How to Get Better Nonprofit Job Applicants

Ready to hire the next amazing team member at your nonprofit? Here are some tips for finding more (and better!) job applicants.

4 Tips for Finding Better Nonprofit Job Applicants

1. Post the salary publicly.

In many places, it’s now illegal to post a job listing without including a salary range. But legal issues aren’t the only reason to post a salary. There are equitable and practical reasons too:

  • You can avoid wasting people’s time, including your own. If someone is looking for a salary of $100,000 and you’re only planning to offer a salary of $80,000, why waste their (and your) time? Don’t make them apply to your job and make it through an interview before they can learn whether a position pays the amount they expect/need to make.

  • You build trust with job applicants. Publishing the salary instantly builds trust with job applicants because it signals that you run a transparent organization.

  • The salary level helps applicants understand the position. A job that pays $100,000 looks different than one paying $50,000. When applicants see how much you plan to pay someone for a job, they get a better idea about whether the job is aligned with their experience level and job expectations.

  • Posting the salary shows your commitment to equity. NTEN has an awesome article called “You’re not serious about equity if you don’t post salaries” and I can’t recommend it enough.

2. Post your job all over the place.

Don’t just post your job on LinkedIn and call it a day. Consider additional job boards like the ones hosted with your local nonprofit association, the National Council of Nonprofits, the Council on Foundations, Indeed.com, Idealist.org, your local chamber of commerce’s website, and anywhere else you can think to post it.

3. Be clear about which qualifications are needed and which ones are just “nice to have.”

Studies (like this one from LinkedIn) suggest that women are less likely to apply to jobs than men… So make your job listing more inviting by ensuring the qualifications you list are actually qualifications that are needed to excel in the job you’ve posted. Do you really need someone to have a four-year degree to do a great job working for your organization, or could real-world experience be just as beneficial? Does someone really need to come into the office every day, or could the position be remote? Does an applicant really need experience working with specific software, or is this something they can learn on the job?

4. Leverage relationships with community leaders.

Think about which leaders have a lot of clout with the people you’re looking to hire, and ask those people for help spreading the word about your job posting. For example, a lot of nonprofit employers know my audience is mainly made up of executive directors, development directors, and marketing directors, so I get messages all the time asking if I’ll help spread the word about a job posting for one of those positions.

For the record, my answer is always ‘yes,’ as long as you’ve publicly posted the salary with your job description. So please reach out if you’d like me to help you find more job candidates!