No Applicants for Your Headteacher Vacancy

A practical guide for proprietors, boards and trustees

The closing date passes. There are two applications and neither is appointable. The board meets, decides to re-advertise, and does so with the same pack, the same salary and the same wording.

Many proprietors tell us that second round produced the same result, and the third round was the one where they finally asked why. It’s an entirely understandable sequence and it costs a full academic year.

Re-advertising unchanged is the most common response and the least effective one. Something produced this result, and it will produce it again.

This is more common than you think

Worth saying first, because boards often take it personally.

Headship recruitment in independent special schools and alternative provision is genuinely difficult. The pool of leaders with real experience of these settings is small. Many of them are in post and not looking. And the roles are demanding, which candidates can see.

A weak field is not usually a judgement on your school. It’s usually a mismatch between what you offered and what the small number of suitable people would need to move.

The five causes, in order of likelihood

1. The salary isn’t competitive. The most common cause by a distance, and the one boards examine last. If your figure sits below what comparable settings are paying, experienced leaders simply won’t apply and won’t tell you why.

2. The timing was wrong. Advertising in May for a September start means anyone on standard notice terms has already missed their resignation deadline. Your field is limited to people already available, which is a small and unrepresentative group.

3. The pack didn’t attract anyone. Generic, evasive about why the vacancy exists, no salary, no sense of the actual school. Strong candidates read that as a board that isn’t being straight with them.

4. The role as described is undoable. A job description covering headship, the designated safeguarding lead role, SENCo and business management in a setting with no deputy. Experienced leaders read it and recognise it as a job that will break them.

5. Your reputation precedes you. Three heads in five years, a recent inspection outcome, or a known story about the proprietor relationship. The sector is small and people talk. This is the hardest cause to face and it does happen.

Note that only the last is about the school being unattractive. The other four are about how you presented and priced a job that’s probably perfectly reasonable.

How to diagnose it properly

Don’t guess. Three things will tell you within a fortnight.

Ask the people who didn’t apply. If you used a provider, ask them who they approached and what those people said. If you advertised, ask two or three leaders in comparable settings to read your pack honestly and tell you whether they’d have applied.

Benchmark the salary properly. Not against what you paid last time. Against what comparable independent special schools and AP settings are currently paying for a similar role. This is uncomfortable and it’s usually where the answer is.

Ask the candidates who did apply but withdrew. People who got partway and pulled out will often tell you why if you ask directly and make clear you’re trying to learn rather than persuade.

Where a board genuinely can’t work it out, an independent review or an honest conversation with a provider who works in this market will usually name it quickly.

The realistic options

Five, and they aren’t mutually exclusive.

Change the money. If benchmarking says you’re below market, this is the fix. Painful, and cheaper than another failed round and another term of interim cover.

Change the job. Split it. If the role includes headship, safeguarding lead and SENCo, appoint a head and fund a deputy. You’ll attract better candidates and you’ll keep the one you appoint.

Change the route. If open advertising produced nothing, the people you need aren’t reading adverts. Executive search reaches leaders who are in post and not looking, which in specialist settings is most of the viable field.

Change the timing. Accept a January start rather than September and advertise in the autumn window when the field is stronger.

Change the shape. An interim leader for two or three terms, with the option of appointing them permanently if it works. This is frequently the best outcome from a failed round, because it gives you evidence of someone doing the actual job rather than interviewing well.

What not to do

Two things.

Don’t appoint the best of a weak field. This is the decision boards most regret. A headship appointment that doesn’t work costs two years, damages staff retention and commissioner confidence, and leaves you recruiting again from a worse position. Not appointing costs a term.

Don’t leave the school uncovered while you try again. A second round takes another term. Secure proper leadership for that period first, then run the recruitment without pressure. Boards that do it the other way round make the same compressed decision twice.

From our experience

It’s the salary far more often than boards want it to be.

We frequently see a school benchmark against what it paid its last head, who was appointed five years ago, and conclude the figure is fine. The market has moved, and in specialist settings it has moved faster than in mainstream because the pool is small and demand has grown.

Many proprietors tell us they’d assumed the problem was the location or the size of the school. Once they benchmarked properly, the answer was immediate and the next round produced a field.

The second most common cause is a job description nobody could do. A board writes down everything the previous head happened to hold, including the things that were quietly breaking them, and publishes it. Experienced leaders read it accurately.

Schools that recover from a failed round almost always changed something material. The ones that re-advertised with a new photograph on the cover got the same result.

A common misconception

“There just aren’t any good candidates out there.”

It’s an understandable conclusion after a failed round, and it’s almost never the case.

There are experienced leaders running independent special schools and AP settings across the country. Most of them are in post, doing well, and not reading job adverts. They aren’t unavailable, they’re just not looking, which is a different problem with a different solution.

The question isn’t whether good people exist. It’s whether your role, your salary, your timing and your route were ever going to reach them. Four of those five things are within your control.

And the cost of getting it wrong falls on the children in your school, who spend another year under temporary arrangements while the adults work out what went wrong.

Questions for boards and proprietors

• Have we benchmarked the salary against comparable settings, not against what we paid last time?
• Would an experienced leader look at this job description and think it was doable?
• Did we advertise in a window when suitable candidates could actually move?
• Have we asked anyone honestly why they didn’t apply?
• Is our leadership cover secured before we run a second round?

Our perspective

A failed round is information rather than a verdict. Something specific caused it, and in our experience it’s usually the money, the timing, the job as written, or the route.

Diagnose before you act. Change something material. Don’t appoint the best of a weak field to end an uncomfortable period. And cover the school properly so the second round can be run at a sensible pace.

Boards that do this appoint well on the second attempt. Boards that re-advertise unchanged spend another year finding out what they could have learned in a fortnight, and the children in the school carry that year.