- Socially Recruited, the AI-powered recruitment platform, has acquired the education recruitment consultancy TJS Education
- More than 2,500 schools and FE institutions have already used TJS to reach and recruit candidates, and the combination of its expertise with Socially Recruited’s technology will make teacher recruitment faster, easier and cheaper
- The acquisition accelerates Socially Recruited’s expansion into public sector recruitment
The AI-powered recruitment platform Socially Recruited has acquired the education recruitment consultancy TJS Education.
Since its launch in 2015, more than 2,500 schools and further education institutions have used TJS Education’s proactive approach to find and recruit qualified staff faster and more cost-effectively than either of the conventional recruitment techniques — advertising on a job board or stumping up thousands in recruitment agency fees.
TJS Education enables headteachers to reach potential candidates through social media — even if they’re not already looking for a new job. It means they can avoid advertising blindly on job boards or in education sector publications, in the hope that the perfect candidate will be proactively searching for a job at that moment.
This unique approach has helped schools save an estimated 30% on their recruitment costs — a critical saving as Government data shows that schools in England spend £75m per year advertising vacancies, eating into what can be spent in the classroom[1].
The acquisition means TJS Education’s clients will have access to Socially Recruited’s machine-learning tools and technology, which analyse nearly four million individual data points to identify individual candidates’ suitability for roles based on their social media presence and activity.
Socially Recruited, which runs recruitment campaigns for global giants like Amazon, Lidl and Jaguar Land Rover, generated 4.3 million candidate applications in 2023, and placed adverts that were seen by 589 million people identified as strong potential candidates.
The acquisition of TJS Education, including its 15 dedicated staff and thousands of clients, comes as Socially Recruited accelerates its expansion into public sector recruitment.
Gareth Thyer-Jones, Managing Director at TJS Education, said: “I used to work for a leading education sector jobs board, and TJS Education was born out of two things — my inside knowledge of how much schools paid to advertise vacancies, and my experience as a dad being told by my daughter’s school that it had no budget for extra academic support because it was spending so much on recruitment.
“I set up TJS Education to help headteachers recruit better and cheaper, saving them money that would be better spent in the classroom than on hiring. Our approach has always been to focus on proactively identifying and reaching the best candidates, whether or not they’re actively looking for a new role at that moment.
“We have consistently proven our value to schools and FE institutions, and have helped nearly 2,600 of them find the people they need to grow. Now we’ve joined forces with Socially Recruited’s powerful AI capabilities and are looking forward to delivering even better results for our clients.”
Ben Keighley, founder of Socially Recruited, said: “Socially Recruited’s business is built on our unique ability to help companies reach and recruit the people that traditional talent acquisition methods miss. Our technology pinpoints suitable candidates and encourages them to apply, by making the application process as quick and easy as buying something on Amazon.
“Public sector employers, from headteachers to hospital managers, face many of the same challenges that companies do — with staff shortages pushing up recruitment costs and competition for the best people — and we want to help.
“The acquisition of TJS Education further strengthens our AI-powered public sector offering, and will give schools access to faster, more targeted recruitment campaigns that reach the right people at the right time.”
David Fisher, Headteacher at Kings Langley Secondary School in Hertfordshire, which has worked with TJS Education for a number of years, said: “If you’re not forward-thinking on using technology with the development of AI, social media and the trends in social media, you’re going to be behind the curve very quickly.
“And the reason for that is you’ve got to be prepared to seek the members of staff that are worth looking at for your school, not the other way around any longer. Whereas in the past you were putting an advert out for a post expecting people to apply for it, recruitment is now about getting your message out there and then headhunting these people through the various mechanisms and social media.
“What we’re finding is that once we get our message out there to various people they really want to come and work with us. So we’ve now developed a more bespoke strategy with TJS Education around making sure our message and brand is out there from day one to ensure that when we do need to recruit we get the candidates and ultimately they’re happy to come and work for us.”