Know Thyself. The best candidates know what they want—from and for—themselves. Nonprofit employers can sense when you are looking for a job versus looking to make a difference. Share your story and demonstrate how you can deliver impact. Ask candid questions. Rather, ask direct questions—what are the goals, obstacles and results required—so you understand the real job at hand. Focus on the success factors that a company needs, and demonstrate how your initiative and experience fits into the larger picture. Conduct your own performance review. Ask the interviewer if they have any concerns about your qualifications. This allows any lingering concerns to be immediately addressed and, gives you an opportunity to demonstrate how you handle challenging conversations.

1. Assess impact and potential. Don’t let first impressions blind you. Spend enough time with each candidate to really assess their curiosity, experience, and determination to succeed. 2. Don’t be afraid to define the results you want. Candid conversations drive successful results. Don’t be afraid to define the quantifiable results that you need during the interview process. You’ll be able to quickly determine who’s up to the task and who’s not. 3. Be consistent with your questions—and stay on track. Prepare your questions in advance and stick to them—with every interview. It’s easy to get off-track and run out of time if the conversation turns to topics other than the ones intended. You can follow the natural path of a conversation, but don’t let diversions keep you from learning what you need to know.

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, and administrative costs, HR professionals project that an organization can easily spend thousands of dollars on a hire that has gone wrong. Most so called bad hires should not have happened in the first place. Given that the cost of a hire that’s gone wrong—generally estimated to be anywhere between $4,000-$12,000—it’s hard to understand why you wouldn’t use a professional recruitment agency. Eight Reasons Why You Should Hire a Professional Recruitment Agency 1. Increased Probability of Success Managers do not hire staff often enough to become experts in the field. Whereas, a good recruiter brings to the table a high level of expertise in recruiting and employment law, an extensive candidate network, and experience in the marketplace – skills that most do not have. There is no greater stress to staff or an organization than hiring poorly. Professional recruiters increase your probability of success. 2. Save Time, and Time is Money The more time it takes to find the right person to hire, the more…

The American Association of University Women (AAUW), headquartered in Washington, DC, is the nation’s leading voice promoting equity and education for women and girls. The organization fights to end wage discrimination and open doors for women in the workplace. Job creation and economic opportunity are critical issues for women, many of whom continue to struggle with economic insecurity and wage discrimination. Despite civil rights laws and advancements in women’s economic status, workplace discrimination still persists. Typically, women who work full-time take home about 80 cents for every dollar a full-time male worker earns. Over a lifetime (47 working years), the total estimated loss of earnings of women compared with men are $700,000 for a high school graduate, $1.2 million for a college graduate, and $2 million for a professional school graduate. AAUW’s report Graduating to a Pay Gap: The Earnings of Women and Men One Year after College Graduation found an unexplainable 7% difference in the earnings of male and female college graduates one year after graduation, even after accounting for many factors, including college major, occupation, industry, sector, hours worked, workplace flexibility, experience, educational attainment, enrollment status, GPA, college selectivity, age, race/ethnicity, region, marital status, and motherhood. Clearly, the…

You may love your job working in a professional or trade association—or any other nonprofit organization for that matter—but that doesn’t mean that you don’t have to pay your bills on time. So when those salary survey participation offers and the subsequent reports show up in your inbox, it’s a pretty good opportunity to learn something. Most employers want to pay their staff competitive wages. The cost of training can be high, and turnover is rough on everyone. Knowing what the competition is paying for similar jobs is important to attracting and retaining happy staff. Understanding the bucks and perks being offered down the street can help you when it comes time to negotiate a compensation package—whether it’s yours or that of an employee. So a little homework is in order, and the 2016-2017 Association Salaries, Staffing & Trends Report from PNP Staffing Group is a good place to start. Ranjita Chattopadhyay is a writer for Paycheck India. And although you may not be contemplating a move to India, he didn’t mince words about the value of employees, employers, and candidates reading salary reports. In his article about the importance of salary surveys for the employee and employer, Ranjita summarily…