LinkedIn

9 Tips for How Associations Can Improve Hiring Practices

Association Recruitment, Nonprofit Jobs
The nonprofit workforce is the third largest of U.S. industries and at last count, this included over 93,000 trade and professional associations employing over 1.2 million people. Nearly 1 in 10 workers in Washington, DC alone are employed by associations. The cost of hiring and firing any employee is astronomical when counting the expense of time spent and the psychology of a failed choice. Between the cost of onboarding, training, coaching, staff time, wasted salary, benefits, and administrative costs, HR professionals project that an organization can easily spend thousands of dollars on a hire that has gone wrong. So how do you get it right? Here are 9 Tips for How Associations Can Improve the Hiring Process. 1. Think about your short and long-term organizational strategy. Before you conduct your first interview or draft a job description, think about your short and long-term organizational strategy. How does the new employee fit into this vision?  Are you drafting a profile for the past, or hiring toward the future? 2. Be honest about the hurdles the prospective employee will need to overcome to achieve the goals. Be brutally honest about the obstacles and opportunities that lie ahead. Don’t shy away from asking…

How to Make an Employee’s First 90 Days Successful

non profit, Nonprofit Jobs, recruiting
How to Make an Employee’s First 90 Days Successful Onboarding is vital to the success of the new employee and your business itself. Here are specific steps to make an employee’s first three months fruitful. When a new employee reports to their first day on the job, the feeling is quite similar to those first day of the school year jitters we all had as kids. And while it’s a challenge for the employee to familiarize him or herself quickly with the office, the job responsibilities, new co-workers and more, it’s just as important and stressful for their managers. Making a new hire feel comfortable and a part of the team from day one is imperative to make the employee a successful and productive member of your business. “Most companies drop the ball early on,” notes Jon Picoult, founder and principle of Watermark Consulting, a Connecticut-based consultancy that helps businesses inspire their employees by making them brand advocates.  “Imagine you’ve been wooed throughout an entire recruiting process, and then you show up on your first day and the receptionist isn’t even expecting you or your office isn’t set up. What are you going to tell your spouse when you go…

Use of Nonprofit Temps is Trending up

non profit, Nonprofit Jobs, Nonprofit Temp Staffing
Over 80% of nonprofits use temporary staff, regularly and in a variety of ways. In the for-profit sector, 96% of corporations use Temps often and regularly to manage their workforce needs. With the use of temporary staff by nonprofit organizations trending up, we took a look at the reasons why. Just as with for-profit companies, the unemployment rate is very low and the difficulty of finding qualified talent has increased. Nonprofits are finding that hiring Temps can be very cost-effective, especially when the salary budget line is tight. Temps offset the problems associated with being short-staffed, such as work not being done, grant-driven projects not completed on time, lost donor relationships, and lack of full program development and delivery. Not hiring temporary staff during staff vacancies can negatively affect the bottom line of an organization. Using Temps enables an organization to choose from a broad group of diverse candidates to meet immediate, specific, long and short-term needs. This access to talent gives even small nonprofits access to an extensive range of skills and experience that they may not otherwise be able to afford when hiring a full-time, permanent hire. Nonprofit Temp Pay Scale We analyzed Temp rates for 60 key…

What It Takes to Recruit and Retain Top Talent

Uncategorized
Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you made a job offer, the candidate accepted, and then quit, before the first day of employment rolled around?  If so, you aren’t alone. The Nonprofit Salaries & Staffing Trends Report from PNP Staffing Group shares that a remarkable 36% of nonprofits surveyed found themselves in this predicament last year. As if it couldn’t get worse, 33% of the survey respondents said they had a candidate accept, start on the job, but then resign within the first three months of employment. So what’s causing the problem? As the economy has improved hiring has catapulted, resulting in a candidate driven market. Individuals are entertaining more job offers, whether they are job hunting or not. The result is very competitive marketplace for talent. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Association sector. Associations are nonprofits, with a 501(c)(6) instead of the more widely known 501(c)(3) designation. In PNP’s Association Salaries and Staffing Trends Report, a startling 79% of respondents said that they were concerned, or somewhat concerned, about competition for talent. That’s a lot of worry about finding and keeping good employees. The result is salaries are rising. When asked, “If an…

Hiring the Right Development Professional

Uncategorized
Job interview concept with business cv resume With few exceptions, no hire is more important to a nonprofit organization than the individuals tasked with keeping the money flowing: the development team. Yet, the average length of employment for a development professional is 277 days. A study from CompassPoint and the Evelyn and Walter Hass, Jr. Fund found that 25% of respondents with development directors on staff had fired their most recent development director. Half of chief development officers plan to quit within 2 years. So what goes wrong? Quite often, it is a lack of understanding by the Executive Director as to differing fundraising skill sets and how a development professional gets the organization to goal. Development professionals, like physicians, are either generalists or specialists. Generalists have an overall understanding of all aspects of fundraising while a specialist has a laser-like focus on particular revenue streams. Understanding the difference is important—in experience, focus, pay—and results. Those who fill Director of Major Gifts, Director of Corporate & Foundations (Institutional Giving), Director of Special Events, and Director of Membership roles are considered Development Specialists. Development Generalists are those who fill Chief Development Officer, Director of Development, Development Officer, and Grants Writer roles.…