Executive Director Recruitment

Setting up for Success: Steps to Not for Profit Executive Director Recruitment

Of the many responsibilities of a board, one of the most critical for the success of the organization is the recruitment and selection of a new executive director (ED) or CEO. It is also one that many boards aren’t ready for at the time. As we are actively engaged in this right now at Vantage Point, we thought you might be interested in the process we are using.

The critical question is what does the organization require from its leader? in terms of competencies, skills, and experience.  We started our process by updating the role profile. We asked for input from a wide cross-section of stakeholders including employees, knowledge philanthropists, community leaders, and funders, via in-person conversations and an online survey on what they saw as the current as well as long term critical priorities.

With that in hand, members of the board defined the critical competencies that we would look for in recruitment.  We then created an ED Recruitment Task Force, led by the Board Chair and consisting of 2 other board members and 2 previous board chairs.

The task force had to consider both what to do and how to do it, down to the logistics of setting up electronic folders to administer the process and information, how to involve the larger board and staff, where to look for candidates, and how to ensure that all candidates had a great experience interacting with Vantage Point.

We then moved on to creating tools to screen the applicants. We selected questions that would demonstrate the critical competencies, interview guides to ensure that all candidates were presented with the same questions and a standard scoring system to evaluate the candidates fairly.

If all this sounds like it takes time, it does.  We launched the role description and began accepting applicants earlier this month. We are getting ready now to screen CVs and start the first round of interviews.  From there, we will use the first round evaluations, and a lot of good discussion to select a short list of candidates to take to a second interview panel and another carefully selected set of questions.  Finally, we will make sure that a larger segment of the board will have the opportunity to meet the final candidate(s) prior to decision time.

Recruitment always takes much longer than you expect, but making the right decision is critical to the future success of the organization.  Our recommendation is to start early and invest the appropriate time and focus to ensure a great decision that will drive the mission of your organization.

This blog was originally published at www.thevantagepoint.ca

Executive Director Recruitment: Creating an Interview Guide

With so many people wanting to make a difference with their work and contribute to Vantage Point, we had a great response to our role posting for a new Executive Director.  This led us to the next challenge of finding the best candidates in a large field of applicants.  We reviewed all applications to find the candidates that best fit our profile, and then conducted a phone screening to narrow the field to a manageable number of interviews.  

In order to ensure that we were consistent and effective in how the candidates were interviewed, two members of the Executive Director Task Force created an interview guide with questions and a rating scale. 

Interview guides are essential to ensure you:  
1.    Ask the right questions to investigate the previously identified key competencies; 
2.    Pose the same questions to each candidate; and  
3.    Provide an objective rating system to allow comparison between candidates.  This rating system is not to be taken as an absolute, but serves to differentiate groups of candidates.

Interviews offer limited time with each candidate, so we developed questions that would quickly and easily draw out previous experiences and behaviors.  Past behaviors in real incidents are the best predictor of what a person is likely to do in the future. Questions that prompt candidates to tell stories about what they have done in real life can be more relevant than what they might tell you about their theories or beliefs.  

Another important step is to prepare for both the first and second round of interviews at the same time so the questions build upon each other.    

The final interview guide, with questions and a rating guide, was given to each interviewer to allow them to make their notes right on the form. This made it easier to compare impressions and discuss the responses that each candidate had given.   Allowing enough time between interviews to debrief on each candidate immediately after the interview was key.  It is amazing how quickly everything becomes a blur after doing three or four interviews in a day.

We’ve included a template for an interview guide on in our Resource Library. We hope you find it useful. Remember that the questions included are ones that relate to Vantage Point’s search. We encourage you to take the time to ensure that you are asking the right questions for your organizational culture and future mission delivery.

This blog was originally published at www.thevantagepoint.ca

Drafting a New Executive Director Job Posting

Those of you following the Vantage Point blog and news are already aware that Denise Baker has started as our new Executive Director.

As an organization develops and grows, both in its programs and its culture, the type of leader that is required changes as well. To recruit a new leader, you first have to identify the strategic goals of the organization and the skills and experience in a leader that would deliver on those goals. As outlined in my last blog post, Setting up for Success: Steps to Executive Director Recruitment, this process is one of the most important tasks facing any not-for-profit board.

One of the foundation documents in the recruitment process is the job description. For Vantage Point’s Executive Director Task Force, the process of writing the job description happened in three parts:
1. Collecting input on the organization’s current mission, future priorities and desired leadership competencies from a number of sources: the current executive director role profile; a focused discussion of the full Vantage Point Board; a survey of a broad range of stakeholders; and additional thoughts that had emerged during the creation of The Abundant Not-for-Profit.
2. Identifying four critical competencies and having an important discussion to align every board member on what those words meant and what behaviours would demonstrate them.
3. Drafting the job description to provide candidates with a complete picture of the organization, its history, values, mission, vision, and strategic direction, along with the ideal qualifications and experiences. In order to be more descriptive, this type of profile is longer and more in-depth than a typical job description. In the end two documents were drafted – a role profile (long version) and job description (short version).
Our key learning was that taking the time to really understand the present and future requirements of the organization is the critical first step in the recruitment process. From there, the role description, and the top critical competencies, became the foundation for providing clarity and agreement among the board for the many difficult decisions that have to be made in the recruitment process.

We’ve provided a template for you to create your own executive director job description and role profile. Download it at www.thevantagepoint.ca

This blog was originally published at www.the vantagepoint.ca