We’ve all been there. We’ve inherited a program with a ragtag collection of volunteer positions, some based on old expectations of volunteers, some poorly thought out, some created to address a single need that no longer presses, some simply unpleasant no matter when, where or who.

If we’ve kept up on trends in volunteerism or simply have a gift of empathy, chances are we know precisely why the position is so unattractive. Maybe it’s too big an emotional commitment. Maybe it’s boring. Maybe it isn’t available when volunteers are. Perhaps we don’t know how to recruit the best volunteers for the position. Even if we do know the cause, a relative few of us know the solution. To arrive at this we must be sure we have looked at every aspect of the problem recruiting.

Analyzing the Problem

Undoubtedly, the most fertile environment for examining the recruiting challenge will be within your own organization, with other staff and volunteers familiar with the position and its characteristics. You do not want to do this alone as you will not be able to provide the diversity of thought that goes into creative problem-solving of this type.

If you cannot call on your coworkers, call on your colleagues. Other volunteer managers, whether in your town or on the Internet (see the CyberVPM Online Discussion Group at http://www.cybervpm.com, the virtual brain trust of volunteer program management), will ask questions that help you get to the heart of the problem. Further they can help you take care to be very clear and sure about the positive and negative attributes of your problem volunteer position. You must try very hard to dismiss your own assumptions or biases. A job you’d hate might be one another person loves. Or a group of people you think would like the job might not want to touch it.

Let’s make use of an example. Let’s say you have had trouble filling tutor positions for an inner city high school.

To determine what the exact barrier is ask yourself these questions. Is it something about the position itself? Might it be your recruitment message is failing to attract volunteers to an otherwise appealing position? Or might it be the people you have been marketing the position too?

Applying the questions to the example, is there something about the tutoring job that doesn’t match what volunteers want to do? Are they expected to visit an area of the city they believe, rightly or wrongly, is risky at night? Are you asking too many hours a week? Is there no parking or public transportation near the school? Is the school building old, decrepit, poorly lit or heated or just plain ugly? When people call for information are you ill-prepared to give them a clear idea of what they would be doing or when or whether you can provide training? Is there a difficult volunteer who drives everyone else away? Maybe you require tutors to do a great deal of paperwork or make them use poor teaching tools.

Perhaps everything about the position is terrific but your recruitment ad sends potential volunteers screaming in the opposite direction or simply does not catch their eye? Have you not anticipated their questions and answered them? Have you given little detail about the position? Have you used red flag words like “desperate”? Or have you forgotten to appeal to what would attract a volunteer to this particular opportunity over all the rest in your community?

Finally, if you have a great job and have communicated this fact convincingly, might it be that you are recruiting the wrong people? We’ve often heard volunteer program managers say they have targeted retired educators to fill tutoring positions on the supposition that they miss teaching and kids. This may be true of some, but for the most part retirees prefer a change in their activities so teachers might be a complete waste of your recruitment effort. Here’s where questioning your own assumptions is vital.

Solving the Problem

So you have identified exactly what is wrong with the hard-to-fill volunteer position. Next consider how the problem may be solved. Can you change those attributes of the position that make it unappealing? In our example, can tutoring occur during the day or on weekends? Can it take place off site in a more attractive or convenient location? Can you educate the public about the neighborhood so they don’t fear it or make a point of getting to know and recruit among the people of the neighborhood? Might you use a buddy system where you pair volunteers who split the tutoring hours between them? Can you prepare yourself and other staff and volunteers so well that callers get a clear, thorough and accurate picture of the work they’d do? Can you retrain, move or fire the toxic volunteer who drives everyone else away? Can you streamline or eliminate less appealing tasks or replace poor resources? Or for that matter can you add something, food, social opportunities, fringe benefits, other inducements that make up for things you can’t change for the better?

Sometimes, as we saw above, the problem is not the job itself but how well or poorly you “sell” it. To improve your recruitment message, decide who the ideal volunteer is and focus on what they want to hear. Be sure to answer typical questions in the message and reflect the rewards and positives while being honest. Take a look at how others’ communicate about their volunteer opportunities. Do the other tutoring programs offer more to attract volunteers? Do their positions sound more fun, more satisfying or better thought out? Are they recruiting more imaginatively with more tools, a web site, a great flyer in the best places, a good relationship with the local newspaper?

If you’ve identified the difficulty as being barriers potential volunteers have themselves set up, change to whom you market the job in the first place. Go after people who don’t have the barriers, people who are available when the jobs take place, people who already know the neighborhood (in our example), people who want to do the work — in this example, people who wanted to teach but never got to, people who love teenagers but had none of their own or miss their own who have grown, people who simply are “into” the subject being tutored. Or make one of the benefits high quality and enjoyable training that extends to helping achieve other life goals, get better jobs, learn new subjects, and so forth.

Live To Fight Another Day

It is usually true that if you can’t solve a problem, you just haven’t thought of the solution yet. But what if you really can’t overcome the barriers to recruiting for a hard-to-fill position? Especially as volunteers become busier, better informed and more selective, some old jobs may be nearly impossible to fill. The only way you can improve the job is to get rid of it as a volunteer position entirely. You may be able to find other ways volunteers can help achieve the goal of the old position.

Since we can’t imagine that our tutoring example cannot be solved, we’ll use another here. Few people want to empty the office trash, but many will find instituting and maintaining a recycling program engaging. Consider in other cases dropping the job or replacing volunteers with paid staff or contractors. Some jobs just don’t work for volunteers. Or if your skills are lacking and you need help recruiting, whether crafting the message or getting it out to the right people, get it. Turn to colleagues for advice, find training, read books. There is no dishonor in recognizing the job’s or your own shortcomings — in fact, it is the only way you can move ahead.

Nan Hawthorne runs the CyberVPM.com web site at http://www.cybervpm.com