Applying For Leadership Positions: How Can You Impress?
By Dr Jill Berry
Applying for leadership positions can be a tricky business. Dr Jill Berry delves into her experience from throughout her career to pick out elements to consider when applying for your dream school leadership role.
In my thirty year career, during which I worked in six different schools, I have submitted a significant number of applications for teaching jobs and leadership roles at different levels. I have been interviewed 21 times, and was successful seven times, being internally promoted in my first school. As a Head of Department, Head of Sixth Form, Deputy Head and Head I have also been on the receiving end of countless letters of application, and have sat on interview panels many times.
Since stepping back from headship I have worked with a number of governing bodies appointing new heads in their schools. Reflecting on all of this: what helped me to secure success as an applicant, in addition to what impressed me as a selector and interviewer, I can offer advice for future candidates which I hope is useful. You may be applying for a teaching role, for a Middle Leader position, a whole-school Senior Leader post, or for headship. Whatever your ultimate goal, perhaps give thought to the following.
Evidence of research
Every head or governor appointing a new member of staff wants to feel that there is a commitment to this particular position in their specific school. Making sure you have done the research and found out as much as possible about the post, in order to write an engaging and compelling application, is important. If you appear to know little about the nature of the role or the context of the organisation, your written application is unlikely to get further than the waste paper basket.
Letters of application which are targeted at the specific school and post, showing alignment between what the school/role needs, and what you have to offer
Having done your research (to check that this is a viable role for you to apply for, as this is a job you are likely to find satisfying and fulfilling, and which you are capable of doing well), the next stage is to ensure you use what you have learnt so that your application is focussed and appropriately targeted. Avoid taking a fairly generic letter which you have used to apply for another position, and just tweaking it to try to fit the new post.
Applications are worth spending considerable time and thought on, no matter how busy you may be in your current role. You need to consider carefully all you have learnt about this job, in this place, and go on to demonstrate that you are a good fit for what the role/school need.
There should be a match between the job description/person specification and what you include in the written application – explain what experience, transferrable skills, learning capacity and personal attributes make you a strong candidate for this particular job. This doesn’t mean that you will already have covered all the responsibilities of the role; it means, rather, that you have the potential to step up to face fresh challenges.
The ability to structure a letter which is clear, focussed, well-written, accurate and logical
You have to be able to show you are an effective communicator, and this means that your written application should be fluent, easy to understand, and doesn’t contain avoidable errors. Proof-read carefully what you have written and, if you need to, ask someone you trust to do the same and to give you feedback.
Make sure you have addressed the different areas of responsibility in the job specification and that there aren’t glaring gaps. Show you have thought through what the job involves, and you are confident that you will be able to embrace the experiences and opportunities it will offer, make a positive contribution and rise to the challenge.
The application should be sensibly organised: it may be worth using the different aspects of the job description as sub-headings to ensure that you have covered all the bases, and that your different points are methodically organised – that you do not miss things, or repeat yourself. You can take out the subheadings afterwards, but this exercise should help with the flow of the argument you present to show your suitability and capacity to make the most positive contribution to the school. Talk about what you can offer/bring/contribute/add – rather than focussing on what you might gain if you were successfully appointed.
Showing warmth and friendliness as an interview candidate
If your written application has impressed the selection panel sufficiently, they will want to meet you to find out more. If you are called to interview, that suggests that they feel you are capable of fulfilling the role – why would they waste your time, and their own, otherwise? The interview process gives the selectors the opportunity to find out which of the candidates they meet would actually be the best fit for what the school needs.
Although you may well be nervous, remember to keep smiling. Show your warmth, and, remembering that, if you are successful, the people you meet today will be those you go on to work closely with in the future, invest in starting to build the most positive relationships.
Be polite and personable to everyone you meet – the formal panel interview is only one part of the interview process, and you will be being weighed and measured throughout the day.
Interview responses which are concise and which answer the question in a compelling way
When we are keen to secure a job, the temptation may sometimes be to say what we think the interview panel wants to hear (rather than what we, in fact, actually think or feel) and to speak at too great a length. Don’t speak too quickly. Give yourself thinking time and ensure that you focus on answering the question, and then stop, smile, sit back and wait for the next question.
Listen to yourself – are you nervously rambling, repeating yourself or just adding far more detail than the question actually requires? Is your language inappropriately informal, full of ‘fillers’ such as ‘like’, ‘sort of’, ‘kind of’, ‘you know’. Your written application should have been succinct, relevant and fluent, and your verbal responses need to be the same.
If asked at the end whether you have questions, it is useful to have one or two (no more than that) thoughtful, insightful questions to pose. However, if you ask anything which has already been answered, that will suggest lack of concentration or attention. And don’t ask a question for the sake of it. It is perfectly acceptable to say something like, ‘I did have questions at the start of the day, but everything has been helpfully answered – thank you.’
A degree of self-awareness and humility
Although you need a measure of confidence and self-assurance – if you don’t believe you could do this job, how will you ever convince the selection panel that you are capable of it? – nevertheless you don’t want to seem arrogant. We are all a work in progress and we always have more to learn. Show that you are aware of this, but that you are willing to work hard to continue to build your skills and your capacity in order to achieve success.
Humility makes us stronger leaders, rather than weaker ones. People don’t expect their leaders to be infallible, but they do expect them to be honest. Steve Munby puts it well in ‘Imperfect Leadership’ (2019), when he says that we are all imperfect, but we need to accept and embrace that. The most important thing is that we reflect, we keep learning, we adapt and we determine to go on to be even better in the future. We do learn from experience – as Robert Quinn said in 2004, new leaders ‘Build the bridge as they walk on it’.
Whatever role you are applying for, be sure to spend time and thought on your application, prepare for interview (including practising responses with someone who can listen and offer feedback) and go into the process feeling confident that you have done all you can to give yourself the best possible chance of success.
Good luck!
References:
Quinn, R. (2004) Building the bridge as you walk on it: A guide for leading change San Francisco, Jossey Bass
Munby, S. (2019) Imperfect Leadership -a book for leaders who know they don’t know it all Carmarthen, Crown House
You can read more articles by Dr Jill Berry here.
