How to recruit amazing charity employees

How to Recruit Amazing

Charity Employees

Rob Hayter, Director, TPP Not for Profit

www.tpp.co.uk

http://www.tpp.co.uk/

We will look at:

• How can you make your role appeal to the best candidates?

Is it all about salary?

• Putting together job descriptions and person specifications

• How to ‘sell’ your organisation to candidates at interview

• What are the best questions to ask when interviewing and what

questions can you legally ask?

• How can you ensure that new hires will work well with your existing

team?

How to Recruit Amazing Charity Employees



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Mistakes:


• Not asking the right interview questions

• Not recruiting for a cultural fit

• Relying solely on interview

• Not checking references

• Automatically rejecting candidates


Mistakes:


• Copying and pasting

• Missing the opportunity to sell your organisation

• The Purple Squirrel

• Asking ‘illegal’ interview questions

• Mis-handling applications


How can you make your role appeal:

• Is it all about salary?

• Career development

• Values & culture

• Flexible working & Pension



How can you make your role appeal:

• Flexible working highly desirable – 15% of orgs still offer nothing

• Find solutions to problems

o Low salary? Offer excellent benefits / job stability

o Remote location? Offer homeworking, flexible hours

o Less ‘sexy’ cause? Shout about impact

o Smaller organisation? Taking on more responsibility



Job description & person specification:

• Forces you to think about skills and experience and type of person

required for role

• May want to change role/shift team responsibilities

• Allows recruiter to work more effectively and quickly

• Manage candidate expectations

• Use as checklist for shortlisting and interviews

• Use to assess performance after hire




• Be as specific as possible (responsibilities, deadlines, KPIs)

• Leave room for development & growth

• Be careful with your wording, e.g. is a qualification required or

would someone who is qualified by experience (QBE) be suitable?

• Do not discriminate on gender, age, ethnicity, sexuality or health

• Ask employees and beneficiaries their opinion




• Job title, position in the company, line manager and reports

• Location

• Summary of the general nature, main purpose and objectives

• Main duties or tasks

• Skills/qualifications showing essential and desirable

• Specialist requirements, e.g. “knowledge of Raiser’s Edge”

• Salary and benefits

• Examples of typical projects to illustrate the requirements




• Technical, organisational and creative skills and abilities

• Specific qualifications or education required for the role

• Level of experience needed in either similar organisations or

equivalent roles

• The type of personality that would fit in with your team, and with

your organisation’s ethos

• Character traits that are likely to help them to do the job effectively

• Any preferred criteria, e.g. volunteering, causal knowledge





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• Hands on Mangler

• Good language skulls

• Excellent communication skills written and herbal

• Highly motivated team layer

• Working crossly with customers

• Excellency attention to detail

• Provided justification to additional stuffing requirements




Selling your organisation:

• PREPARE!

• Find out what each candidate wants

• Know your organisation / benchmark

• Sell the mission

• Talk about the future

• Employer brand and office culture

• Don’t duck issues




The art of conducting an interview:


• PREPARE! (again)

• Listen and allow the candidate talk

• Be positive

• Share some information

• Use panel interviews or a neutral third party

• Consider personality tests

• Ask candidate to visit onsite

• Consider a trial work period

• Pre-employment socialising


The art of conducting an interview:


• Behavioural questioning:

o Candidates give examples of specific past situations and how

they behaved

o Past performance predicts future behaviour

o Judging competency, rather than interviewing skill

o Follow up examples to get more detail

o Difficult to exaggerate or ‘fudge’ answers

Interview questions:


• Tell me about yourself; why have you applied for this role?

• What do you know about our company?

• Why do you want to work for us and why should we hire you?

• What kind of environment do you like working in?

• Where do you see yourself being in 3-5 years from now?

• How would you friends and colleagues describe you?

• Why do you want to leave your current job?

• If you were offered this role, when could you start?




• Give an example of an occasion when you used logic to solve a

problem.

• Give an example of a goal you reached and tell me how you

achieved it.

• Describe a decision you made that was unpopular and how you

handled implementing it.

• Have you gone above and beyond the call of duty? If so, how?




• What do you do when your schedule is interrupted? Give an

example of how you handle it.

• Have you had to convince a team to work on a project they weren't

thrilled about? How did you do it?

• Have you handled a difficult situation with a co-worker? How?

• Tell me about how you worked effectively under pressure.


Assessing interviews:


• Rate each answer with a scoring scale

o 4 or 5 = good or excellent demonstration of competency

o 2 or 3 = below average or adequate

o 0 or 1 = didn’t answer, or poor

• Scoring helps to avoid bias and manage panels

• Make detailed notes and keep them!


Place of Birth, Ethnicity or Religion

• Don’t ask: What country are you from? Where were you born?

• Do ask: Are you eligible to work in the UK?

• Don’t ask: What is your native language?

• Do ask: This job requires someone who speaks more than one language.

What languages are you fluent in?

• Don’t ask: What religion do you practice? Which religious holidays do you

observe?

• Do ask: Can you work in the days/schedule required for this role?




Marital Status, Children or Sexual Preference

• Don’t ask: Do you have or plan to have children?

• Do ask: Are you available to work overtime on occasion? Can you travel?

• Don’t ask: How many children do you have? Do you have childcare

arrangements in place if we need you to work out of hours?

• Do ask: This job may require some overtime work on short notice. Is this a

problem for you? What days/hours are you available to work?

• Don’t ask: Is this your maiden name?

• Do ask: Are any of your references or qualifications under another name?

• Don’t ask: If you went on maternity leave, would you come back to work

afterwards?

• Do ask: What are your long term career goals?




Gender or Age

• Don’t ask: We’ve always had a woman/man in this role. How do you think

you will handle it?

• Do ask: What can you bring to this role?

• Don’t ask: How do you feel about managing men/women?

• Do ask: Tell me about your previous experience of managing staff.

• Don’t ask: How old are you? Just don’t!

• Don’t ask: When did you graduate?

• Do ask: Do you have a degree or other qualification related to this role?




Questions to avoid

Location

• Don’t ask: How far would your commute be?

• Do ask: Are you able to start work at 9am?

Lifestyle Choices

• Don’t ask: Do you belong to any clubs or organisations?

• Do ask: Are you a member of any professional group that’s relevant to this

role?

• Don’t ask: Are you a member of the Territorial Army/Special

Constabulary/Other Volunteer Force?

• Do ask: Do you have any commitments that would require extensive time

away from work?



Questions to avoid

Disability or Illness

• Don’t ask: How many sick days did you take last year?

• Do ask: How many unscheduled days of work did you miss last year?

Height or weight

• Don’t ask: How tall are you?

• Do ask: Are you able to reach items on a shelf that’s five feet tall?

• Don’t ask: How much do you weigh?

• Do ask: Are you able to lift boxes weighing up to 50 pounds?



Ensuring new hires work:


• Onboarding


Onboarding:


• Ensure stakeholders are clear on:

o Management style

o Knowledge

o Relationships

o Values


Onboarding:


• Make sure they have a workstation, email, telecoms, network

drives etc set up.

• Order business cards

• Make sure key events and meetings are in their diary

• Update your org chart, telephone directories, staff list, seating plans

• Make sure the new employee knows when and where to report and

who to ask for at reception


Onboarding:


• Book time for induction

• Written plan of their objectives and responsibilities

• Make sure it is clear what is needed to pass probation.

• Have all paperwork ready to be completed

• Introductions

• Assign a mentor or buddy at the same level

• Take them out to lunch with a group of colleagues

• Run through your organisation’s formal policies, as well as informal

conventions like dress code, sickness procedure etc


Onboarding:


• Set regular (weekly if possible) meetings

• Arrange a formal progress meeting (often a probation review) after

three months.

• In the unfortunate situation where things are not working out, act

promptly.


For more information, contact us at:

2 Old College Court, 29 Priory Street, Ware, Hertfordshire, SG12 0DE

020 7198 6060

[email protected]

www.tpp.co.uk

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Thank you for listening


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