\u201cHave you anything to add?\u201d is a question most principals pose at the end of interviews for prospective teachers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like the colour of your nail varnish\u201d is one of the more unusual answers I have heard. The teacher interviewee, lacking polish of any kind, was unsuccessful on this occasion.<\/p>\n
When I first became a principal, I asked principal colleagues for advice around conducting interviews. In essence, I interviewed principals on interviewing.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlways ask if they going to take the job,\u201d came the first piece of advice.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut that\u2019s absurd!\u201d I cried. \u201cThey have gone to the trouble of applying for a job and attending an interview. Of course they are going to take the job if they\u2019re lucky enough to be offered it.\u201d<\/p>\n
I have since discovered that no question assessing a teacher\u2019s subject knowledge, sense of our school, general investment in education, ethos nor involvement in extracurricular activities is more critical than this question. Recruiting Gen Z teachers during this recruitment crisis is a speed-dating game where the principal is the one with the sweaty palms and dry throat, in cases where we are lucky enough to have an applicant.<\/p>\n
For the Gen Z apathetic applicant, the question is not \u201cTo be or not be\u201d it is rather \u201cFor me or not for me?\u201d<\/p>\n
I have learned experientially the importance of checking if the successful applicant would deign to accept the job they applied for. And I have refined my approach to the aforementioned question itself. I come armed with a dramatic level of pregnant pause and poise. I lean in towards the candidate, maintaining a level of eye contact that were the meeting on Zoom, the candidate would assume we were \u201cfrozen\u201d.<\/p>\n