| Providing quality child care |
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| Day school uses iMatchSkills to fill staffing needs |
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Martha Applegate, Salem Christian Day School
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It’s a dilemma for thousands of working families in Oregon. How to find quality child care that is affordable.
For child care providers, the challenge is equally daunting. How to provide affordable child care that is of high quality.
To do so becomes a delicate balancing act of recruiting professional staff who work for the love of children rather than a big paycheck.
Martha Applegate, director of the Salem Christian Day School, faced that task.
“We were recruiting for an infant/toddler teacher position and one school-age teacher position. Potential candidates were required to meet the teacher qualifications established by the Child Care Division of the State of Oregon,” Martha said.
So, she went through the typical routes of recruiting. . .the local newspaper and community college.
“I found it expensive to advertise in the newspaper and was not successful in attracting potential qualified candidates,” Martha said. “I did receive several applications and resumes from posting the job opening at the community college, but was unsuccessful at finding qualified applicants.”
With a lot of work and no potential employees to show for it, Martha turned to a new tool, iMatchSkills.
“At first I was hesitant to pursue the registering process as it seemed lengthy and complicated. However, once my questions were answered, the registering process went very quickly and smoothly. I felt that the Web site was easy to navigate and was very helpful in identifying required skills and qualifications,” Martha said.
Although pleasantly surprised with the ease of use, the results were what made the difference for Martha.
“Within two weeks of posting the job openings I was able to interview and hire for both positions. As a result of the Oregon Employment Department referring qualified candidates it eliminated my having to sift through applications to determine whether or not they were actually qualified for the positions and as a result was a timesaver for me.”
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