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LehrCare teacher recruitment: interview with the founder

Dr. Jörg Köbke, a former teacher himself, founded the first teacher recruitment agency in Germany in 2007. Ever since then, his company LehrCare has been growing both in size and experience. It now offers a network of about 5,000 teachers and many private institutions throughout the country. The Hamburg Express asked Dr. Köbke about the progress made so far and the plans for the future.

THE: First of all, tell us why you decided to found the first teacher recruitment agency in Germany?

Dr. Köbke: I've been a teacher myself, I taught German as a foreign language on a freelance basis. I know how hard it can be for teachers to find the right institution to work with or for institutions to find the right teachers. At first, I wanted to help schools find substitute teachers. As a rule, schools need to search for a substitute on their own in case one of their teachers can't come to work. My goal was to provide them with a database to facilitate their search. As LehrCare began operating, our second goal became part-time and full-time teachers' recruitment. We are a middle agent between schools and teachers.

THE: What are the company's main accomplishments so far?

Dr. Köbke: We work with many private schools and we established a good relationship with other institutions, such as tutoring agencies and language schools. We now have a database of teachers available for full-time recruitment as well as substitute positions. Many private schools don't have government support and have to recruit staff on their own, we make sure they get the best teachers. We have recently been offered to create contracts in the name of the employing schools, which would give us even greater importance on the market. We are currently working on this project.

THE: What are the other projects or plans you have for the future?

Dr. Köbke: Our first plan is to expand to Austria and Switzerland, and expand within Germany as well. Secondly, we are looking for English native or bilingual speakers to work on our online portal and for language institutions. English speakers are always in high demand, and we would like to offer them jobs in teaching as well as in other branches. Finally, we are looking towards cooperation with German public schools, but this is a lengthy process.

THE: Thank you for this interview, Dr. Köbke. Our final question is how happy are you with LehrCare?

Dr. Köbke: Our company is still growing and every year we learn a lot of new things, but so far I've been very happy with the progress made. Our network of teachers is well established, they have blogs and forums to communicate and advertise. As for myself, work is so varied every day that it never gets boring. I'm glad I have a real chance to help schools and teachers find what they like.

If you are interested in LehrCare, you can register on their website free of charge: www.lehrcare.de. You may also browse teachers' database and other services on the website.

Source: "http://www.thehamburgexpress.com". Generated: 10 September, 2009, 11:27, Contributed by Ksenia Shagabutdinova.