How to get from "we need someone" to a signed contract in six to eight weeks, and hire on evidence rather than impression. This is the full version for a senior role; drop steps for junior ones.
Most nonprofit hiring is a CV, a letter, two chats and a debrief where the loudest opinion wins. Each of those steps is weak on its own, and none of them is what the research says predicts performance: structured interviews, work samples and job-knowledge tests do ( Sackett et al. 2022 ). Cover letters have lost most of what little signal they had since generative AI became common ( Signaling in the Age of AI, 2025 ). A bad senior hire costs a year; a structured process costs the hiring lead about 30 hours more than an unstructured one. Ten steps, roughly in this order. Steps 0 and 1 are covered on their own pages.
An unfilled role, a lead picking up accountabilities nobody wants, the same tension in three meetings running. Write the gap as accountabilities, not as a profile, and check the cheaper options first: redistribute, drop, or contract out. A hire is for a structural gap of at least half a role that will still exist in a year.
- The role exists in your governance records with purpose and accountabilities. If it does not, define it first.
- Pick the 4–7 traits or competencies you will select on. Every instrument below scores against these and nothing else. More than seven and you are scoring noise.
- Confirm budget with whoever holds it. Do not post while that is pending.
- If the vacancy is ready but the application questions are not, publish with a one-minute form (name, email, profile link) and send the questions to everyone who registered once they are final. The announcement starts on day one and passive candidates register where they would never have written a letter.
- Application format, who scores with which rubric, interview design, where applicant data lives, who tells candidates no. A soft mention halfway through the search is a no you discover in month two. Sourced candidates enter the same funnel as everyone else. See the Recruiter role.
Ask role-specific questions in a form: a problem they solved that resembles the work, what they like least about the role as described, their experience with one key accountability. Add a checkbox for hard requirements (work permit, language). It cuts irrelevant applications sharply and asks less of the applicant than tailoring a CV and writing a letter. A profile link replaces the CV.
- The rubric mirrors the form questions, scored 1–5, written before applications arrive.
- 5–10 minutes per application. Aim to advance 15–20%.
- Anything in the 2.5–3.5 band gets a second reader before rejection. That is where bias hides.
- Everyone hears back within a week, with a reason.
Check-in and agenda (3), their story and motivation (8), two probing questions on the traits (10), their questions (7), next steps (2). Same shape for every candidate. Notes by hand during, structured right after. How to ask the questions is in Interviewing . Advance 3–5. A future peer tests day-to-day collaboration; a leadership role tests judgement and direction. Each interviewer scores before any debrief. Combine scores mechanically and discuss only where they diverge by two points or more; averaging beats a consensus conversation by up to 50% in accuracy ( Kuncel et al. 2013 ). Advance 2–3. - Around 3 hours of tasks the person would do in the role, with the context documents they would have. Success criteria written down in advance.
- Pay for the time: €150 for a half day plus travel is a common rate; more for a full day.
- Two or more people score the output independently.
- Lunch together if on site. For senior roles, add a 30-minute conversation with a board member.
At least two, one of them a direct manager. Twenty minutes each, the same seven questions for every referee, ending with "would you hire them again, and why?" Ask what they would say about the person unprompted before you name your traits; unprompted matches are the strongest evidence you will get.
Call first: the terms, the reasons they stood out, a read on their enthusiasm. Then a written offer within a day, covering role, start date, contract term, hours, salary and how it grows, holidays, pension, location, and a response window of 5–7 days. The offer and the contract must say the same thing; contract terms are a separate pattern under People policies.
After each hire, look at conversion per step (15–20% advancing is healthy), time spent per step, candidate feedback, the diversity of the pool at each step, and how the hire is doing at 3, 6 and 12 months. Change the questions and rubrics, not the structure.
One conversation for the whole hire so context accumulates. It drafts the rubric from the vacancy and the role, structures raw interview notes into scorecards, pre-fills the per-finalist interview document, and drafts rejections with a real reason. It does not decide, and it does not get personal data it does not need: names and answers yes, addresses and ID numbers no. Check whether your assistant's terms cover applicant data as processing under the GDPR.
- : €0–50 a month. Use one from the first hire that draws more than about 20 applicants. See Recruitment / Applicant Tracking .
- : a booking page from your office suite, €0.
- : €150–200 per finalist.
- for director-level roles: typically 20–30% of first-year salary, retained. See Recruiter .
- : screening alone is 5–10 minutes per applicant; budget 30–40 hours across the process for a senior role.
- Applicant data rules (retention, lawful basis, deletion, replies to everyone) are in Advertising a vacancy . Scores, notes and reference reports are applicant data too.
- Hard requirements must be job-related. Do not ask about health, pregnancy, family, religion, origin or age at any step.
- Pay for work samples. Unpaid trial work is a labour-law risk and selects for people who can afford it.
Record for your own organization:
- Which steps you drop for junior roles, and your default interview lengths
- Your work-sample fee and default duration
- Who acts as second reader in screening, and who calls references
- Your response window on offers
- Where your trait lists, rubrics and templates live