Avoiding Hiring Pitfalls, Actually: A Guide for Nonprofit Leaders

As a former executive director, I sometimes lurk in social media groups for executive directors. As you might imagine, most of the questions are about personnel issues, including hiring processes. An all-too-common scenario is getting to what the organization thought was the end of a recruitment process, only to not be able to make a decision. A few weeks ago, I counseled a hiring manager to give themselves the Friday afternoon present of choosing between two candidates. However, others in the group suggested that the manager add more rounds, insert a cocktail hour that was also a social experiment, require a presentation or one-year plan, add more people to the process for another round of questions, choose someone to offset the leader’s strengths and weaknesses, pick the person who best matches “culture”, ask for more references, or do some body or mind contortions I’ve blocked at this point because of the trauma. If you get to the end of a hiring process and you don’t have a clear candidate, might I suggest that you never had a clear process at all?

Here are some suggested steps for having a clear hiring process:

1. Revise or draft the job description:
   • Don’t keep recycling the job description from 1999. Not only will you find a lot of discriminatory language in it, but you’re also likely to have something that no longer meets your organization’s identity.
   • Compare the job description against other positions in the organization and your current needs.
   • A common mistake I see with executive directors is hiring someone to manage the people they don’t like. Ultimately, you cannot avoid your staff. You can think strategically about where you want your attention to flow, but you cannot outsource all problematic dynamics to a new person.
   • Avoid the temptation so common in nonprofits to make the job description at least three jobs shoved into one. Maybe a hybrid is okay, but if you’re shoehorning every unmet task into one title, you’re in for a world of hurt.
   • Don’t post a job description that is a novella. Why is your job description 12 pages long for $65K of pay?
   • List the actual salary range. (It’s the law in WA, among several other states, but be a decent human being in nonprofit and elsewhere, and don’t waste people’s time by hiding the numbers)
   • Scan that description for extraneous items (e.g., a driver’s license requirement is not necessary if a candidate can use public transit; no one should be required to like the executive director’s favorite potluck dish of ramen noodles and Jello; no one needs to lift 20 lbs and squat for 15 minutes intermittently if they are your executive director who can’t seem to get out of any Teams meetings).
   • Consider whether particular education is required or if years of experience can be substituted.
   • Include in the post what the hiring process will be and stick to it. To the extent possible, provide the estimated date ranges and your communication approach regarding updates.
   • Have clear nondiscrimination and reasonable accommodation statements. Treat requests for accommodation with respect and responsiveness. Ensure confidentiality with self-disclosure and exercise appropriate record-keeping.
2. Decide who is on the hiring panel in advance:
   • Don’t overwhelm candidates, but ensure that the people they will work with the most are part of the process.
   • Be clear with the panel members how their feedback will be used (Is it advisory to the hiring manager or the executive director? Do raw points count for an overall score of candidates? Review your employee handbook for consistency in your processes.)
   • Identify the roles of the panel members (Will they develop questions individually or collectively? Will they participate in all rounds? How will you ensure a consistent experience across candidates? It will be harder to weigh feedback later if the same set of people didn’t meet the candidates.)
   • Train your panel members in appropriate interviewing skills. While almost everyone you meet knows to not ask someone if they are pregnant, do they understand the ramifications of making discriminatory debrief comments “just among us” or taking notes that might be gendered, racist, homophobic, etc.? Do they understand the high likelihood that they will be biased towards hiring someone like themselves? How will everyone keep each other in check?
   • Have you considered using hypotheticals/scenarios with context for your hiring process to understand how the candidate thinks about situations you’re navigating? Make sure to not have a hypo that is about firing someone in the first few weeks. (You might be laughing, but I hear about this scenario so often that I want to prep candidates to respond with, “What about your organization’s dynamics is keeping you from addressing conflict?” That’s not my advice if you want the job, but c’mon.)
3. Decide what the hiring process is:
   • Activate your organization’s network for the best referrals. Spam your clients. Ask your advisory board members to share the posting. (Don’t allow your current board members to apply for roles, but that’s another post.) Get your team, especially the people most affected by this change, to share the opportunity.
   • Be genuinely welcoming. How would you welcome a potential new collaborator or donor to your office? Apply those social skills to this situation. Give people water, breaks, advance notice, a warm greeting. Make hiring humane for once.
   • Document your process. Now is a good time to examine your record retention policies.
   • Ask yourself what you are measuring in the stages of the process– and why and how.
   • Ensure your questions– and later, your assessment– align with the requirements of the job description.
   • Don’t forget about the power of your mission. While you aren’t hiring a poster child for the organization, you do want someone who understands the work and feels some attachment to it, especially when you have those days where you want to convert their job into 16 combined positions.
   • Develop a rubric for each part of the process. Whether it’s a 1-5 scale or a Yes/No, be sure to have criteria that you can refer to later. Distribute it to all panel members. Ensure everyone understands what the tool(s) are and why you are using them.
   • Consider giving questions to candidates in advance for universal accessibility.
   • Determine the time requirements for your nonprofit’s team and the candidates. Make adjustments to your staff’s workload to ensure that people can be fully present.
   • If Board members are participating in the interview process, apply the same standards to their participation as you would a staff member. Remember that unless your bylaws and/or employee handbook are different: The executive director is making the hiring decision, however, no matter how much your Board President liked a candidate. Generally, the Board hires the Executive Director (or equivalent title) and that’s all.
   • Consider whether you will compensate applicants– and at what stage– if they are required to generate new examples of work or spend the day with the team.
   • Decide what weight each part of the hiring process has. If you are looking for a development director, do you just want to know how much they have brought to organizations in the past? Or would you like to see a sample of their annual appeal letter? If you’re hiring a lawyer who will mostly do intake calls, do you care that they have not submitted a writing sample from a federal appellate case? If you are an organization that values reflection and growth, do you want to make an interview format that will reward someone who excelled at high school debate, or is there a better way to be elicit someone’s skills and perspectives?
4. Use your process steadfastly
   • We’ve all been smitten during a hiring process. Is that on your rubric? Where? Should it be on your rubric? If you make an adjustment for one candidate, then you have to do it for others
   • Communicate any changes in the process, including attendance of panel members.
   • When in doubt, convene your panel, or if you are interviewing alone– a trusted advisor– and review your numbers on the rubric.
   • If you didn’t anticipate a question that would arise or the need for some different information, it’s not too late to make a change, but consider what the costs are. Candidates are watching you, too, and can get other offers or just become annoyed.
   • Realize that you deciding to an extend an offer does not mean your process is over. Sometimes, you learn the most interesting things about a potential new coworker from how they negotiate the terms and conditions.
   • Realize your candidates are learning from you, too, and taking away impressions about your organization’s commitment to fairness, pay equity, transparency, and growth.
   • Your hiring process might surface tensions about salaries and duties in your organization. Make salary adjustments internally accordingly if the new process has put the shiny new person ahead of others with similar duties and experiences. The best retention strategy you have is treating your current employees well and that means keeping them in mind for salary adjustments before they even bring it to your attention.
   • Create a clear onboarding process, complete with goals, peer mentorships, and check-ins. Nonprofits are (in)famous for taking days to get someone an email log-in or having interns that never get introduced to the rest of the staff before their summer concludes.
   • Revisit your off boarding process, too. Consider transfers of knowledge between the person vacating the role and the incumbent. Prepare easy transfers of credentials, so your social media accounts aren’t being held hostage or no one knows how to log into SAM. (If you don’t know what SAM is, you are lucky for a moment, but you need to Google now.)

Bringing someone new to your organization isn’t all about finding the perfect fit. No one is perfect, not even you. It’s also not just about messaging. Remain focused on thoughtful forward action and realize that the real adventure is just beginning– but you did all that you could to make the introduction less painful.

If you have ideas for future posts about how to make hiring more fun and less like we’re learning ghosting from the kids, reach out to me: carrie@justice-studio.com. I’d also love to make your organization’s hiring process hum.

My Disclaimer: Justice, Actually is a blog, not a substitute for legal advice. Given that it is written by an attorney, you can safely assume it’s also a form of creative expression and a bit of advertising.