Over the past year, nonprofits across Canada have had to adjust to many new ways of doing business, including hiring. For most organizations, every step in the hiring process has now gone virtual. While this has been a steep learning curve for many, the good news is that there are many resources and tools available to help.
While CharityVillage has worked remotely since our beginning in 1995, the truth is we also had to incorporate some new strategies when we hired for a new position last fall. Where we might previously have conducted in-person interviews or booked time in a shared office to help onboard a new staff member, this time we also had to think outside the box in a few areas.
In the interest of sharing what we’ve learned, here are some of our key tips and strategies that helped us manage the virtual hiring process, from creating the job posting to onboarding a new team member, effectively. We’re also pleased to include some insight from the candidate side, with comments from our new Territory Manager, Stephanie Roy. These tips and strategies, as well as the tools mentioned, are equally applicable for volunteer recruitment.
Attracting the right candidates with your job posting
If you mention “CharityVillage” to the average nonprofit professional, chances are the first thing they’ll think of is our online job board for nonprofit professionals, which is not surprising since job ads are the cornerstone of our website. As such, our staff have reviewed thousands of job postings over the years, giving them key insight into what works and what doesn’t. Here are some of our tips on writing an effective job ad for our website and you can also read a past article on how to think like a marketer as you write your job posting.
A compelling job ad starts with a solid job title. Ours was kept clear and concise, making it easy for candidates to understand. Including relevant key words was important to ensure the job turned up in candidates’ searches.
According to Dave Baran, our VP, Business Development and Operations, who co-wrote our job ad, the goal was to keep it brief and focus on the why. “We highlighted the key accountabilities and the required experience to be successful in the role. But we also were clear about the benefits the best-fit candidate would receive and the impact they could have on our organization.” This included a paragraph at the top of the posting that focused on workplace culture. At the same time, the job description itself was kept brief and specific to the position. Bullet points help break up the text and make for easier reading. Finally, the posting identified a clear hiring process so all candidates knew what to expect.
For Stephanie, as a candidate, the job ad stood out not just because of her interest in the CharityVillage brand, but also because it included key information such as salary, benefits, and other perks. Including salary on your job posting is something we recommend to all clients – here is more information on why.
Our job ad was also clear about the flexible working location. It may be tempting to gloss over this as so many are working remotely due to the pandemic. But now more than ever, candidates will want to know whether the job can truly be done from anywhere or whether there is a desired location, and whether they’ll be expected to come back into an office at some point.
Once the job posting was written, we shared it on the CharityVillage job board using the built in applicant tracking system (ATS) that is available at no extra cost with each job posting. Stephanie created a profile on our site and submitted her application via the ATS, a process she says was easy and straightforward.
Taking a new approach to screening using pre-recorded video
The hiring team found it easy to share candidates’ profiles and applications with the ATS, something they appreciated since no one was able to get together in person to go through stacks of resumes. The next step was to set up video pre-screening, a unique recruitment tool offered by CharityVillage, to learn more about the top candidates. Dave highlights the benefit of combining this tool with reviewing the candidate’s resume: “Having the ability to review recorded audio or video responses provides so much more insight into each candidate, resulting in efficient shortlisting without having to schedule time-consuming phone conversations.”
How did it work? We started by customizing our prescreening questions through the platform. A link was sent, via the ATS, to the top candidates asking them to respond by a certain date and time. Once the deadline passed, the hiring team could quickly remove those who didn’t respond from their list of potential candidates. The candidate responses that did come in were easily shared amongst the hiring team, making it incredibly efficient for the team to make their decisions. A key benefit identified by all members of the hiring team was that there was no need to juggle multiple schedules just to fit in the pre-screening conversations. And since candidates are limited to a two-minute response for each screening question, there were even further time savings for the hiring team.
The experience of our team echoes feedback we’ve received from our customers who have also used the video pre-screening tools. Key benefits identified and shared by customers include:
- Ability to get a good sense of the candidate’s personality
- The audio-only option for reducing potential bias
- Saving time by not having to schedule phone interviews
- Ease of sharing the videos with colleagues
- The user-friendly nature of the tool, especially for someone who isn’t tech-savvy
Stephanie found the pre-screening process to be easy and convenient. “I had to answer three questions for the pre-screening recording, but I had three chances to record each answer. I enjoyed having the opportunity to think through my answers in advance, and I appreciated the ability to review the videos of my responses. Each question was timed, so I had two minutes to answer the question. I was a little nervous at first about only having three chances to record my answers, but the whole experience ended up being fun and I felt like I was able to give CharityVillage a stronger sense of my personality and demeanor.”
Dave emphasizes the importance of consistency for the process to work well. “Limit the number of questions you ask – three to five should be the maximum. Be sure to ask the same questions with every candidate in order to maintain consistency and to promote equity. This standardization is a very important element in reducing some of the unconscious hiring bias.”
Interviewing in a virtual world
Once the shortlisted candidates were selected, it was time to set up some live video interviews with the goal of creating a two-way conversation with the candidates. While this was an opportunity for us to assess fit for the position and the candidates’ interest in the position, it was also an opportunity for us to share further insight on our organization and work culture.
“The goal was to facilitate an open and informative conversation,” says Dave. “The ability to record the conversations enabled us to share them with other team members who were unable to attend the panel interviews. This was made even easier because the CharityVillage video interviewing platform comes with a built-in ATS. The videos were easily accessed right from our dashboard, and we could even communicate with candidates right from here.”
Stephanie recalls the video interviewing platform to be straightforward to use. What she especially appreciated at this stage of the hiring process was a commitment to strong communication. “There was a lot of phone, video, and email communication, so I always knew what to expect in terms of next steps in the hiring process.”
Onboarding
Onboarding a new team member can be tough at the best of times, but when doing it virtually it has the potential to be especially overwhelming and isolating. Again, our team found that high levels of communication helped to mitigate this.
While not much changed in how the offer and pre-employment paperwork was handled, welcoming Stephanie into a virtual team required a little more creativity. Stephanie received her schedule for the first week in advance and started her first day immediately with an hour-long call with her manager. “This was a really good way to simulate what it would normally be like to go into an office and meet your boss at reception and be given a tour. It helped me feel comfortable right away,” says Stephanie.
Another key priority was arranging for Stephanie to meet all her new team members. These one-to-one calls began on the first day and were scheduled over the course of the first week. Stephanie also touched base with her manager every day for the first week. As she continued into her first month, she continued to have regular check ins with management. “What’s key is that there’s still opportunity to continue asking questions and having regular touch points, whether formal or informal, with your manager.”
Dave agrees, suggesting that communication and setting realistic goals were key for the early days. It was also important to engage the entire team in connecting with their new team member. Stephanie appreciated the proactive engagement from her new teammates. “Everyone shared their phone numbers and contact information immediately, which was incredibly welcoming and also made it easy to connect with everyone when I had questions. One of the biggest challenges for a new hire is feeling like you are constantly calling someone as opposed to just dropping by their desk with a question. Frequent communication and a clearly stated willingness from my colleagues to help out was so important for overcoming this challenge.”
As Stephanie moves into her third month at CharityVillage, we asked her to look back at her onboarding experience and provide her top tips for organizations and new staff.
Tips for organizations:
- Be prepared and have a schedule in place for at least the first week – don’t wing it!
- Have a schedule or documents for your new hire to lean on as they try to familiarize themselves with their new workplace.
- Build time (a few hours, most likely) into the schedule for your new hire to review documents, technology platforms, your website, etc. Give them space to absorb all the new information – it’s an overwhelming time with a lot for your new hire to take in.
- Try scheduling a virtual lunch or some social time to help your new hire start to build relationships throughout the team.
- Connect a few days in advance of the new hire’s start to date to give them a rundown of what they can expect on their first day/first week. It helps to calm nerves and makes the first day of virtual work much easier.
Tips for new hires:
- Don’t be afraid to ask questions and lean on your colleagues.
- The first few days can be really overwhelming, especially virtually, so try to schedule a regular coffee break and lunch break, just like you would at your standard, in-person office.
- Have patience with yourself! Learning a new role and settling in to a new team takes time, just as it does in an office.
For more virtual onboarding tips, check out this pdf guide from the Mosaic Institute on how to adapt onboarding best practices to a virtual environment.
CharityVillage is Canada’s pre-eminent online job board for Canada’s nonprofit sector. We’re pleased to offer a variety of tools to help you take your recruitment virtual, including job ads, video prescreening, and live video interviews. We’ll be adding automated reference checking and criminal background checking very soon as well. Need help transitioning your recruitment to virtual? Contact us today to learn how our tools can help. We are also offering 3 video pre-screening credits with every 2+ job posting credits – click here to take advantage of this special offer.
