Hire the Right Great People
With the economy in as tough a spot as it is (unless you’re on Wall Street, where times are a-booming and you’ve found a handy place for those bailout dollars), you’re going to get more applicants than you know what to do with for any positions that you have open. While an expanded applicant pool gives you more options and allows you to think more broadly about the kinds of skills and experience you need on board, it also requires you to be more focused about selecting the right person for the job.
So this week, in my first ever Three Things post, I’m passing along some of what we’ve learned at Democratic GAIN, where I’ve been the Executive Director since 2007, about finding the right fit for any job opening:
1. Write a job description that narrows the field. Before you get started actually writing the description, spend some time thinking through just exactly what you are looking for in the ideal candidate and what this new employee will actually be doing day to day. While you’re pondering, remember that you can teach facts but you cannot teach personality. If you need an extrovert to who will be able to make cold calls, chase potential partners down in the street, and tap into a big network to scare up resources, be clear about that. If you need someone who will hunker down and be a work horse, able to churn out vast quantities of work product with limited social interaction during the day, write that down.
2. Welcome a strong, broad pool of applicants. Many of us rely only on our personal network to build our applicant list. You know, email all of your friends and professional colleagues, ask them to do the same, and hope you get a few good folks from it. Certainly using your personal network is one important tool in your toolbox, but don’t just stop there. Doing so will most likely not provide you with the best candidates…and it certainly won’t get you a well-rounded pool from which to choose.
There are many great job boards out there from which progressive organizations can pluck talent. My former organization, Democratic GAIN, Change.org, and Idealist.org, just to name a few that have extensive job boards. Not only do these sites offer talent who are specifically looking for work in the progressive and non-profit sector (unlike the Monster.coms of the world that cater to general audiences), these sites are very reasonably priced to post your positions. [Shameless plug alert] Democratic GAIN even hosts a resume database that contains thousands of political and advocacy professionals that you can proactively search!
3. Ask questions in the interview that get to the heart of how each applicant works. What’s the difference between: “Are you a good multitasker?” and “Tell me about a time when you had to juggle multiple priorities at once.”? Well, for the first question, you obviously want “yes” to be the answer, everyone you interview will say “yes” and you won’t actually learn anything about anyone. The second question both gets to the heart of each individual’s actual professional experiences and provides you with real information that also lets you compare applicants.
Make sure you ask every person you interview the same set of questions. This will allow you to compare apples to apples. Build a list of specific questions based around what this employee will actually be doing on a daily-basis and that get to the core of what inherent skills they must possess to get the job done.
-Nikki Enfield