Talent

COVID-19 has required us all to adjust to a new operating procedures. Those of us who can work from home are getting settled in to a remote working routine. And while many organizations are still committed to hiring, the process itself has shifted dramatically. Phone and video interviews have replaced the preferred in-person interview and requires us all to make adjustments. For candidates, it is still important to be professional, prepared and put your best self forward – but from home.

Everyone is adjusting and should be understanding about these unusual circumstances. Still, interviewing from home may require a closer look at some key areas to be as prepared as possible:

Your Environment

A dedicated workspace is important for an interview. While you may work from a couch at other times during the day, during an interview you will want to be able to sit up straight (and not rest your computer on your knees). Ideally you will have a desk or table to rest your computer or device. Make sure the camera and screen are positioned to allow a clear, professional angle and view of the interviewer(s) on the screen. 

Be mindful of your background and what interviewers may be able to see when the camera is on. If you are near a window, make sure shadows are not distorting the view maps to help correct any lighting issues.

Your Technology

If the interviewing platform is new to you, practice using it before the interview. For example, if you have not previously used Zoom (or a similar video conferencing platform), set up a free account and hold a practice video meeting with a family member or friend. This will allow you to make sure the platform is working correctly and become familiar with the audio/video features before your interview begins. It is still entirely possible that the video connection does not work so make sure the interviewer has your phone number as a backup.

Even if you are familiar with the interview tool, plan to “arrive” early to be able to deal with any technical glitches before the interview begins. Mute on-screen notifications and ringers and make sure your headset is untangled. Now take a deep breath and smile!

Your Engagement

While interviewing remotely, it is still important to actively engage with your interviewer. Prepare for an interview as you normally would. If you usually bring a notebook and copy of your resume, have those materials handy. Have a glass of water within reach.

Try to make eye contact with your interviewer. This may require you to look at your camera rather than images of your interviewer. This may take some practice.

If your remote interview is by phone, it may be helpful to pull up your intervewer’s LinkedIn profile and glance at their picture during the interview. This can help maintain your focus during the conversation.

Practice self-care during these extraordinary times. Make sure you are getting enough sleep to be able to present your best self during the interview.

Final Thoughts

While many aspects of the job search process are different right now, remember that the purpose of the interview remains the same. The organization/interviewer is interested in learning more about your background and skills and what qualities and capabilities you could bring as a potential member of the team. We are all in this together and your (remote) interview is a valuable way to establish meaningful connections and put your best foot forward – even while wearing bunny slippers at home!

The article below was published by The Biscuit as a part of Josh’s new series highlighting staff leaders in Charlotte’s nonprofit sector who are shaking things up and making an impact. You can find it, here.

Banu Valladares is on fire.

Prepping for an important board meeting, she knows Charlotte Bilingual Preschool’s future will be determined in that room with the adoption of a game-changing new strategic plan. A task force of board members and staff had worked for months to think through how to increase impact and now it was go-time.

It was the most important vote of Valladares’ 2+ year tenure as executive director of Charlotte Bilingual Preschool. For over two decades, the preschool has provided innovative, two-generation solutions preparing Spanish-speaking children for success in life.

“My StrengthsFinder strengths are strategic thinking, maximizer and positivity,” Valladares shares later. “So, needless to say, I was ready for that conversation.”

‘THOUGHT ROCKET’

Full disclosure: I am the consultant who worked with Charlotte Bilingual Preschool on their recent strategic planning effort. It was one of the most ambitious and inspirational efforts of my career.

The opportunity to partner with the organization was a no-brainer, since I sourced Valladares for the executive director role in the first place.

In 2017, the preschool hired Next Stage to help find the next leader of their organization and truth be told, it did not go very well at first. As told to me by Claire Tate, a child advocate and civic leader who has served as a longtime board member for the organization. Her initial opinion of our work was not all that strong.

Next Stage always starts by engaging the board of directors in order to understand the must-have qualities they are seeking in a successful candidate. In this case, the initial priority of the board was finding someone with deep experience in preschool education. Sourcing a Latinx candidate who reflects the community served, while important, was considered a lower priority.

Boy, was that the wrong direction.

When it became clear to all of us that a Latinx candidate with a varied social good background that includes education would be considered favorably, one name came immediately to mind: Banu Valladares. She wowed the search committee.

Valladares came to Charlotte Bilingual Preschool from the NC Humanities Council where she worked in program and grants administration, partnership-development and special collaborations. Before that, she worked for the NC Arts Council in a number of program management roles. She had also served as an interim principal for Charlotte-based Community Charter School and, for many years, as a translator developing school recruitment materials, arts-integrated learning and creative curriculum.

The search committee started by prioritizing practical experience of teaching in a preschool setting. In the end, they landed a courageous futurist, sometimes called a ‘thought rocket,’ who sees her work, in partnership with her board, as a crusade to empower families.

And everyone who meets Valladares loves her. This is not hyperbole.

STEPPING UP

Scoring a meeting with Mecklenburg County Manager Dena Diorio is no easy task. In a town of busy people, she is one of the busiest. Her time is precious. Getting an hour with her and her team to unpack Charlotte Bilingual Preschool’s new strategic plan was quite a coup.

And, Valladares was ready. As she starts speaking, she was choked up. The importance of the conversation she was having came with it a rush of emotions. It was clear that she felt (and feels) deeply, almost spiritually committed to bringing more resources and programming to Charlotte’s growing Spanish-speaking community.

“I see this work as a legacy, for all of us, a legacy of impact we can all be proud to have set in motion,” Valladares said.

Charlotte Bilingual Preschool currently serves roughly 150 students in classrooms annexed to the organization at Hickory Grove Elementary School in East Charlotte. But, the need in the Charlotte community for dual-language early education is great. More than 3,000 Spanish-speaking children who enter kindergarten without the benefit of preschool every year.

That was the reason for the meeting with Diorio, to discuss new strategies for reaching radically more youth annually. Without giving too much away as the organization works to formalize the plan into action, the meeting went very well.

Claire Tate was in the room, as well. She has seen the preschool grow from an idea into one of Charlotte’s most admired nonprofits. Watching Tate and Valladares in action, it’s clear that they are aligned as crusaders.

“In public meetings, she speaks with passion and confidence, always impressing her audience,” Tate said. “Banu has been a wonderfully effective leader.”

A BEAUTIFUL VISION

The preschool’s Board Treasurer, Manuel Arrese, sees Valladares’ leadership as essential to making this more ambitious internal culture a reality.One of the most significant changes at Charlotte Bilingual Preschool over the last two years has been the addition of more Latinx leaders to its board of directors, now representing 50% of governance. This shift was meaningful to the recent strategic planning effort. It was critical to transforming the preschool from a development culture of modest growth and responsible stewardship into one of responsible risk-taking.

“Banu dreams and shoots for the moon, inspiring her team while at the same time developing concrete plans to meet annual goals,” Arrese said. “She aligns her team and demands of them what she demands of herself: dedication and high performance.”

Disrupting the status quo is a part of what makes Valladares such a dynamic leader, and she backs it up with thoughtful approaches to change management grounded in ‘what could be.’ As a Latinx leader, she is uniquely well-positioned to take an organization like Charlotte Bilingual Preschool to the next level.

“Charlotte is a city that has had a number of challenges in recent years with regard to racial harmony and building equity,” Valladares said. “Now imagine Charlotte being synonymous with best-in-class dual-language early education, to be known for that nationally.”

“Just picture it,” she concludes.

A beautiful vision indeed.

It’s time we got comfortable with a once-taboo subject: providing increased compensation and bonus for the employees of nonprofit organizations based on individual performance.

But to do it, we need to talk about KPIs.

KPI stands for Key Performance Indicators. KPIs drive the underlying business models of countless private sector companies but are too often nonexistent inside nonprofit organizations, and that needs to be fixed if we endeavor to have our nonprofits achieve their missions. I mean, there’s a reason they are so ubiquitous in corporate America – it is because they work.

Different than outcome goals alone, KPIs break down overarching goals into metric segments that indicate one is on the pathway to success. For example, to ensure a program succeeds at helping 100 people be better educated, one could break that down into segments of program development, marketing and awareness-building, implementation, quality assessment, etc. Output (counting) and outcome (impact) metrics are both important to measure. They create accountability and buy-in, like how a recipe helps to create a finished meal.

KPIs are also important if you want to implement any sort of incentivization structure (or pay-for-performance). Without knowing how to measure success, it will be difficult to provide reward with compensation and bonus.

Wait, nonprofits are allowed to do that? Absolutely.

In fact, I’d argue that the absence of incentivization is likely keeping top talent from considering roles in your nonprofit organization, and may be the reason some of your best talent moves on.

Someone along the journey of the social good sector decided to severely limit nonprofits, creating separate rules that govern them that would never fly in the private sector. Imagine telling Bank of America that providing financial incentives for performance is somehow unethical. It is at the heart of capitalism that the best talent is not only well-compensated, but given a clear ladder to understand what they need to achieve to unlock it.

So why should nonprofits be any different?

It is already hard enough to attract the smartest, most capable people to the nonprofit sector. Compensation in general is much lower than in the private sector. The nonprofit business model is a messy one, with so many stakeholders (board members, donors, funders, volunteers, etc) influencing the staff member’s work. And while successes in business are front page news, nonprofits are rarely celebrated in a similar fashion.

Getting creative with compensation is one area nonprofits can level the playing field (a bit).

We have helped nonprofit leaders at the board and Executive Director level create incentivization structures for their organizations that have become critical to getting the strongest applicants for open roles to consider making a move. Considering a CEO/Executive Director search? It is a near-requirement.

For development professionals, this becomes a bit trickier. As a card-carrying member of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, I ascribe to the principle that one’s salary should not be directly tied to how much money is raised. This is considered unethical and for good reasons – it may create twisted incentivizes that promote the wrong thing. But funding raised can definitely be a part of a more multi-faceted set of KPIs that also rewards for other types of outputs and outcomes, e.g. achieving goals set for face-to-face cultivation, flawless execution of an event, number of new donors attracted.

I predict pay-for-performance to become a best practice of nonprofit human resources in the coming years, a recognition of the way technology has driven accountability and assessment for the sector more generally.

Want to learn more? Considering a search and needing help thinking through how best to create an incentivization model? Reach out and let’s talk: search@nextstage-consulting.com

Photo Credit: everythingpossible