September 12, 2016 Recruitment, Volunteer Management

Does your NFP recruit volunteers differently from paid staff? Starlight Foundation’s Kerry Shields explains why that needs to change

Kerry Shields is the National Volunteer Manager at Starlight Children’s Foundation, a not-for-profit that seeks to improve the lives of children and teens who are seriously ill or in hospital. Kerry’s team is responsible for attracting, recruiting, engaging and retaining more than 3,000 volunteers, whose contribution of more than 55,000 hours equated to over $1.6 million in value to the organisation in 2015.

Ahead of her presentation at the 2016 Not-For-Profit People Conference, we spoke to Kerry about the value of approaching volunteer recruitment in the same way as paid staff.

September 7, 2016 Interviewing, Recruitment

The best way to rate candidate interviews at your NFP

So you’ve advertised a job, shortlisted candidates and done your interviews. Now which candidate should you hire?

How do you differentiate between good candidates who might have different skillsets, experience and personalities?

June 15, 2016 Human Resources, Interviewing, Recruitment

Does anyone in your organisation work with children? Here’s five steps to improve your recruitment practices

Everyone cares about the safety of kids. But making your organisation safe for children starts long before you bring on new staff or volunteers. From advertising and conducting interviews to performing background and reference checks, the safety of the children starts with your organisation’s core recruitment practices.

May 16, 2016 Interviewing, Recruitment

Why you should hire people with emotional intelligence – and five tips on how to do it

Research shows that people who understand and manage their own and others’ emotions make better leaders. While that may sound obvious, in fact many managers lack such basic self-awareness and social skills.

Want to build a team – or a whole organisation – of staff who possess those fundamental qualities? Here are five tips to help you hire for emotional intelligence.

April 20, 2016 Human Resources, Interviewing, Recruitment

Three questions to ask when interviewing and assessing serial job-hoppers

The best way to rate candidate interviews at your NFP

Restarting the recruitment process sooner than anticipated can be a real drain on resources, so it’s natural to respond by avoiding candidates whose CVs reveal a track record of job-hopping. But what things should you look out for to ensure you don’t miss out on a star recruit?

March 23, 2016 People Analytics, Recruitment

If your NFP isn’t measuring these five things, your recruitment is probably suffering

Imagine if your organisation didn’t keep track of its financial data – what its income and expenses were? How could it possibly survive?

And yet, many NFP organisations don’t track basic data about their recruitment process. And that’s almost as bad.

March 2, 2016 Human Resources, Interviewing, Recruitment

Want to avoid hiring toxic staff? Do this

$50,000. That’s how much hiring a toxic worker could cost your organisation, according to a 2012 CareerBuilder survey.

While a 2015 Harvard Business School report is a little more conservative in its estimate of $12,000, the take-away is clear: toxic staff can cost your organisation dearly.

February 3, 2016 Human Resources, Organisational Strategy, Recruitment

Seven steps to creating a strong Employee Value Proposition for your NFP

In our last post, we revealed why an Employee Value Proposition, or EVP, should be a vital component in shaping your organisation’s HR policies.

In case you missed it, an EVP is the unique characteristics and benefits your organisation provides to staff in exchange for their skills, time and expertise.

February 1, 2016 Human Resources, Organisational Strategy, Recruitment

Six reasons your NFP needs an Employee Value Proposition

It’s fair to say that most people working in the NFP sector aren’t primarily motivated by money. So what do staff get out of working at your organisation? Enter the Employee Value Proposition, or EVP – recognised as an effective way to answer this question.

January 18, 2016 Organisational Strategy, Recruitment

9 essential elements of your NFP’s recruitment process

What does your NFP’s usual recruitment process look like? Is it a haphazard, unruly beast, or a well-oiled machine? If your organisation either doesn’t recruit regularly, or if your HR person or team doesn’t give you much help, then you probably need to take a good, hard look at the process you use for recruiting new staff – from start to finish. Here’s how to put together a winning recruitment process for your organisation.