5 Ways to Drive More Applicants to Your Nonprofit Job Posts

Hiring for a nonprofit can be challenging. Globally, 38% of surveyed nonprofit professionals say they find it very competitive to attract talent over other employers. With so many organizations hiring for similar roles, you may find that your job posts aren’t attracting as many applicants as you’d like. 

Even at the best of times, hiring can be a numbers game. To make a great hire as efficiently as possible, it’s critical to get your job post in front of enough well-suited candidates — and entice them to apply.

In a crowded hiring landscape, it can feel tough to stand out and get your opportunities noticed. Try these tactics to earn candidates’ attention and drive more applications to your nonprofit’s open roles.

1. Help candidates find what they’re looking for

Whether someone is actively looking for a new job or casually exploring their options, they may be sifting through a lot of different job posts to spot ones that align with their skills, interests, and needs. That means they’ll likely decide in a matter of moments whether your opportunity is one that’s worth exploring further. 

To convince candidates to keep reading and hit “Apply,” here are some ways to make your job posts concise, compelling, and easy to read:

• Use the right job title: Adopting a standard job title helps job seekers to find your post faster. Look for the most common job titles for the type of position you’re trying to fill and double check it’s spelled correctly before posting the opportunity.

• Start with purpose: The first few lines of your job post are your chance to get candidates excited about the opportunity. Craft an enticing introduction that highlights the uniqueness of your organization and the impact your new hire will make. 

• Create scannable sections: Dense job descriptions can be off putting. Make it simple for candidates to determine if this role is a good fit for their skills by breaking up your job post into clearly labeled sections and using bullet points.

Discover more tips for writing great nonprofit job descriptions by visiting our LinkedIn for Nonprofits Resource Hub.

2. Take a skills-based approach

Traditionally, job descriptions have centered around candidates’ education and prior experience. But this approach can limit your talent pool significantly by eliminating candidates who have all the right skills but lack a bachelor’s degree or specific work experience. Even if you would be open to considering people skilled through alternative routes, strict requirements in your job description may discourage these candidates from applying.

Taking a skills-based approach to writing job descriptions can help — expanding talent pools nearly 10x on average. Be sure to communicate with your entire hiring team about why you are taking this approach and align early on the skills that are most critical to the role. Otherwise, candidates with a lot of potential may inadvertently get screened out.

3. Leverage your nonprofit’s employer brand

Your employer brand encapsulates the value that employees get from working at your nonprofit. You have an employer brand even if you don’t realize it — and by actively shaping and communicating that brand, you can make your organization more attractive to potential job seekers. 

So what should your employer brand include? Start by making a list of everything that makes your nonprofit an enriching place to work. This could include:

• Tangible benefits like paid time off and opportunities for professional development and mentorship

• Intangible benefits like your organizational culture and informal flexible working arrangements

• Aspirational benefits like the ability to make a meaningful impact in the lives of the community you serve

Once you’ve identified the building blocks of your employer brand, think about ways to incorporate them into your job posts. For example, when you write about your nonprofit’s mission, you could provide a clear example of how this role will help contribute to it. You could also include a list of benefits alongside the overview of responsibilities and requirements.

Next, add some information about your organizational culture to the description on your nonprofit’s LinkedIn Page and weave employer brand-oriented posts into your regular content calendar. That way, if candidates click through to your Page to learn more about your organization before deciding to apply, they’ll be met with a consistent, compelling story. To take your employer branding strategy to the next level, consider investing in a LinkedIn Career Page to provide a dedicated space for candidates to learn about life at your nonprofit.

4. Encourage your whole team to post about the open role

When it comes to finding future employees, your current team members can be your greatest talent scouts. Every one of your employees has a rich professional network, and chances are, some of their connections have the skills you’re looking for in your next hire. 

Beyond asking for referrals, encourage employees to post about your open roles on LinkedIn — especially the team who will be working closest with the new hire. You can make this easy for them by providing some suggested copy that they can use to reshare a post from your organization’s LinkedIn Page, but give them the freedom to personalize it. Not only will this get your opportunities in front of your employees’ networks, but it may encourage people to tag peers who might be interested, increasing the visibility of your job posts significantly.

5. Boost your job posts for increased visibility

You can post up to one job at a time for free on LinkedIn. But for high priority roles, it may be worth using a promoted job post, which can help you reach 3x more qualified candidates on average. 

If you typically hire for multiple roles each year — especially if those roles are competitive, specialized, or senior level — you could also get a LinkedIn Job Slot. This allows you to automatically promote jobs without the need to monitor your spend by rotating them in and out of a pre-paid slot. 

Every role is different, and some are more challenging to hire for than others. But by combining these tactics, you can help your job posts reach more people — and give them a good reason to apply. 

Learn more about how our discounted hiring solutions can help. Get in touch with our team today.