but written in a way that, again, values the relationship. So I think we've talked a little bit about AI and how that can be utilized. You can create these scripts that are automated to go to an applicant that is, that you, maybe you use the prompts, come up with a script, and then make it your own, right?

As the school principal, as the HR representative, that really captures the vision and the value of your school. It sounds like you are really engaging and values the relational aspect, but using technology to make it a very seamless and quick transition so that as soon as that person submits that application, you know they're automatically going to be getting some sort of response from your district written in your voice, perhaps supported by a little bit of technology.

So streamlining those processes, I think, is key. But as far as also making folks feel welcome is like that interview process. I've heard a lot of former teachers saying, I ultimately chose to go to this school in the same district as this school because of my interview process, because of the space that I was made to feel more comfortable and heard. And something that really struck me one time was, someone said, I took all of my portfolio, I took all of my teacher, when they first came out of school, like they were so proud of everything they had.

And then when they brought it to review for, as they were asked by the, and then someone was just like, yeah, okay, cool. And they just didn't even look at it. Well, it's kind of soul crushing, especially if it's your first job coming out of school. And then even if it's not like, at least let them know that you've read them by asking them a question from, from some of their work or ask them how they would, how they would do X, Y, or Z in a school.

I think a lot of, a lot of, I think we're seeing a lot of Gen Z and millennials really appreciate autonomy and, and flexibility. And while you might not be able to offer that in a traditional K-12 setting, as far as like times of day or flexibility there, you can, you can highlight the areas of flexibility within your school system. And within your school saying, we have built in this X amount of time for teacher planning, or we have this period of time where students do this, that maybe is a little bit different than another school that shows flexibility and allows that teacher to have, to have something unique in their classroom or have something unique in their, just their daily life of, of, as an educator.

And, and, and, and, and knowing more about what your, what your prospective educators want, tapping into what those desires are, either be they generational drivers, or just something you know about folks in your community, or folks coming out of a specific graduate program in a school. If you're, if you're, if you're, if you're, if you get a lot of educators from that one area, knowing more about them as individuals and what drives them, um, will ultimately shape you, your, your questions and your, your conversations better so that you are having more of a conversation instead of just a straight up interview.

And you're going to get to know a lot more about that person and how they can bring value to your school versus whether or not they just check the boxes on paper. Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the, the things that you mentioned about automating some of the things and especially on-ramp emails, this was something that I've, I've talked about on the podcast before, but I get little notifications in Trello every few days about somebody else joining this, this link.

So in the show notes, there's a link for the new hire on-ramp email template that, that my assistant principal and I did in Kodiak, Alaska in welcoming people to, to our school. And I've used this in my other schools as well, but this one, uh, I set up as a public link that people can go share and, and check it out. So, so what's amazing about that is that it's this really easy thing to do to write once and then be able to send multiple times.

And what we did is we set up a, a MailChimp account, which is free or was free when we did it. And I think it still is free and you put all these emails in and then every week somebody would get a new email talking about what it was like to live on the island and what it was like to work on the island. And so we had something about living and something about working.

We talked about the tools we use. We talked about our beliefs around education so that when someone came to our school after the summer, when we hired them in the spring, then they knew what they were getting into. And they had 10 weeks of emails explaining what was going on. And, and all we had to do after we, we wrote the initial emails, all we had to do Molly was put their email address into the system.

And then we didn't ever think about it again. Once their email came in, then it was done. And we intentionally set it up that way so that we could choose when to start sending the emails. And, you know, let's say we hire them in March. We didn't want the emails start going out in March because that was too early. And so we wanted the emails to start in, in May, right when our school was getting out so that, so that they could be timed with the, the season and, and all that kind of stuff and the, the things that we were doing.

And we just found that this was so successful in helping people see what was going on. And let's be honest, Molly, they didn't read all the emails. That wasn't the point. The point was to open the lines of communication, let them know we were thinking about them, that we were preparing for them to come and all this kind of stuff because we were doing stuff on the other side, but they may not have been able to see it.

So setting these things up is a really powerful, simple way to keep that communication open. And, you know, as you were talking about that, that reminds me of a journey model that we did with, with a school district. They were noticing that as they went through their journey model and saw their teachers coming in, making those applications, like you said, in April, but then they weren't actually hearing from the district for months in advance.

And then they also noticed a correlation where they're losing some teachers because they're going somewhere else. It's like, there's that period of time where you can miss them. And there is the expectation. I think we talked about this previously where there's big brands and really big, big brands. And just the way we interact with brands today has, has made people really come to expect a certain level of interaction and engagement from the people that they choose to want to do business with.

And that's the same with schools. And so you're right, knowing that this is what your audience wants or will expect, why not set it up in advance? And I think that's a perfect blend of talking about using the journey modeling approach to figure out where those touch points might exist that you don't yet have a solution for. And maybe automation can be one of those solutions. So, yeah, you're exactly right.

And I love that idea about the live here and work here because you're showing them more than just what it looks like in the school. You're talking about what it is to be in the community. And that's a huge part of an employee value proposition. Like, what is it like to be in the area?

Yeah. So, so it, as we kind of wind down here, what are the parts, excuse me, as we wind down here, what are the parts of a journey model that are essential? Walk us through what that should look like at a high level so that we know what it is that we're, that we should be looking for. So to kick things off, there's always the catalyst. There was always going to be the catalyst.

And for someone coming into a new position that could be, again, and you're taking it from their perspective. So their catalyst may be don't love where they currently work or there may be they're moving or maybe they're graduating and they're finding their first job. But ultimately there's a catalyst that gets them looking for the job. And then at the end, you want to know what their desired result is, which may be, you know, in this case, actually application and then ultimately staying on.

But in between all of that, the key points are finding, finding those, those points that are points along the road where they are asking questions. What are they asking? This is the part that actually takes a lot of interaction with among a team. And we like to say a district team or a school team. Say, who are they going to? What are they talking about? What are their concerns?

So for recruitment, thinking, what's the cost of living in my area? Something you mentioned, kind of touched on with that, with that email sequence. What are the benefits? And again, not just salary. What are the community, what's the community benefits? What's, what are the other folks who work there right now saying? Because one of the things we, we learned too, is it's, it's not just word of mouth as in the old, old school phone, phone by phone, or even text, text message to text message.

But they're going to go to Facebook groups. They're going to go and look around. So not that you can have control over those Facebook groups, because if COVID taught us anything, like we can have zero control over Facebook groups. Knowing that they exist and knowing what they're saying gives you power because you know what is being said and where they're looking, right? And then just noting that along the lines of their decision-making process, what happens as they decide, once they make that decision, then, then what's happening, right?

What are, what's happening in their lives, again, not, not necessarily the schools, what's happening in their lives that is, that is dictating the next step. And it's going to be a period of reflection. And it's going to be a period of reflection. They're probably going to compare and contrast a couple offers, maybe. They might be looking at different schools within the exact same district. And that's, again, where the whole, if you and another principal are wanting the same teacher, like, what do you have to offer in your district, in your school?

So identifying those key points of interaction that you have with them, once you have built that journey map out, is, is important because that's where you can see if, if maybe you're missing some, some, some moments that you could actually be inserting yourself. Or maybe there are moments that those connection points are happening, but again, they're friction points and they're not really smooth touch points. And that's where you can strategize with your folks to, to figure out how to smooth that out.

And it may be going, again, talking to stakeholders saying, how can we make this better? And there's never really a harm in doing that because everyone wants to give their perspective and want to be heard. Yeah, very true. One of the, the things that's, that's interesting that you can also do is share those Facebook groups, especially the ones that are possibly critical of the school and not hide behind.

Hoping people don't find those things and saying, Hey, here's a really active Facebook group in our community. And if you, you're welcome to go in there and check it out and see what people are saying. And that was, that was something that I did where there was a lot of angst in the community. And I said, look, this, these people are not happy with, with what's going on.

We are working on changing that, but I don't want you to come here and think that everything is rosy and perfect because it's not. And, and being honest and clear about, these are some of the struggles we're facing. This is what parents are saying. I want you to know that so that you're prepared for, for what is coming in here. And one of the pieces of feedback I got on that was, I really appreciate that because I know that parents are upset at every school and knowing what they're upset about may help me decide whether or not I could handle working here or not.

And, and I can handle those issues like that is, that's not a big deal. And in other situations they're like, no, I definitely can't do that. I just, as a quick aside, I had one situation where I've had this happen several times where I'm interviewing someone and they're like talking about what they want out of, out of the job and stuff. And I'm like, this isn't going to work like you do not want the same things that we want, and this isn't going to be a good fit.

And I've actually ended interviews early because we were able to openly talk about what it is that they wanted, what we wanted, and where there wasn't alignment. And I was able to say, look, you seem great, but this isn't a good fit for, for what we're trying to do here. And boy, that was so freeing, Molly, to feel like I could say, I can already tell you're not a good fit, no harm, no foul.

Like, I know you want a job, but you really need to find a job where you're going to have a good experience because you come in here and being miserable for the next year while you fulfill your contract is not worthwhile for anybody. Not us, not the kids, not you. Let's, let's end this before we even get started. And that's okay too, but we're afraid to say that a lot of times.

Well, and that goes back to providing value. Like you saw that they weren't going to provide value to your school or they, you weren't going to be able to provide what they were valuing in their career. And so, yeah, it's all about that right fit and, and yes to the transparency. When you were talking about that Facebook group, I remember when I was in, when I was over communications for a district for a while, especially during the pandemic years where everything seems to be even more critical.

There was a lot of complaining in Facebook groups, but as we were more, we were consistently transparent. We were setting those expectations. We were talking about what was coming up next. And again, this isn't recruitment specific, but it was about overall just positioning ourselves. We saw more and more of our messaging showing up in those parent groups from parents who go to our district who were hearing those things and believing them because they saw that they were true.

So ultimately, yeah, it's all going to come full circle. And if you are transparent and you're very clear about, but what's going on, the folks who may, may have been the naysayers might actually be your loudest advocates one day. Oh boy. Ain't that the truth. I've experienced that many times. Well, Molly, this has been a great conversation. Thank you so much for being here. And I'm sure there's so much more that we could go into and I encourage anybody to reach out to you at Molly M. Gorsuch on Twitter or on LinkedIn.

Links to both of those are in the show notes. And thank you again, Molly, for being here. Thank you so much for having me. It was awesome.

Okay. Now we will record the intro. I will read your bio. You did a great job. Thank you. I feel like we could have done another hour. Yes. We could have done a whole six-part series on just that. Just the one thing about journey modeling. I mean, talking about that whole process, we could have gone deep for sure. Yeah. I feel like I didn't do a very good job of it, but there were so many things we could talk about.

But yeah, maybe if there's more interest, we'll do some more. Yeah. I mean, I think that would be cool to do kind of like a course on it. We're going to look at all these things. We could even bring on a couple district HR people or something and go through it with them or something like that. I mean, I don't know. My mind's just spinning right now because there's so much cool stuff that we could do with it.

I mean, educators just don't think about this stuff, Molly. It's just not in their wheelhouse. I would love to be a director of HR for this aspect of the HR process, not the other stuff. Maybe I should say I would love to be a director of recruitment or something. That would be better. But if you're just the director of recruitment, you don't get to deal with all the other stuff that goes into it.

So that's why I'd want to be over the whole thing. Anyway, I digress. All right. So we're going to do the intro. I'll read your bio and then I'll introduce you and ask you what people can take away from our conversation today. Does that sound good? Yep. Making notes. Okay. Sounds good.

Welcome to Transformative Principle, a proud member of the Bee Podcast Network. I'm so excited to have Molly McGowan-Gorsuch on the program today. She's the director of client engagement at Rhodes Branding, and she's the liaison between education leaders and Rhodes Branding, connecting the K-12 community with services designed to accelerate performance and market position. She leads content and partner engagement strategy and is a frequent conference presenter and podcast guest.

Here she is today on Transformative Principle. So in the show notes, I've got a link to her LinkedIn and to her Twitter profile at Molly M. Gorsuch. Molly, thanks so much for being here. Appreciate having you as part of Transformative Principle. Thank you so much for having me. You know, I think that this episode, we barely scratched the surface, and I think there's so much more that we can talk about.

So if you're listening to this and you want us to go deeper into any of these things, I think we could do like a six-part series literally very easily on this. So what was your big takeaway from our interview today? I liked how we came full circle talking about journey modeling and using that approach to show touch points in the process of recruitment where you can really pinpoint maybe some areas that need finessing and then ultimately being able to improve engagement with your potential applicants at that touch point using some automation.

Because I think that's just, it's talking through efficiencies, it's talking through user and stakeholder engagement, and then also just getting to know your applicants better. So that was a real fun part for me. Yeah. And for me, the big thing is there's so much that you can't control, but there's so much that you can be intentional about. And we didn't say that phrase specifically throughout this interview, but that idea of if you're just a little bit more intentional about some things, you can really make a big difference in what you're creating for the people that are going to come and work with you.

And I just think that that's really powerful. It seems overwhelming at times, but it doesn't have to be. And you can just start with little baby steps and do little things. And I think that's really cool. Exactly. Just be a little bit proactive and take one small step and it makes a big difference. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Okay. So that is, this is a good episode. You're going to love it.

So we'll get to my interview with Molly McGowan Gorsuch in just a minute.

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