Toddlers are not only cute but also fun to be with. And, becoming a part of their high-quality learning experience is probably one of the most rewarding achievements for many early childhood educators. Marnette Federis’s December 2019 article for The World stated that the child care services industry in America is currently facing a shortage of daycare employees or daycare staff, specifically teachers. She then supported the statement by writing that low wages and high employment standards of daycare centers are the main reasons why. These facts are obviously a cue for your preschool to mitigate the recruitment process. You can start by making your daycare paperwork a little more convenient for job seekers. If you wish to do so, then you can refer the forming of your daycare job application forms to our list of daycare application template examples!
A daycare application form is a fillable document given to professionals who seek to be employed in a daycare center. This could also be referred to as questionnaires that contain queries that are relevant to specific daycare job openings. According to Ashlyn Etree of Career Trend, it is a useful tool for gathering all the necessary information that can help employers determine an applicant’s worthiness of becoming a candidate. Some of its areas include an applicant’s contact details, past employment experience, and educational background. As opposed to resumes, this form is considered a legal document since it requires the applicant’s signature to verify the truthfulness and correctness of the details he or she provided.
There are two tools that can help you identify which candidate works best for your organization – resume and application form. The two may be sharing similar goals, but they offer very distinct information about an aspirant.
Resumes have a touch of informal approach, giving a job applicant the chance to showcase his or her natural side and creativity. On the downside, the style will make it hard for you to evaluate objectively. On the other hand, employment application forms can get you the most relevant information you need for your assessment. However, they have been deemed spine-chilling by many applicants, so expect to have lesser diligence.
The bottom line is that both tools can be very effective in bringing in some fresh talents for your organization. But if you must choose, then you should consider the urgency of filling up the available position in accordance with any recruitment strategy plan.
In preparing a daycare application form, it is of utmost importance that you understand what specific organizational post you are going to fill. This could help you formulate your decision criteria that observes the very purpose of the document. Apart from that, you should also be aware of all the must-have areas. To help you with the thoroughness of your document, we have our list of the necessary steps ready for you below.
There is no better introduction to an applicant than knowing his or her basic information. So, always start your form by getting those. In case you don’t know what it includes, it should have the applicant’s name, gender, age, residential address, email address, and contact number. This is also very crucial for security purposes, considering that your business involves toddlers.
When it comes to the academic background of a daycare applicant, the typical requirement for an entry-level position is a high school graduate. This was according to the job summary provided by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. This section assists you in verifying if the applicant meets the standard requirement of becoming a daycare employee.
Don’t forget to incorporate an employment history form inside your document. The applicant’s list of work experience will aid you in deciding if his or her professionalism can be matched by your set professional value. Not only that, doing so will give you an idea of his or her level of expertise.
The educational and employment background of an applicant is not enough for him or her to be considered a qualified candidate. He or she must also possess soft and hard skills that are related to preschool teaching. Therefore, making a quality checklist in your application form is a must.
Daycare teachers go through various training programs to advance themselves in their career paths. The more pieces of training they have gone through, the more likely that they will end up in a better job position. However, this can be easily claimed by anyone. So to verify their assertion about such programs, you should ask for training certificates.
This part is where you bring out the questions that you think are necessary for determining a candidate’s credibility. In setting the questionnaire, make sure to include only the questions that have something to do with the company and advertised job opening.
Glassdoor’s May 2020 automated survey showed that daycare teachers earn the average annual salary of USD 23,560. Zip Recruiter, which also conducted an automated survey on the same month and year, came up with USD 22, 207.
Statista predicted in April 2019 that the number of daycare centers in the United States will reach up to 846,085 by the end of 2020. It was also shown in their statistics that by 2021, the number will increase to 856,238.
The most common questions that are included in application forms are the following:
1. Why should we hire you?
2. Where do you see yourself 5 years from now?
3. How can you contribute to the company?
Searching for new talents needs sophistication. Not only that it can occupy an empty organizational slot, but it can result in the betterment of your company. Failure to comply with the much-needed meticulousness can lead to a complete waste of time, money, and effort. It is just as what the American-Canadian public speaker, Brian Tracy, said, “As a business owner or manager, you know that hiring the wrong person is the most costly mistake you can make.” Through application forms, we can only hope that issues in hiring processes get mitigated.
