Hiring In Today's Job Market

Originally Posted on The Nonprofit Job Seeker

Recruiting the right employees is a tough task in today's job market. Nonprofits must be diligent in the hiring process if they are to be successful. It all starts with understanding the needs of the organization.

That sounds simple enough. There's an opening for a major gift officer at the organization so the ideal course of action would be to look for someone with that kind of background, right? That's the basic idea, but there needs to be more long-term thinking involved. An organization should not only hire for today's needs, but also for the future. Avoid the temptation to simply fill a pressing need with a candidate who seems promising. Make sure they fit the organization's plans going forward.

Next, you should take a step back and analyze the position you are attempting to fill. Ask yourself what kind of people do this job the best. For example, if your organization needed a new CEO, you would probably want to look for people with exceptional leadership abilities.

You should also remember to take advantage of your greatest resource: Your current employees. There's a good possibility that one of them has done the job in question before, and you can use their knowledge to figure out who the ideal candidate is. This will help refine your selection process, making the probability of a bad hire less likely.

It's a competitive job market out there, and there will be tons of candidates knocking at your door. It's up to you to use these tips to narrow the applicants to find your finalist.