Nonprofit Professionals Advisory Group

An Overview of the Search Process - Getting from Vacancy to Hire

Bad hires are expensive. They weaken morale, devastate momentum, and cost already cash-strapped nonprofits badly needed funds. In fact, studies have shown that a bad hire can end up costing a nonprofit more in the end than paying for professional help at the beginning of a search. Some nonprofits wouldn't dream of doing a search without professional help; however, some nonprofits can't afford it or don't need it.

According to Boston-based executive search consultant for nonprofits Susan Egmont of Egmont Associates, "A full search is a time-intensive process and often the hire is the most important decision the organization will make in the near future." Determining whether an organization ought to do a search in house, or hire a search firm for assistance, however, is a matter of understanding the entire search process and evaluating capacity to absorb the hours and energy involved. Egmont cautions nonprofit managers to consider the following questions: "If you knew it might take 200 hours of your time, would you volunteer to direct the search while you continue to meet current demands? How prepared do you feel to take on the many complex and dynamic issues of a search at once?"

A search may take anywhere from three to five months – Egmont's 200 hours are standard across the executive recruiting world – depending on the seniority, complexity and situation of the position and nonprofit. Integral to any search are the following steps:

Evaluating the New Terrain: From the moment an employee announces his/her resignation or is fired, nonprofits should examine the role they filled, the staff around them and the direction of the organization. A search is an ideal opportunity to redirect projects, refocus stakeholders and reevaluate the strengths and weaknesses of a staff. Often, that macro-view has already been taken when a new position is created.

Writing a Job Description: From the determination of direction, focus and staff strength, the nonprofit will need to write a position description. These documents serve as a marketing tool for the organization, enticing passive job seekers and allowing active ones to determine their fit.

Effective Advertising: Once a position has been defined and described, you need to distribute the job opening far and wide, but in a way that casts the net in a strategic and cost-effective way.

Receiving and Sorting Through Resumes: Expect that you will receive 100-200 or more resumes for any opening posted. Be prepared to sort through each of the resumes, cover letters and additional materials, and be prepared to acknowledge their receipt.

Looking Beyond the Active Job Seeker: Push, prod, cajole, harangue your board, staff, funders, community members, competition, colleagues in like organizations and other stakeholders into producing names of potential candidates. Often the best job seeker is the passive one, the one you will have to convince to apply. You'll need to work extra hard to locate and secure these candidates, but your search will be the richer for them.

Determining a Pool of Candidates: Once you've whittled the enormous pile of paperwork down to 15-20 reasonably qualified, interested candidates, expect to spend upwards of a week or two just interviewing potential candidates by telephone. From there, you'll need to make decisions about who to bring in front of a search committee or hiring manager. If you run a series of face-to-face interviews before candidates meet with a search committee or hiring manager, expect to spend at least another week on organizing the logistics, holding the interviews and doing the appropriate follow-up.

Running a Successful Interview Session: Spend extra time ensuring that search committee members or hiring managers understand the goals from the interviews and are ready to present a uniform and enticing face of the organization. Candidates heavily appraise organizations based on this sole interaction, and expect you to be at your best as well. If you appear to be fumbling, disorganized, out of step with each other, or worse, allow them to run into other candidates in the hallway, you stand no chance of a successful hire.

Reference Checks: Reference checks are among the most important work of a search. Thorough referencing – which can be done at the end of a search but also, in part, prior to face-to-face interviews as a time saver – is the only way to ensure you are hiring a track record and not an interviewee.

Negotiation: At the end of the process, both parties need to be happy with the result. Many a search is restarted because of a negotiation gone sour. Be prepared with two finalists, and make sure that no one is surprised when numbers start being vocalized.

Getting Help: The Benefits of a Search Firm

Search consultants, or headhunters, can be of enormous benefit to nonprofits without the energy or time to handle a search internally. They eliminate the need for an organization to dedicate 200 hours to a search, but ask of them an average of one third of the successful hire's first year's cash compensation in return. Some firms have minimum fees, and others will perform a la carte search firm services (i.e., just reference checks) on an hourly basis. "Willingness to pay," describes Lois L. Lindauer, director of Lois L. Lindauer Searches, an executive search firm in Boston, "relates to perception of value received. The hiring process is simple; it has concrete steps that are readily understood. But simple doesn't translate into easy and the execution is layered and difficult. Executive search firms earn their fees by being expert in finding and qualifying candidates."

Fresh Eyes: From the beginning of a search, an intuitive and insightful search consultant provides an outside and unbiased view of your organization, adding critical depth and perspective to your job description, while spinning your organization with a fresh and exciting perspective for new applicants. Rebecca Worters leads Capability Company of Raleigh, North Carolina, and prides herself on "going the extra mile to help nonprofits define positions in the context of their missions, and working with key staff and board members to hone their expectations of potential candidates." Doing so, she explains, sets up the nonprofit for a successful hire by "bringing the organization into strategic alignment, galvanizing energy and generally exciting board, staff and funders about the organization's future."

An Expanded Candidate Pool: After working with an organization to determine the direction of the position and writing a job description, a search firm will advertise, call and mail everyone they can and should about the search. A nonprofit using a search firm should normally expect to be presented with a final pool of 6-8 qualified, interested candidates a couple of months into the process. These candidates will come from advertising, their databases and from new networking; by not using a search firm, you may cut your pool by one to two thirds and you will most certainly cut its quality. Larry Slesinger, an executive recruiter and nonprofit management consulting based in suburban Washington, DC, understands that it can be very hard for busy senior staff to carve out the time required to do a thorough search. "Search firms," Slesinger explains, "develop their candidate pools by spending time every day on the search; and as a result, they can uncover candidates that the organization itself may not find, especially if the consultant has a network of sources (informants) who can identify promising candidates and help spread the word."

A Specialization: Headhunters who specialize in a specific function or geographic region produce additional benefits for nonprofits as well. Susan Egmont was recently hired to take on a search after an organization had advertised and screened the first group of responses. "I was given a group of 70 resumes when I started," Egmont explains, "and on first reading, I already knew 30 of the applicants." In addition to taking over much of the leg work of cold calling and being able to advertise a position more effectively, "a good search consultant," Egmont explains, "knows the market, many of the candidates who are searching, and which have the most to offer." Using a firm, especially one matching your geographic area or mission niche, helps eliminate wasted time, money and effort.

Providing a Buffer: Almost as important as going about getting interesting candidates is how an organization deals with the disposal of the unqualified ones. In addition to removing the job of sending hundreds of resume acknowledgement letters from an overburdened nonprofit manager's task list, Larry Slesinger places some of the value of search consultants in their ability to "be a buffer between the organization and candidates that need to be handled delicately, such as candidates recommended by board members, funders, and other key people, or candidates who are friends of the key decision makers but might not be right for the job." That buffer can also extend to the negotiation process, where the headhunter can take much of the sting out of an offer that doesn't meet expectations.

Deeper Knowledge About Candidates: Good headhunters have interviewed hundreds if not thousands of candidates and have gathered through experience or instinct a sense of people that allows search committees to save enormous amounts of time. Further, a headhunter will spend ten times as much time referencing a candidate as they will interviewing one. Simply put, the person who shows up for an interview isn't the same person who shows up for a job day in and day out, and the time, expertise and experience of a headhunter will unearth the track record you are about to hire. In addition, many headhunters check credentials (degrees), credit histories and criminal records.

A Guarantee: In most cases, the use of a search firm will result in a first-class hire. Even so, many search firms will provide a one year guarantee if they are retained to perform a full search. Lois Lindauer cautions that, "In the fluid business and professional environment in which we operate, this guarantee can save [nonprofits] twice as much in expensive management time." This guarantee protects an organization if the new hire leaves for any reason during the first year, and promises that the search firm will do the search again at no additional cost to the organization, other than the recruiter's customary reimbursable expenses such as travel, communications, supplies and the like.

FIVE PEARLS OF WISDOM:

Determining Whether to Hire a Search Firm or Keep the Process In-House
Doing a search internally is difficult; hiring a search firm is expensive. Determine which method is right for you by asking yourself these questions:

Does my organization have the capacity and the resources to devote enough time and energy to a four month search process, including processing application, making hundreds of cold calls, and managing logistics and emotions of a complex and dynamic search?

Can I find four to six interested and qualified candidates through advertising and outreach? Have any appropriate candidates already been identified by the board, staff or other stakeholders?

Will my efforts, skills, and abilities serve as a good marketing tool to the outside world about my organization?

Will I be able to look objectively at internal candidates as well as known potential candidates, to discover talent I didn't realize existed, or bear the pressure of rejecting a colleague?

Am I willing to ask tough, detailed questions during reference checks, and do I understand the intricacies of confidentiality?

Laura Gassner Otting is founder and president of Nonprofit Professionals Advisory Group, a niche consulting firm dedicated to strengthening the capacity of nonprofits and their staff, and is available to discuss individual resumes, cover letters, and job search strategies.

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