Want great recruits? Assemble a great team

Jennifer Smith is marketing manager at the Unemployment Services Trust (UST), which provides nonprofits with workforce solutions that reduce costs and strengthen missions. For more HR tips and nonprofit best practices, sign up for UST’s monthly eNewsletter, and get the latest articles, guides and webinars delivered directly to your inbox.

The hiring process can be daunting, time-consuming, and burdensome. For nonprofits especially, hiring the best-fit employee the first time around is vital. Often working with a limited budget and smaller staff size, nonprofits must find a candidate that can quickly adapt and effectively work towards mission advancement objectives.

But how do you find the right employee? It’s simple: Recruit a hiring team internally before recruiting any potential staff.

The hiring team you assemble should be your recruitment backbone – helping you create the hiring timeline, outline specific role responsibilities, and conduct interviews.

Here are six simple tips to keep in mind when creating and working with your recruitment team:

1. Select relevant team members. Pick people who have past experience with the incoming employee’s job role, as well as those who will be working directly with the new hire. In general, the larger the organization, the more hiring team members you’ll need.

2. Assign individual responsibilities. Decide which members are in charge of drafting the job description, advertising the job opening, organizing resumes, interviewing, making the final decision, etc.

3. Identify current strengths and weaknesses. As a team, identify your organization’s strategic goals. What are your employees doing right? Where is there room for improvement?

4. Decide which skills will address knowledge gaps. Once your hiring team identifies the skill gaps in your nonprofit, list the specific tasks your new hire will be responsible for. Being honest about your nonprofit’s needs will make it easier when it’s time to write the job description and requirements.

5. Create a timeline. Craft a detailed schedule that maps out your entire hiring process. This should give deadlines for the job description, job promotional efforts, candidate interviews, and the final decision.

6. Encourage open communication. Maintaining an open dialogue with your recruiting staff will not only build trust, but lower the risk of making the wrong hiring decision. Listening to both positive and negative feedback can only strengthen future hiring endeavors.

Having the support of a dedicated hiring team can help speed up the hiring process, while increasing efficiency. Knowing when and how to engage your hiring staff can help you identify the best possible candidate for any potential position – giving your nonprofit the edge it needs to accomplish mission objectives.

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