Smart Recruitment Strategies for Smart Development Hires

Research has consistently shown that staff turnover among development professionals is exceptionally high, with the average fundraiser staying at a job for only 16 months. If your nonprofit is working toward building a stronger culture of philanthropy as well as employee satisfaction, the process of hiring a new development professional is an important piece of the picture. 

We’ve all been there — it’s time to make a new hire and it feels overwhelming, scary and like a herculean task to operationalize a candidate search. However, hiring a new team member is a very exciting milestone that will advance your organization when done right. 

We recognize all the steps and details that go into identifying candidates, from posting the opportunity to making it to the final round of interviews. With smart strategies and a systematic approach, you too can take the anxiety out of launching that search and best position your organization for a successful placement.

First, let’s break down the hiring process into smaller, more digestible and manageable steps, such as:

• Performing a staffing assessment.
• Crafting the job description.
• Promoting the role and tracking applicants.
• Initial screening interviews. 

Who doesn’t love crossing off to-do items? When outlining a timeline with the specific tasks related to the search, checking off accomplished tasks helps our clients create a sense of progress and movement. Here’s a closer look at each step.

Understand Your Organization’s Needs With a Staffing Assessment 

Staffing assessments are important because they provide the opportunity to take a step back and think about your organization’s key goals (related to its mission) and how you can structure your staffing to support them. Oftentimes, an open position means an opening to addressing stubborn management, personnel or cultural issues through restructuring responsibilities. We recommend focusing on listening to key stakeholders (professionals and lay) to zero in on the skills that will be required of the new professional.

When thinking about a staffing assessment for your own organization, here are a few conversation topics to discuss and explore:

• Examine your current organizational structure and staffing roles that already exist, and which of these roles touch development.
• Explore what the key skill sets are for each role already in existence and where gaps exist.
• Analyze and assess where the development professional fits and what the critical skills sets are required of the role.
• Determine which organizational stakeholders (board chair, program director, marketing professional, etc.) you can bring into the conversation to have their perspectives on how a development professional can complement and supplement the roles already in place?

Setting Expectations With the Job Description

Next comes one of the most critical steps — the long-awaited crafting of the job description. We not only view the job description as a communication tool that shares expectations and describes the role, but as a marketing tool to showcase an organization’s mission and culture, and attract talented candidates. 

Think about the job description as a resource to demonstrate the bigger picture of how this position contributes to achieving your nonprofit’s goals and how the must-have qualifications align with the role's hard and soft skills that the position demands. The job description is a powerful tool that often serves as the candidate's first interaction with the organization.

Build a Robust Candidate Pool by Promoting the Role

It is time to decide where you are going to post the position and on what channels. What job posting sites match up most with your audience for candidates? To whom in your network can you send customized outreach with the job specs to garner applicants? And who can share your social post to help spread the word on LinkedIn? 

Creating marketing strategies to promote the role, and leveraging your network can help in reaching strong candidates. We also recommend having a spreadsheet and ranking system ready to track your candidates and see who rises to the top.

We encourage nonprofits to give extra thought about full-time versus part-time status, remote work options and hybrid arrangements, which can impact who applies for the role. By proactively defining what the role will require, it will give the candidate even more clarity on day-to-day operations and expectations. 

On this similar note, be sure to define realistic goals that your organization hopes the new hire can achieve in years one, two and three. Working through these goals aligns everyone’s expectations early on.

Meet the Candidates

Now for the most exciting part — meeting the candidates directly. You can conduct virtual, 30-minute “meet and greets” to hear the top candidates' stories and passions, and to continue your evaluation. Strategic questions about competencies the role requires allow candidates to bring their skills to life, including how they leverage technology, build consensus and partnership and solicit donations. During these meetings, note communication styles, narratives shared and critical thinking in real time as well as put on your “donor hats” to understand how these skills might translate into a donor meeting.

After these initial conversations, gather key stakeholders again to share your thoughts on top candidates and get their input. Consider bringing a few different stakeholders to the second-round interviews to gather diverse perspectives. The second conversation is a chance to probe deeper into a candidate’s approach to development, what they are looking for in the next stage of their career and how they would fit the organization’s needs if they were to take on the role.

The preceding post was provided by an individual unaffiliated with NonProfit PRO. The views expressed within do not directly reflect the thoughts or opinions of NonProfit PRO.