How to Recruit Tutors for Your Agency

Finding suitable tutors for your tuition agency is one of the most important elements of running a successful service. You want your students to receive a quality education and this comes down to the standard of teaching they receive. We've put together a checklist of points to consider when recruiting tutors for your company.

Safety

Parents in particular want to know that their child's tutor has been appropriately vetted beforehand. Every tutor you recruit should have undergone a Disclosure and Barring Service Check (DBS) as part of the recruitment process. From the 17th June 2013, The Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) and the Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA) merged together to form the Disclosure and Barring Service which is a required background check for specific jobs or voluntary work.

Qualifications

Because anyone can call themselves a tutor, it's a good idea to set your agency's own minimum qualification standards. Not every tutor needs to be a qualified tutor but the more qualified they are, the higher the level of support they can provide. It's recommended that tutors are educated to at least degree level in the subject that they specialise in. Some tuition agencies take this a step further by only recruiting from specific top-tier universities.

Training

Will the tutor require any training prior to working with your tutoring agency? It may be worthwhile observing some of their lessons in the early stages so you can identify any areas that they may need to improve in. It's important that tutors know their subjects thoroughly and it's equally important that they keep up to date with the national curriculum and course requirements for independent schools. As not all tutors are qualified teachers, it's worthwhile asking how they keep up to date with new developments.

References

A tutor may have undergone a DBS check, but you should always ask for professional references as well. Experienced tutors should be able to provide references from students, parents and other education professionals, showing their competencies. We recommend that a tuition agency should follow up these references as a matter of course and speak to the referees in person. New tutors, who have only just graduated should still be able to provide references from university lecturers.

Checking a tutor's availability during the recruitment process is also essential. As a tutoring agency, you want piece of mind, knowing that tutors will be flexible enough to take on last minute requests. In the lead up to exams, tuition agencies often find themselves really busy so you'll want to know that you can rely on your staff to make themselves free for extra lessons or taking on new students.

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How does this checklist compare with your experience of recruiting tutors? Do you follow the points mentioned above? Do you have your own process for recruiting that you'd like to share with us? Perhaps you're a tutor working for an agency? What are your experiences of being recruited? We welcome your experiences on this topic.