Don’t beat yourself up; you’re competing against the for-profit sector. That being said, be prepared to present in a positive light the positive aspects of your school. A rebuilding mode can be exciting for an IT professional who likes to tear down and redesign systems, or an academic technologist who wants to design a new professional development program. A new building project can be exciting for someone who likes to implement new technology. A school with the IT systems all perfectly working can be exciting for someone who wants to focus on more strategic issues.

Good people are everywhere; you just have to find them. Just as we talked in the last article about building your own farm system, recognize that there are farm systems all around you. Local colleges are a gold mine: community colleges, four-year universities, and graduate programs. The NAIS ecosystem has countless partnership organizations and associations, many of which have people working in them who would love to get into a school.

Regional associations, ed tech meet ups, and gatherings of technology professionals are a great way to move one degree closer to the right candidate. Public schools are perhaps the most underrated potential hiring source because their employees have already chosen to not work in the for-profit sector. Many public school technology professionals would love to work in an organization with fewer rules and restrictions, and the less they are invested in the retirement system, the more willing they might be to jump ship. Finally, think about all the vendors that have a relationship with your school. Your contacts at each of these companies undoubtedly is colleagues with a technology professional, and if you strike pay dirt you just might get introduced to someone who is ready to change jobs.