Support for Recruiting School Leaders

Capable people must lead schools to ensure the quality of education. Supporting the growth of school leaders begins with targeted and professional recruitment. To understand the current recruitment practices of local governments, the Good Deed Education Fund commissioned a study from the Center for Applied Anthropology. It found that several standard practices in recruiting leaders, such as structured interviews, targeted search, and evaluation of the candidate’s leadership ability, are not systematically used in education.

As part of the project, we offer local governments the opportunity to involve a professional recruitment partner in the recruitment process. Through a systematic and well-thought-out process, stronger candidates come to the competition, and the school administrator can make an informed choice. Candidates who have completed the systemic capability assessment become aware of their strengths and weaknesses as leaders, and the school administrator can build up the school leader’s growth support.

Together with experts from the talent management company Fontes and the Ministry of Education and Research, we put together a manual for recruiting an educational leader, which covers all stages of the recruitment process, from preliminary work to supporting the induction of the selected leader. The manual was warmly received and is in use in municipalities across Estonia.