Hiring guideRead at source, 29 September 2026

How to Recruit Daycare Teachers: Where They Are, What the Ad Must Say, and the Background Check Clock

To recruit daycare teachers, decide first whether you are hiring a lead teacher or an assistant, because the qualifications, pay and candidate pool differ. Then advertise where parents, aides and career changers already are (Facebook and Instagram, early childhood programs, your own families and staff referrals), put the room, hours, pay and any free child care for staff in the first line, keep the application to a few mobile questions, and start the state background check the day you make an offer, since federal rules allow up to 45 days for results.

Who you are actually hiring

"Daycare teacher" covers two federal occupations. BLS counts childcare workers (which includes daycare aides and day care workers) at 1,010,300 jobs in 2025, with about 150,300 openings a year projected through 2035, a May 2025 median annual wage of $34,980, and a high school diploma as typical entry-level education. Preschool teachers (except special education) number 583,200, with about 66,700 openings a year, a May 2025 median of $38,140 and an associate's degree as typical entry-level education (BLS Employment Projections 2025-35; BLS, May 2025 median annual wage).

In practice, the role your state licensing rules call a lead teacher usually sits closer to the preschool teacher profile, and an assistant or aide sits closer to the childcare worker profile. Recruiting both from the same posting is a common way to get a pile of applicants and no qualified lead. Our daycare teacher job description covers the duties and requirements line by line.

Qualifications are set by state licensing and vary by state. The BLS Handbook notes that, to qualify for licensure, staff often must pass a background check, have a complete immunization record and meet a minimum training requirement, and that the Child Development Associate (CDA) credential must be renewed every 3 years. If you run Head Start, federal rules at 45 CFR 1302.91 require Head Start preschool center-based teachers to have at least an associate's or bachelor's degree in child development or early childhood education (or equivalent coursework), and Head Start preschool assistant teachers to hold at least a CDA or equivalent state certificate, or be enrolled in an associate or bachelor's degree program, or in a CDA program to be completed within two years of hire.

Where to find daycare teachers

Most of the people who will work in your rooms are not searching job boards for "daycare teacher." The best way to recruit daycare teachers is to go to the groups that already have the skills and the reason to say yes:

• Parents in your own center and neighborhood. Free or discounted care for a staff member's own children is the offer that competitors in retail and food service cannot match. Parents of your enrolled families also refer people they trust.
• Assistant teachers and aides you can promote. An aide who is working toward a CDA is your next lead teacher. Say in the ad that you pay for the credential.
• Early childhood education students. Community college ECE programs, CDA training providers and high school career and technical programs place students in practicum hours. A center that hosts them gets first look.
• Adjacent jobs. School paraprofessionals, nannies, camp counselors, church nursery staff and recreation workers already work with children and often want steadier hours.
• Staff referrals. Teachers know other teachers. Pay a referral bonus after the new hire's 90th day so it rewards people who stay.
• Facebook and Instagram. This is where local parents and hourly workers spend time, and it reaches people who were not looking. Employment ads run in Meta's Special Ad Category, so you cannot target by age, gender or ZIP code, and location targeting needs at least a 15-mile radius. The words in the ad have to find the audience.
• Job boards. Worth posting, but the qualified leads already on them are being contacted by every center in town.

The bigger picture on the shortage, and why ratios turn one vacancy into lost enrollment, is in our childcare staffing shortage guide.

What to pay daycare teachers, and how to say it

Use the two medians above as reference points, then check what the centers and schools within 15 miles of you post. Publish a range, and show what moves someone up it: a CDA, an associate's degree, the infant room. The pay section of the daycare teacher job description explains which occupation matches your role.

Staff child care, paid planning time, paid CDA training and weekday-only hours often decide this hire more than a dollar an hour; put them near the top. Our guide to childcare benefits for employees covers how employers structure the child care benefit.

How to write a daycare teacher ad

A candidate reading on a phone decides in two lines. Those lines need the room, the hours, the pay and whether they qualify. Three sample headlines:

• "Toddler Room Lead Teacher, $17 to $19 an hour, Monday to Friday 7:30 to 4. Free care for your kids."
• "Assistant Teacher, no experience needed. We pay for your CDA. Weekdays only, no nights."
• "Infant Room Teacher. Ratio honored every day, paid planning time, apply in two minutes."

Say the state requirement plainly ("meet our state's lead teacher requirements, or start as an assistant while you earn them") so no one qualified screens themselves out. Say the background check includes fingerprints so candidates are not surprised mid-process. More worked examples are in our help wanted ad examples.

Screening questions for a mobile application

Keep the form to name, phone and three or four questions. Knock out only on what the law or your license requires:

• Which room do you want to work in: infant, toddler or preschool?
• Do you meet our state's lead teacher requirements, or would you like to start as an assistant? (Route, do not reject.)
• Are you able to complete a fingerprint background check before starting? (Knockout if no.)
• Which hours can you work: opening, mid-day or closing?

Every extra field costs completed applications; our candidate conversion rate guide shows why. After the application, our childcare interview questions cover the conversation.

Speed and the background check clock

Call or text every applicant the same day; they applied to other centers too. Boostpoint Connect sends an instant text when someone applies and follows up with automated text sequences, so no applicant waits until tomorrow for a first reply.

Then plan around the check. Under 45 CFR 98.43, staff of licensed, regulated or registered providers (and providers eligible for child care subsidies) need a check that includes an FBI fingerprint check, a National Sex Offender Registry search, and state criminal, sex offender and child abuse and neglect registry searches in each state lived in during the previous five years. States must return results within 45 days. A new hire may begin work once either the FBI fingerprint check or the fingerprint-based criminal check in their state of residence comes back qualifying, but must be supervised at all times until every component is complete. Submit the request the day you make the offer.

What it costs to recruit daycare teachers on social

Boostpoint's 2026 Social Job Advertising Benchmark (891 Boostpoint-managed Meta campaigns) does not publish a child care role family, and its teacher / instructor family is not defined as including child care roles, so we do not quote it here. The honest reference is the report-wide figure: a median campaign cost of $13.88 per applicant, with the middle half of campaigns between $6.48 and $29.74. Those are advertising costs only, and an applicant is not a hire.

The benchmark's clearest finding applies here: the apply experience explains 70% of the variation in cost between campaigns. Campaigns with apply rates of 20% to 35% ran $4.41 per applicant; those under 5% ran $53.77. A short form with the qualification question built in is the cheapest improvement you can make. See the full benchmark.

Frequently asked questions

Sources: 45 CFR 98.43 (eCFR); 45 CFR 1302.91 (eCFR); BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, Childcare Workers; BLS Employment Projections 2025-35 and May 2025 median annual wages for childcare workers (39-9011) and preschool teachers (25-2011); Boostpoint 2026 Social Job Advertising Benchmark. Read at source 29 September 2026.