Realise Your Potential

RealiseMe is a social enterprise for schools and teachers. The aim is to save schools thousands on their recruitment costs while providing a careers and community space for teachers and teaching assistants. In education recruitment it’s always hard to find the balance between teaching style of a teacher and school cultures. This is what we aim to achieve – the balance. We are working with academy trusts, schools, teachers and teaching assistants across the UK to improve their experiences in not only recruitment process but also the education life in general. We are also part of the UCL EDUCATE program where we will conduct research on ways to improve accuracy of placement, retention for schools and outcomes for children. I grew with the product from the ground up. There were failures, iterations and challenges in the past years, but we have learned and overcome them. We started with an MVP web job board and built up a presence with publishing quality blogs in the first year. Interviews and questionnaires were also conducted to gain more insights into the market. After gaining some traction, we started working with multiple developers to build the first version of the product. The design focused on the results we have gathered from quantitative and qualitative research to digitalise the current recruitment process. We also considered the responsiveness of the platform for on-the-go supply teachers and school staff. For the past two years we went through different iterations and testing to refine and improve our product’s aesthetics and functionalities as well as developing an app for the users. The platform delivers solutions for the school to digitalise and enhance the recruitment process including booking supply staff in an instant. Additionally, the forum and blog provides education personnel a safe and positive space to share, express and elevate their teaching journey. Challenges: Effectively communicate between developers and the CEO, making sure both sides understood and agreed on the issues and progress to avoid delay in development time. It is not always easy to be the bridge of communication between different disciplines. In addition, in terms of the product, trying to add a little spice to a normally rather ‘old-fashioned’ industry. Solutions: This is where my multi-disciplinary background comes in. Making sure every message was clear and tailored to the person I am speaking to. Additionally, use visual aids such as wireframes, mockups and infographics where possible. Not to overwhelm schools with the product, I spent time testing out the user experience with different versions ensuring it is as straight forward and intuitive as possible.