Secondary Principal, amalgamating schools: SLT Recruitment Support

From the outset, your contribution was simply outstanding. At no stage did I feel I was working with a third-party advisor, but rather a co-professional who genuinely cared about what we were trying to achieve, took ownership of the agenda and made a hugely significant impact on our organisation.

Chair of Governors, "outstanding" Secondary School: Headteacher Recruitment

Jacquie was at all times extremely professional and helped us attract an excellent quality of genuine applicants. She is knowledgeable concerning law, selection process etc and was very responsive throughout the whole process.

LA Head of Leadership and Professional Learning: Training-Application & Interviews

All training reflects Jacquie's expertise as an experienced governor and recruitment consultant. It is well structured and delivered in a professional and appropriate way. She has a good facilitative style which engages and empowers participants. Resources and activities are highly appropriate and professional. Evaluations of this work have been consistently very positive and the impact of her work has been judged to be excellent.

Chair of Federation Recruitment Panel: Executive Head Recruitment

Jacquie developed a campaign which was clearly very effective and in the end produced the result we were after. She is a total professional and brings many yearsí experience. Before we employed her, I spoke to the chairs of governors of several schools who have used her very successfully. They recommended her without reservation.

Vice Chair, Secondary Academy: Academy Head Recruitment

Jacquie's breadth and depth of knowledge in recruitment is a valuable asset. She made sure that we correctly followed the guidelines and helped with the development of a full and challenging programme of selection activities, which ran like clockwork due to Jacquieís skills and effective communication between her and the school.

Regional Director, Future Leaders: Mock Interview & Application Review Programme

The programme was evaluated by participants and Future Leaders staff; the overall conclusion was that it had had a far greater impact than in previous years. Positive feedback was received from participants, particularly in relation to the mock applications and interviews. Many participants stated that the process had been key to their subsequent success in securing senior leadership roles. In addition, Future Leaders staff felt that the judgements made by Ascend were sound and the feedback to participants was rigorous and honest.

Secondary Head Applicant: Headteacher Recruitment

I wanted to comment on the outstanding quality and detail of the paperwork provided for candidates prior to application - it was very useful and unusual to have this level of information at this stage.

Chair of Governors, Primary School: Headteacher Recruitment

Many thanks for your valuable guidance during the process - you really helped us to focus on the purpose of the advert and your thoughts on the application pack helped keep that to two documents. We had very positive feedback about this from candidates on their evaluation forms.

Coaching and application support

Primary Head: She asked me a number of questions so that she could understand what my own personal needs were and clarify what it was that I expected to get out of the sessions. Jacquie then prepared thoroughly so that our sessions were used to maximum effect. Her feedback to me was always kind, yet clear and precise, this meant that I was able to reflect and improve upon my practice with ease.

Individual feedback from candidates: Individual statement review and mock interviews

• This was fantastic because we broke the questions down and I really liked it when Jacquie modelled some answers to show how to tailor your answers to what they are actually asking.

• Hi Jacquie,You gave me advice re: my application for Headteacher post before Christmas - just to let you know that I got the job and my application was praised as being of a very high standard - so, again, thank you very much for your help.
  
  
• Hi Jacquie, I just thought that I would share my news with you. Last week I had my first interview for a headship - and got the job! Your help with the personal statement and interview advice were most useful so thanks very much.
  
  
• Thank you so much for all your support because on Friday I was offered the position of Headteacher............... once again I really appreciate all the support, I couldn't have done it without you.
  

What aspect did you find most useful? (Feedback from a successful applicant)

• Going through different questions, unpicking them together, thinking about the responses and the key vocab that needs to be used.
  
  
• This gave me great confidence because I realised that I had the correct answers I just needed to streamline them. Therefore I felt far more prepared when I completed my interview