HR – What Are Some Hiring Best Practices?

Ask any childcare center owner or school administrator what keeps them up at night and hiring is almost always near the top of the list. Finding qualified, reliable, passionate people to work with children is genuinely hard. The demand for great childcare professionals far exceeds the supply in most markets. And the cost of a bad hire, in time, money, and the impact on your families and team, is significant.

The good news is that hiring does not have to feel like a lottery. With the right practices in place, you can build a recruitment process that consistently attracts strong candidates, filters out poor fits early, and results in hires who stick around and contribute meaningfully to your center.

Here are the hiring best practices that make the biggest difference.

Start With Clarity About What You Actually Need

The most common hiring mistake childcare centers make is starting the process before they are clear on exactly what they are looking for. They post a generic job description, get a flood of applications from people who may or may not be a good fit, and then spend hours sorting through resumes trying to figure out who to call.

Before you post anything, take the time to get specific. What does this role actually involve on a daily basis? What skills and experience are genuinely required versus nice to have? What kind of personality and values fit best with your team culture? What does success look like in this role at 30 days, 90 days, and one year?

The clearer you are about what you need before you start looking, the easier and faster the entire process becomes.

Write Job Descriptions That Attract the Right People

Your job description is your first piece of marketing to potential candidates. It is the first impression they get of your organization and it either draws the right people in or it does not.

Most childcare job descriptions are dry, generic, and interchangeable. They list requirements and responsibilities in bullet points and say almost nothing about what makes your center a great place to work.

A strong job description does something different. It tells a story. It communicates your mission and values. It describes the kind of environment your team has built and the kind of person who thrives in it. It is honest about what the role requires and what you offer in return.

When your job description speaks directly to the kind of person you want to attract, you will get more applications from people who are genuinely excited about the opportunity and fewer from people who are just applying to everything they see.

Use Multiple Channels to Find Candidates

Posting on one job board and waiting is not a recruitment strategy. It is hoping. And in a competitive hiring market, hope is not enough.

Effective childcare recruitment uses multiple channels simultaneously. Online job boards like Indeed and ZipRecruiter reach a wide audience quickly. Local community college and university education programs are excellent sources of entry level candidates who are passionate about working with children. Social media, particularly Facebook and Instagram, can be surprisingly effective for reaching passive candidates who are not actively job searching but might be open to the right opportunity.

Employee referrals are one of the most underused and most effective recruitment channels available. Your current staff know people in their professional and personal networks who might be great fits. Create a referral program that rewards them for making introductions and watch the quality of your candidate pool improve significantly.

Screen Effectively Before Investing in Interviews

Every hour you spend interviewing a candidate who was never really going to work out is an hour you are not spending on the children, families, and team that need your attention. Good screening saves you enormous amounts of time and energy.

Start with a phone screen before you invite anyone in for a full interview. A 15-to-20-minute call can quickly tell you whether a candidate has the basic qualifications you need, whether they can communicate professionally and clearly, whether they understand and are genuinely excited about the role, and whether there are any obvious red flags that make moving forward not worthwhile.

Only bring in the candidates who clear the phone screen for in person interviews. Your time is valuable. Treat it that way.

Ask Questions That Actually Reveal What You Need to Know

Most interview questions are easy to prepare for and easy to answer well regardless of whether the candidate is actually a good fit. Questions like tell me about yourself and what are your strengths and weaknesses tell you very little about how someone will actually perform in your environment.

Behavioral interview questions are far more revealing. They ask candidates to describe specific situations from their past experience rather than speaking in generalities about what they would do hypothetically.

Instead of asking how do you handle a difficult child, ask tell me about a specific time you worked with a child who was having a really hard day. What was the situation, what did you do, and what happened as a result.

The answer to that question tells you far more about how the candidate actually thinks and behaves than any hypothetical response ever could.

Ask about values and mission alignment specifically. Tell me what drew you to working in childcare. What does quality early childhood education mean to you. How do you think about your role in a child's development. The answers reveal whether this person genuinely cares about the work or is simply looking for any job that is available.

Check References Seriously

Reference checks are one of the most consistently skipped steps in childcare hiring and one of the most valuable. Many employers treat them as a formality, make a couple of quick calls, hear that the candidate was a good employee, and move on.

Done well, reference checks can reveal things you would never learn from an interview. Ask specific questions. How did this person handle conflict with a colleague. What was their greatest area for growth. Would you rehire them without hesitation and why. How did they respond when they made a mistake.

A reference who pauses before answering or gives a carefully worded response is often telling you something important even when they are not saying it directly.

Do Not Skip Background Checks

This one is non-negotiable in childcare. Every single person who will be working with children in your center must be thoroughly background checked before they set foot in a classroom. No exceptions. No shortcuts.

Make sure your background check process includes criminal history, sex offender registry checks, and any state specific requirements for childcare workers. Many states also require fingerprinting and clearance through the state childcare licensing agency.

Taking shortcuts here to fill a vacancy faster is never worth the risk.

Onboard New Hires Intentionally

Hiring does not end when someone accepts your offer. The onboarding experience you provide in the first days and weeks of employment has a massive impact on whether a new hire becomes a long-term team member or leaves within the first few months.

A strong onboarding process includes a warm welcome that makes the new hire feel genuinely excited to be there, clear training on your policies, procedures, and expectations, a designated mentor or buddy who helps them navigate their first weeks, regular check ins from leadership during the first 90 days, and feedback that helps them understand how they are doing and where they can grow.

New hires who feel well supported and genuinely welcomed in their first months become loyal, committed team members. New hires who feel thrown into the deep end with minimal support start job searching again within weeks.

Build a Talent Pipeline Before You Need It

One of the most stressful aspects of childcare hiring is the urgency that comes with an unexpected vacancy. Someone gives two weeks' notice and suddenly you are scrambling to find a replacement as fast as possible. Rushed hiring almost always leads to poor hiring.

The solution is to build and maintain a talent pipeline before you have an opening. Stay connected with strong candidates who were not quite right for previous roles. Build relationships with local education programs. Keep your employer brand active on social media so that people who might want to work for you are already familiar with your center when a position opens up.

When you have a warm pool of potential candidates to reach out to before you even post a job, your hiring process becomes faster, less stressful, and more likely to result in a great outcome.

Partner With Staffing Experts Who Know Childcare

Even with the best internal hiring practices in place, many childcare centers benefit enormously from partnering with a staffing specialist who understands the specific demands of the industry.

At DW Bridges, our staffing and talent acquisition team works exclusively with childcare centers and schools. We know what great childcare professionals look like. We know where to find them. We know how to screen them effectively. And we know how to match them with the specific culture and needs of your center.

Our clients consistently tell us that the quality of candidates we bring them is significantly higher than what they were finding on their own, and that the time they save by letting us handle the recruitment process is time they can finally invest back into their center and their families.

Book a free School Audit Call with our team today and let us show you what a professional staffing partnership can do for your hiring results.