In EdTech, your next hire is never just a hire. It is a quota carried, a school or university relationship held, a product launched on time. When that seat is empty, or filled by the wrong person, you feel it in your numbers within a quarter.
Most hiring advice ignores what makes your sector different: long buying cycles, the academic calendar, and buyers who are educators first and customers second. Someone who thrived in SaaS can still struggle to earn a headteacher's or a dean's trust, and you only find out after they have started.
At RecruitHer, we judge every search against three outcomes: minimising your commercial downtime, improving your new-hire retention, and reducing your overall cost to hire. Together they are the difference between filling a role and fixing a problem. Under each pillar you will find a few honest questions to ask about your own hiring, then what we do about it, then a cheat sheet for your next hire.
Pillar 1: Minimise your commercial downtime
Every week a seat stays empty costs you revenue, momentum and team energy. Yet in most companies the hiring manager does the legwork: sifting through CVs, screening candidates and sitting through interviews with people who were never going to fit. That is a full-time job on top of your real one, and it is where most of your downtime comes from.
Ask yourself:
- How many hours did you spend on your last hire before you met anyone worth considering?
- How often do you interview someone on the strength of their CV, only to be disappointed when you meet them?
- Have you ever interviewed a whole round of candidates and ended up back at the start?
The fastest way to cut downtime is to work with someone who takes that legwork off you. At RecruitHer, we:
- Start with a proper brief. We learn your business context, your team, the skills that are essential versus useful, your leadership style and where the role can flex, so we know exactly who we are looking for.
- Do the sifting for you. We source, read the CVs, screen and interview, so you do not have to.
- Present only candidates who fit the brief and fit in general. You meet fewer people, and every one of them is a real contender rather than a long list to wade through.
- Keep the process moving. We handle the scheduling and keep candidates updated, so nobody goes quiet while the clock runs.
Pillar 2: Improve your new-hire retention rate
Every early leaver costs you the hiring time, the lost output and the restart. Hiring someone for their experience and background is not enough, and neither is a good interview. You also need to know that what the role needs is what the candidate actually represents.
Ask yourself:
- Of the last ten people you hired, how many reached their first anniversary?
- When people leave, is it the business, the role or the manager, and what does that cost you?
- What do you currently do to improve retention, and is it working?
At RecruitHer, we look at the whole person, not just the CV:
- Experience, background and aspirations. What they can do, what they want next, and whether your role can really deliver it.
- A psychological assessment. It is short and easy to complete, for you as the hiring manager and for the candidate. Comparing what the role needs with what the candidate brings gives us a clear indication of whether they will thrive beyond their first 90 days.
- Regular check-ins every four weeks. Once your hire has started, we keep working with them and check in every four weeks. We check in with you too, so everyone stays on the same page and small issues are caught early.
Pillar 3: Reduce your cost to hire
Cost is not the fee alone. A slow or failed hire has short, medium and long-term costs, and the agency fee is usually the smallest of them. The real bill is hidden in your time, in false starts and in salary paid for the wrong output.
Ask yourself:
- Have you ever worked out the true cost of your hiring process, from the first brief to the end of onboarding?
- How much of your team's time goes on interviewing people who were never a fit?
- What is the cost of a poor performer to the people around them?
We take those costs out, not by squeezing the fee but by removing the waste:
- Your time spent sifting CVs, screening and interviewing. We do the legwork, so you meet only candidates who fit the brief.
- Interviews with the wrong people. We screen before you meet anyone.
- Onboarding the wrong person. Training, ramp-up and management time. We assess psychological fit and the whole person before an offer is made.
- Poor performance. Salary paid for output that never arrives. We look at every factor that makes the individual, not only the CV.
- Restarting the search. One agreed brief from the start.
Cheat sheet: your next EdTech hire
Use this before you open a role. The tags show which pillar each step protects: Downtime, Retention or Cost.
1. Before you search
- Why this person? Write one sentence on the problem this hire solves, not the old job title. (Downtime, Cost)
- Three to five outcomes your hire must deliver in their first 6-12 months, each measurable. (Downtime, Retention)
- Must-haves versus nice-to-haves. Keep your must-have list short, and skip years of experience as a filter. (Cost)
- Your panel agrees the brief in writing. Define what "good" means for each skill, for example "strong communicator". (Downtime, Cost)
- Interview slots held in diaries and a feedback deadline set, ideally two working days. (Downtime)
- Salary range, location and flexibility agreed before the first conversation. (Downtime, Cost)
- Know why someone would join you: role, team, mission, growth and flexibility, from the candidate's point of view. (Retention)
2. While you hire
- Same questions for every finalist, scored 1-4 on a shared scorecard. (Retention, Cost)
- Test educator credibility. Can they earn the trust of teachers, leaders or procurement teams in your segment (K12, HE, FE)? (Retention)
- Ask what they are leaving behind and what they want next. (Retention)
- Include a manager and team conversation so the candidate meets the people they will work with. (Retention)
- Update candidates weekly, even if there is no news. (Downtime)
- Take references by asking the referee to confirm what you have seen, not by asking open "what are they like" questions. (Retention)
- Give every candidate feedback, including those you reject. (Cost)
3. Offer to day 90
- Check where the candidate stands before making a formal offer: would they accept if you matched their expectations? (Downtime)
- Make a strong offer first time. Lowballing starts a negotiation you may lose. (Cost, Retention)
- Warn them about counteroffers and agree in advance what would make them stay. (Retention)
- Stay in touch through the notice period with team introductions and a start-date plan. (Retention)
- Have a 90-day plan ready with a first-week agenda, clear goals and a named buddy. (Retention)
- Check in at 30, 60 and 90 days. Ask what surprised them. (Retention)
Red flags that cost you money
- Your panel cannot agree what the hire is for.
- Your feedback takes more than a week.
- The job description is a copy of the last one.
- Nobody has asked the candidate why they are looking.
- Your offer lands weeks after the final interview.
If you are hiring in EdTech and would like a partner who works this way, get in touch via recruither.co.uk.
