Recruiting great teachers rarely starts with a vacancy.
Most MATs do not lose strong candidates at the application form. They lose them earlier.
A teacher sees a vacancy, clicks through to the trust website and finds a careers section that feels thin, dated or difficult to navigate. The job may still be interesting, but the first impression has already weakened the opportunity.
That is why recruitment cannot be treated as something that begins when a job advert goes live. For multi-academy trusts, the recruitment journey often starts with the website, the brand, the school profiles and the story candidates find before they decide whether to apply.
Recruitment marketing is becoming just as important as admissions marketing for many growing MATs.
At Cleverbox, we see this most clearly when trusts move from simple vacancy pages to dedicated careers journeys. The recruitment websites that perform best do not just show available roles. They help candidates understand the organisation, the schools, the values and the future they could build there.
Recruitment is now part of your trust brand
For many MATs, recruitment is becoming closely linked to employer branding.
This is one of the biggest shifts we have seen in education recruitment. A careers website used to support recruitment. Increasingly, it is becoming one of the primary recruitment tools itself.
“A strong employer brand helps candidates understand the organisation before they reach the application stage.”
Most people exploring opportunities begin forming an opinion about a trust before they ever reach an application form. A well-structured recruitment hub gives them confidence that the organisation is organised, values its staff and understands what candidates need to know. A weak careers section does the opposite. It can make the MAT feel harder to understand, even when the vacancy itself is strong.
That distinction becomes important because recruitment is not only about availability. It is about belief. Teaching staff need to believe the trust offers the right culture, the right support and the right future before they commit time to an application.ng.
Many school careers website sections still focus entirely on vacancy listings rather than helping candidates understand the wider culture of the organisation.
The strongest employer brands help people understand what it feels like to work within the organisation before an application is ever submitted.
Two recruitment platforms, two very different approaches
The best careers websites do more than list jobs. They help candidates picture themselves inside the organisation.
They show the people, values, benefits, school communities and career routes behind the vacancies. They make it easier for a teacher, support colleague, leader or graduate to understand what the trust offers before they apply.
Two strong examples show this in different ways.
Bourne Education Trust Careers
The Bourne Education Trust Careers website is a strong example of a dedicated careers destination rather than a bolt-on vacancies page.
One of the reasons the platform works so well is that it provides several routes into the organisation. Some visitors will arrive looking for vacancies. Others will be curious about training opportunities, wellbeing support or professional development. The site supports all of those journeys rather than assuming every visitor is ready to apply immediately.
The value of the site is not simply that candidates can search for jobs. It is that the site gives candidates reasons to stay. Career pathways, training, development, benefits, wellbeing, values and academy information all help shape the decision before a vacancy is opened.
That distinction is important. A candidate may arrive looking for one role, but the wider careers content helps answer a bigger question: “Could I see myself building a future here?”
This is the type of recruitment journey Cleverbox encourages MATs to think about, not just “what jobs do we have?” but “what story are we telling candidates before they apply?”.
What stands out is how little of the experience feels transactional. Rather than pushing visitors directly towards vacancies, the platform inspires them to explore the organisation first.
Some visitors are actively looking for a vacancy. Others may be researching career progression, training opportunities or trust culture. By providing routes into each of those areas, the platform encourages exploration rather than simply presenting a vacancy search.
The Futures Trust
The Futures Trust provides a different lesson.
Rather than leading with a separate careers microsite, they use a centralised vacancies area where candidates can browse roles across the organisation. This is particularly useful for growing MATs because recruitment can quickly become fragmented when every school manages its own vacancies in a slightly different way.
A centralised model gives them more control over the candidate journey, while still allowing each school to point candidates towards roles that are relevant to them. Where school-specific URLs are used, individual schools can promote their own vacancies while keeping the overall recruitment experience consistent.
Although every trust approaches recruitment differently, the common theme is clearly that successful recruitment platforms are designed around the user rather than around internal processes.
That principle sits behind many of the careers and recruitment projects we develop at Cleverbox.
What MAT leaders can learn from these two approaches
Although the Bourne Education Trust Careers platform and The Futures Trust vacancies system take different approaches, they share some important characteristics.
Firstly, both place recruitment at MAT level rather than treating it as an isolated school function.
Secondly, both make it easier for candidates to discover opportunities across multiple schools without having to navigate several separate websites.
Finally, both provide a clearer route from initial interest through to live vacancies.
The lesson for MAT leaders is not that every trust needs a dedicated careers microsite. Equally, not every trust needs an advanced recruitment platform. The key principle is that recruitment should feel like a joined-up experience.
Potential applicants should be able to understand the MAT, explore the schools and find appropriate vacancies without feeling that they are moving between unrelated systems.
The Cleverbox view: a vacancy list is not a recruitment strategy
“The most effective trust recruitment websites are not built around vacancies. They are built around confidence.”
A vacancy list has a job to do, but it should not be expected to do everything.
The organisations that recruit well usually combine three things: a clear employer story, a simple vacancy search and enough school-level context for candidates to understand where they might fit. Remove one of those elements and the experience becomes weaker.
This is where education recruitment can learn from other sectors. Strong employers do not wait until somebody reaches the application form to explain why they are worth joining. They build confidence earlier, through content, design, photography, structure and simple user journeys.
Many trusts still invest considerable effort improving job adverts while giving relatively little attention to the experience surrounding them.
In practice, that is often the wrong way round.
Applicants rarely compare job descriptions in isolation. They compare the overall impression a trust creates online.
Centralised recruitment should still feel personal
Centralisation can make recruitment easier to manage, but it should not make the experience feel impersonal.
The best MAT recruitment systems keep the main journey consistent while still giving each school a visible identity. Visitors should be able to search across the trust, but they should also understand the character, location and context of the individual school they are considering.
This is particularly important for MATs with schools across different communities. A candidate may be attracted by the strength of the trust, but the final decision is often shaped by the school itself.
For HR teams, a centralised model reduces duplication. For communications teams, it keeps messaging consistent. For candidates, it makes the search process easier to understand.
That last point is often overlooked. A candidate does not care how complicated the organisation structure is behind the scenes. They need a simple route to the right vacancy, clear information about the school and enough confidence to take the next step.
The questions applicants are trying to answer
Different people evaluate opportunities in different ways.
A newly qualified teacher may focus on development opportunities. An experienced leader may be interested in strategic direction. A support colleague may be thinking about culture and wellbeing.
Despite those differences, there are several themes that appear consistently.
Career pathways
Prospective employees want to know where a role could lead. This is especially important for teachers and support staff who are thinking beyond their next appointment. Leadership routes, mentoring, central team opportunities and specialist roles all help present the trust as somewhere people can grow.
School context
A trust-wide careers hub still needs school-level detail. Candidates should be able to understand the school, the phase, the location and the community before they apply.
Staff stories
Staff stories give recruitment content a human centre. A short profile or quote from a colleague can often say more than a page of formal copy.
Candidates also expect practical information to be easy to find. Benefits, wellbeing support, recruitment guidance and vacancy filtering should not feel hidden away in separate areas of the website. They are part of the recruitment journey and should be treated as such.
Small website issues can quietly weaken applications
Most candidates will not tell you why they decided not to apply. They simply leave the page.
That is why small points of friction matter. A vacancy hidden three clicks deep, an outdated photo, a missing school profile or a PDF-only job description may not look serious in isolation. Together, they suggest that the recruitment experience has not been designed around the candidate.
This is where many trusts lose ground. Not because the role is unattractive, but because the route to understanding it is harder than it needs to be.
Before publishing the next vacancy, check whether candidates can quickly find:
- the role
- the school
- the trust story
- the benefits
- the application deadline
- the person to contact
- the reason to apply
Many MATs invest considerable time writing job descriptions while spending very little time thinking about the website that surrounds them.
A strong vacancy advertised through a weak recruitment journey will usually underperform a similar role supported by a clear employer brand, stronger school profiles and better careers content.
Why social media alone rarely drives applications
Recruitment content does not sit on the website alone. A good careers page gives social media posts, email campaigns and vacancy alerts somewhere stronger to point candidates.
Without that destination, social posts often become isolated announcements. With a proper careers journey behind them, each post can lead candidates into staff stories, benefits, school profiles and related vacancies.
Building familiarity before people are ready to apply
Successful recruitment websites are not only useful when a vacancy is live. They work throughout the year.
They help build recognition, trust and interest before candidates are ready to apply. They give HR teams and school leaders somewhere to direct people after events, networking conversations, training sessions and social media posts. They also help passive candidates keep the MAT in mind.
That is especially important for roles where timing matters. A teacher may not be looking today, but they might be open to a move next term. If your careers content gives them a reason to remember you, your trust has already started the recruitment process.
Building career journeys that work harder
Cleverbox helps schools and multi-academy trusts build careers journeys that work harder than a standard vacancies page.
That might mean creating a dedicated careers platform, improving a central vacancies hub, developing school-specific vacancy routes, planning staff photography or shaping the employer brand content that sits around live roles.
The aim is simple: help the right candidates understand why your trust is worth joining before they reach the application form.
This can include:
- Trust careers websites
- Centralised vacancy hubs
- School-specific vacancy links
- Staff photography
- Recruitment video content
- Careers page copy
- Social media campaign graphics
- MAT website design
- Trust branding
Could Your Website Be Costing You Applications?
If candidates are only seeing a vacancy list, they are seeing a fraction of the story.
Whether you already have a dedicated careers platform or are starting from a basic vacancies page, we can identify practical improvements that support recruitment.
Frequently asked questions about Trust careers websites
Trust leaders frequently ask us similar questions when reviewing recruitment websites. Here are some of the issues that come up most often.
A trust recruitment hub should include current vacancies, school profiles, career pathways, benefits, staff stories, professional development information and clear application routes.
Many MATs benefit from centralising recruitment because it creates a more consistent candidate journey. The best approach still allows each school to promote relevant vacancies through school-specific routes.
A trust website can support teacher recruitment by showing culture, values, staff development, benefits, school context and live vacancies in one clear journey.
Yes. A vacancy page tells candidates what is available. A stronger careers journey explains why the school or trust is worth joining.
Not necessarily. Some trusts benefit from a dedicated careers platform, while others achieve strong results through a centralised recruitment area within the main trust website. The most important factor is creating a clear and consistent recruitment journey.