- Find passion
Connect with and network with candidates that passionately choose to be involved with the mission. Passion is the leading reason talented staff chooses to stay and work for challenging nonprofit projects and positions due to their love for the cause and the people. Show the candidate how your nonprofit appreciates its staff and look at the candidate's history before considering them for a position. This will shed more light on their long-term passion for your mission, work, and their potential. Be careful about the kind of people you want to employ to carry your mission.
- Use more than one recruiting channel
Different recruiting channels can help you get the right people to help the organization achieve its cause. Promoting open positions using multiple channels expands the organization’s reach on candidates and increases the number of potential individuals to choose from to fill specific positions. Start with your website on the careers page, where the available and upcoming opportunities are listed. Also, take advantage of job boards and career websites such as Career Builder, LinkedIn, and Indeed to reach a larger number of people.
- Consider the title
While advertising for job opportunities, carefully consider the title and ensure that the salary range you are quoting reflects the position. For example, only advertise for the position of Chief Development Officer if you can pay the salary. If you cannot pay for that talent, try something lower because advertising for an opening and failing to pay appropriately will affect your image. Providing inflated titles scares the best talent, and most of them will not apply for the job. Most nonprofits make this mistake. Although big titles might be attractive to some, for many, it is unattractive and works against the intended purpose of getting as many candidates to apply as possible.
- Write a truly compelling introduction and description for the job
Explaining the talent and letting people know precisely the type of people you want is the difference-maker in recruitment. Talk about your team and how amazing and inspiring it is to work with your team members. Talk about the work you do and how the role will be beneficial to the recruits. Be excited when talking to the candidates. Express something about the candidates and their backgrounds that excited you and talk about how exciting the new job will be for them.
- Seek help from recruiting firms
To access the best employees, sometimes it is a good idea to seek help from nonprofit recruiting firms that have experience in identifying ideal candidates quickly and efficiently. These firms build talent pools over time for nonprofits and make it easy to identify the best fit for a specific position. This makes it easy for non-profits to manage and interview prospective individuals efficiently and to onboard them. This option reduces the burden for human resource departments and hiring teams while also streamlining the recruitment process.
