An article in Third Sector entitled
'Unstructured interviews are a bad way to recruit' by Gill Taylor got
me thinking yesterday. Gill is right, going on your gut instinct
alone when recruiting could result in you employing the best blagger
rather then the best candidate for the job. The problem with
interviews is that they are an unnatural environment - stressful for
the candidate who will probably be very nervous and on best behaviour giving answers that
will impress the panel. The panel in amongst scoring the candidates
experience will be thinking, is this person a good fit for us? Will
their personality work with our team? That is where gut instinct
comes in, can take over and get it wrong!
To give yourself the best chance of
hiring the best candidate for the job you need to make sure you have a robust job
description that clearly sets out the role responsibilities and has a
measurable person specification. Whether you use an application form or
CV and a covering letter, drilling down into what someone has
personally achieved is key to determining if they can do the job. In the case of hiring fundraisers, a CV
that shows 'personally responsible for raising millions for x cause'
is great, but finding out what part the individual actually played in
bringing in the money is crucial as fundraising is often collaborative. Finally, whether its through face to face, a
direct mail pack, a corporate pitch or a trust application
fundraisers need to inspire. Inspiration and passion for a cause are
not an easy things to measure but a presentation and a well thought
out work exercise could help make it more visible. Put all the above together and you'll certainly make it easier to find 'The One'.
Agree completely, Polly.
ReplyDeleteAsking something like "Thank you for your CV Mrs Bloggs. I notice that you describe yourself as a highly successful leader of fundraising teams. Can you give me an example of that, please?". Followed up with "Exactly what was it that you did that led to the success?"
Is much more challenging to a candidate than simply asking "How do you go about fundraising?"
And perhaps most searching of all is "We all struggle sometimes with a part of our job. We can't be good at everything. Which is the aspect of this role which you would find hardest?"
These questions and many like them give the recruiter much better information to make a decision.
Martin Garrity
Very wise words Martin, thank you for your comments. I would also add that it is easy to get swayed by the amount of income a fundraiser has raised and this can often be misleading - the type of cause, profile etc has such a huge impact its always good to delve deeper.
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