Sector Briefing No 3
August 2008

Taking a strategic approach to recruitment

This month's 'Sector Briefing' addresses an issue of concern to all third sector organisations: how to recruit and retain the right people in the right jobs.

Adelè Bird, our Director of Senior Recruitment responds to your questions on everything from salaries to interviewing techniques and, in her opinion column, challenges us all to think creatively when drafting a Person Specification. We also have an article by Tony Baxter, Associate Director of Action Planning, on whether psychometric tests should be used in the recruitment of third sector leaders, and which of the many available tools are most likely to be effective in our sector.

Aligning your ‘Person Specification’ with your organisational strategy

Adelè Bird, Director of Senior Recruitment at Action Planning, reviews the limitations of the conventional ‘Personal Specification’ and encourages colleagues to think creatively when determining the competencies and experience required in their ideal applicant. Adele has worked as a third sector recruitment consultant for over 10 years and, prior to joining Action Planning, was Head of Afghanaid UK.

I have never warmed to the phrase ‘Person Specification’. It is a cold and impersonal term which does not reflect the fact that the position will be filled by an individual with unique talents and aspirations but, love it or hate it, the Person Specification forms an extremely useful part of the recruitment process.

In theory it should give you an opportunity to think through what skills the job really requires now, and what attributes you seek in the ideal candidate. For potential candidates, it should be an indicator of the skills and experience needed and help them decide whether they could perform well in the role.

Crafting a Person Specification gives you chance to reflect on what your organisation really needs, though often this opportunity is lost as employers rush to recruit a ‘clone’ of the person who is leaving. The document can also alienate potential candidates, who may see it as a series of boxes which need to be ticked rather than a platform on which they can sell their abilities.

So how does one go about humanising and clarifying this essential piece of the recruitment kit?

Ask yourself the two most pertinent questions. Did we need that role to start with and do we still need it now? Take the time to re-examine the position in terms of the overall strategy of the organisation. This is particularly important when considering fundraising posts. Do you know whether you are best placed to grow your income through winning more statutory contracts, securing major donors, developing community fundraising, making better applications to grant-making charitable trusts, attracting corporate sponsorship or launching an income generating business?

The answer will have a crucial bearing on the skills you highlight in your Person Speciification and, if you are in doubt about where to focus your fundraising efforts, it may be better to make an interim appointment whilst you undertake a review of your fundraising strategy, possibly with outside help.

I always discourage charity clients from being overly restrictive when specifying the skills and experience which they require. Familiar phrases like “at least two years’ experience”, can impede rather than aid a good response. I also would also like to see more charities considering good applicants from outside the third sector. Those with a private sector background often bring a range of directly transferable skills, particularly to international NGOs.

I recall one particular example when I was at Afghanaid, recruiting for a post based in Kabul. I was intrigued by an application from someone currently working in Hedge Funds. I conducted a telephone interview and found her to be completely aware and savvy about the role and its requirements, as well as demonstrating a good understanding of what it would be like to be a young woman working in Kabul.

The Managing Director at the time related that had it not been for my interview report, this candidate would never have even been considered. The report convinced him to interview her; she was appointed and had a very successful time for over 4 years, being promoted up to Director level.

The charity sector will not garner innovative ideas unless it looks outside its own milieu. There is such a thing as transferable skill. Pigeonholing candidates because they do or do not tick the Person Specification is a bar to imaginative recruitment. Think that way and you may miss someone with outstanding potential, a bit like the clever young executive at Decca records who was so certain that ‘groups’ were on their way out that he turned down the Beatles.

Reinforcing interviews with psychometric tests

Tony Baxter, Associate Director at Action Planning, explains how the chances of a successful appointment can be dramatically increased by using a series of exercises, including psychometric tests. Tony has worked extensively in the public, commercial and charitable sectors and is a renowned expert in fundraising, strategy and communications. He is also a qualified psychometrician accredited by the British Psychological Society.

The third sector has to date been relatively cautious about investing in psychometric testing of job candidates, but the practice is becoming more widely adopted as charities count the cost of failed appointments.

We all have experience of applicants who perform brilliantly at interview but who subsequently disappoint in post. A well structured interview, with carefully structured questions to test experience and skills, can improve the success rate, but cannot fully substitute for the insights into personality, performance and impact on a team which psychometric tests can produce.

Research by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), reproduced in the graph below, reveals marked differences between the reliability of different forms of selection.


Interviews will always remain an important part of the selection process, not least since they ‘feel right’ to candidates and give the process ‘face validity’ but should ideally be combined with a broad range of other measures and exercises within an assessment centre. If professionally delivered to reflect the organisation's ethos and precise skills requirements, reliability levels of up to 80% can be expected (CIPD research in 800 organisations).

Typically an assessment centre will bring together 3 to 5 shortlisted candidates for a day or more of exercises and interviews. These might include: role play, group exercises, problem solving, one-to-one and panel interviews, presentations, personality assessments and work based ability tests.

To have validity, assessment centres must always be administered by trained and qualified personnel, a minimum requirement being British Psychological Society Level A & B.

There are many different tests and measures available but most have been developed for a North American audience then adapted for the UK. I believe that many of these are culturally flawed so recommend using at least one instrument developed for our own home market. I recommend:

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The ‘Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal’ that measures higher level verbal reasoning ability. ‘W-GCTA’ norms were produced from a UK sample of over 1500.

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The ‘Rust Advanced Numerical Reasoning Appraisal’ used in conjunction with the ‘W-GCTA’ gives a seamless and demanding appraisal of the high level skills needed by managerial and professional staff.

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‘Orpheus’ provides a comprehensive measure of a candidate’s personality, how they might fit into the team, how they will cope with stress and whether they can think for themselves.

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‘Giotto’ was developed in the UK alongside ‘Orpheus’. It is one of the best known and respected measures of integrity.

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‘Intrinsic’ measures motivation. As well as providing a very useful tool in the recruitment process, Intrinsic is also excellent for use in career counselling or team building situations.

Third sector recruitment budgets are inevitably limited, and this has doubtless inhibited the use of some of these tools, but a package of tests can be put together at reasonable cost, and might prove to be one of your best investments.

Your questions answered

Adelè Bird addresses your concerns.


What are the key trends in third sector recruitment, and what are the implications for the salaries we need to offer new recruits?
Much depends on the role for which you are recuiting. Good fundraisers are always in demand and salaries are rising particularly fast in some specialisms, such an major donor fundraising.

At the top end, we are seeing a widening differential between chief executive salaries and the sector average, particularly for CEOs with a proven recond is charity 'turnarounds' and in making a success of public service delivery. acevo's 2007 Salary Survey indicated that the median salary for their CEO members in the largest charities broke the £100k mark. Also, the number of their members earning less than £50k dropped from 53% in 2006 to just 35% in 2007.

Salary can be affected by turnover, number of employees, location and even the activitiy of the charity. You therefore need to consider your salary level accordingly. Increasingly I have seen the salaries of the newly recruited senior fundraiser in an organisation to be higher than the salary level of their SMT colleauges - market forces are certainly at play here. Good fundraisers are highly sort after and the salaries advertised certainly reflect that.

This year there are already indications that the credit crunch is beginning to have an impact. Candidates are less willing to gamble on a potentially risky move and those who are home owners are increasinly reluctant to relocate.

The best recruitment strategy is, of course, to avoid the need to recruit by retaining and developing good people. We always encourage organisations to benchmark and adjust salaries for those in post, instead of waiting until someone leaves, and this can do much to boost retention.


When appointing a new Director, how do we assess which skills and experience are essential and which are merely desirable?
Your 'Job Description' and Person Specification should flow naturally out of your organisational and departmental strategies from which the core purpose and desired outcomes of each role should be evident.

If you feel that there are some question marks over your strategic direction, we would strongly encourage you to resolve these first, possibly with outside assistance, before you proceed with a permanent appointment. We sometimes provide a combination of an interim manager and consultancy support to assist with this process. Above all, I encourage clients to see a vacancy not as a problem to be fixed but as an opportunity to be exploited; a chance to think afresh about the skill set you need and to make a new start.

Middle management roles often need a more specific set of functional skills than those at more senior level. For instance, someone who has already had success in writing trust applications is likely to perform well as a trust fundraiser in your organisation, but, at more senior levels, a different and more transferrable set of competencies often apply. These include strategic insight, highly developed communications skills, team leadership and, above all, the ability to define, articulate and sell a vision.

These competencies can be acquired in a wide range of environments, including public and private sector roles, so set the parameters wide and do all you can to generate a wide range of applicants. The successful candidate really doesn't need, as some Job Descriptions might put it 'three years' senior level experience in the fundraising functions of disability charities in Macclesfield' to be able to perform well.


Where should I advertise my vacancy?
Society Guardian and Third Sector magazine have traditionally led the third sector recruitment market, supplemented by specialist media such as Professional Fundraising and Charity Finance.

It is also worth putting your ad online with these publications (Third Sector’s Jobs pages now serve the NCVO and the Institute of Fundraising’s membership too). CharityJOB has been the leading website in the UK for charity jobs for a number of years (www.charityjob.co.uk). UKFundraising is another helpful website (www.fundraising.co.uk).

There are many other websites, but don’t use too many, and be aware of charges. I also do advise that you create a hurdle for people who apply online so you do not get inundated with CVs from people completely unsuitable for the role, who just hit the send button, submitting their CV to virtually any vacancy.


How can I get the best response from online ads?
When advertising on-line the layout of the advert is different to the printed publication, so do not just have your printed ad replicated, as it might not read correctly (eg. captions written, but the photo not included).

Check how the site engineers its searches, will ‘fundraiser’ and ‘fundraising’ read the same way? If not, should you try and include both in the text?

Some sites put a post higher up the search list by the number of times the searched for word appears in the text, ie: the more times ‘fundraiser’ is written, the higher up the list it will come, or they may do it in terms of density, so if the word appears 5 times in a 50 word text, it will be higher up the list than if it appears 5 times in a 100 word text.

When the advert goes live on line, search for it yourself, by charity name, geographical location, key word etc. Is it appearing as you expected? Does it look right? If not, contact the site and arrange for appropriate changes to be made.

Finally some websites have a teaser introductory line on the listings which the visitor must click if they are interested. Don’t just make that line the first line of the advert as it may not be strong enough, or even make sense. Purposefully write it for the number of words they allocate, so it tells the visitor enough to make them want to click further.


How can we maximise the appeal of our post to potential applicants without paying an excessive salary?
The salary you offer does need to be competitive, but there is a lot you can do to 'add value' to the package.

For instance, in our sector there is particularly high demand for flexible working arrangements, whether from potential candidates wishing to work from home, to undertake other paid or voluntary roles (often as a trustee of other charities) or to meet childcare responsibilities - and charities which offer this are at an increasing advantage.

Your location may be a drawback to some applicants, but it could be a decisive factor in favour of others. We recently recruited a Director of Income Generation for a hospice in Devon and made a particular virtue of its beautiful location and the rel oca tion package.

Finally, convey success. We all want a challenge, but in this increasingly difficult economic environment, no-one wants to gamble their livelihood and reputation on a risky venture - so it's vital that they can see the organisation succeeding and possibly opportiunities to network and build a national profile through their work with you.


How many people should I have on an interview panel?
In my opinion, the maximum number is 5 and the optimum number is 3 but it can depend on the make-up and structure of your organisation.

There are ways of ensuring involvement of some people, without them needing to be on the interview panel.

For example, have the candidates meet the Senior Management team for a short session, rather than having the whole of your SMT on the panel. Schedule a session with the team that will report to the post or invite that team to just attend the presentation section of the interview.

Ensure that the representatives of these supplementary meetings are able to feed their comments into the panel before the panel make their decision.


How can I make the interview process as effective as possible in assessing how a candidate will perform in post?
Interviews can be notoriously inaccurate predictors of how applicants will perform in the post. The fact that so many interviewers form a judgement in the first few seconds implies that subliminal factors like the candidate's appearance, speech and whether he or she is 'one of us' can far outweigh an objective appraisal of their strengths and weaknesses.

There is much you can do to increase the objectivity of the interview process. Have a common set of questions, related to the job characteristics, mark applicants and take notes. The best indicator of future perfomance is past performance, so I'm a great believer in 'behavioural event' interviewing. This involves asking the candidate to cite examples of how they have met a particular challenge, such as leading organisational change, in the past and then testing their responses in some detail to form a judgement about how they operate. It is also important to test CV claims. What role did the applicant actually play in 'doubling statutory income' or whatever,and what was the contribution of others?

These techniques can increase the accuracy of the interview process but interviews should ideally be supplemented by some form of exercise, perhaps undertaken with the team which the post holder is to manage, a formal presentation to a wider group of staff and stakeholders and, where possible, psychometric tests. As my colleague, Tony Baxter, a specialist in this field, argues in his article (above), such tests can both provide invaluable insights into how an applicant will perform and can also highlight areas which can be further probed at interview.


How can I best guard against claims from unsuccessful candidates of unfair process or discrimination?
The number of candidates who will formally question their rejection is relatively small, but it is important that all candidates leave with a positive impression of your fairness and professionalism as an organisation. Furthermore, removing bias and ensuring consistency of approach will help ensure you recruit the very best candidate from the available field.

Let's start with the Job Description and Person Specification. Review these to ensure that they don't imply any restrictions or preconceptions on the age, sexuality, cultural background or disability status of your ideal applicant. You can convey the values which inspire your organisation, but can't require applicants are followers of a particular religion exc e pt in certain and restricted circumstances.

It also helps to balance your interview panel, for instance in gender and ethnicity. Prepare and agree in advance a common set of questions which relate to the skills and experience required in the role. Ask interviewers to mark candidates against these, and take notes, which can be retained in case your process is challenged. This also helps guard against a panel's propensity to recuit one of the final candidates to be interviewed, of whom they have freshest recollections.

Finally, be prepared to give honest and full feedback to unsuccessful candidates. They will respect your candour and integrity.


Why is the average time in post so short, and how can we ensure our new appointee remains and develops with the organisation?
The average time in post, particularly in fundraising, is indeed short. In some cases a less than ideal appointment may be to blame, perhaps coupled with inadequate management support and unrealistic expectations. A good fundraiser, for instance, will bring in several times his or her salary in donated income, but this doesn't happen overnight. A fundraiser also needs a good product to sell: a credible organisational strategy and specific projects which donors can be persuaded to support.

The way to keep people is to provide appropriate development and support, hope of progression internally and a proper management and appraisal system which can detect any problems early and help implement solutions. Also, ensure you do regularly benchmark your salaries - the acevo survey is a useful tool for this. If you benchmark only when someone leaves, and then increase the salary at that point, you may well have kept the previous post holder if you had paid them the revised salary in the first place.