Purpose-Led Recruitment – Part 2

In my last blog (Purpose-Led Recruitment – Part 1), I explored the importance of organisational purpose within your recruitment process to providing a central point around which you can shape a role to how you might present it to the world. By building roles from this central focus and around the values through which you put your purpose in action you are able to build a recruitment process that is grounded authentically in who you are, the work that you do and the impact it has with and for your priority audiences.

In this blog, I will take that approach further by exploring how you might bring this purpose-led approach to the latter stages of your recruitment process – from the way in which you advertise your role (and where), to reviewing applications, setting up and conducting your interviews and then ultimately offering the role and onboarding your new colleague(s).

Once a role has been scoped and a job pack created in a way which is reflective of your purpose-led values and which reflects your organisation’s purpose, your North Star and the elements around which your decisions are being made – you will then turn your attention to how and where you share the role with the world. The key focus for this should be considering ways in which you might effectively and authentically reach candidates for the role. In many cases this includes using traditional advertising channels like your website, social media and job listing sites, such as the free ones offered by the National Arts Councils. It may also involve thinking about key networks you know of (or are part of) with which you can share the role and encourage applications to come from. This might be communities of interest (such as a fundraisers forum if looking for income generation roles) or it might be networks with specific lived experience or knowledge (such as practitioners working in or specialising in engaging communities in your borough). Carefully considering where to place your role is vital in ensuring that you are thinking first and foremost about who you want to reach in order to ensure you can realise your purpose as an organisation. The role might not necessarily require specific arts or cultural sector knowledge and in those cases, you may consider reaching out to job listings/job boards that cater to a wider pool of candidates. Whatever the channels that feel most appropriate for reaching potential candidates, it is vital that the language you use in these adverts and posts to reach your audience is reflective of your organisational purpose and informed by your purpose-led values. For example, if your purpose is to democratise culture and inclusivity is one of your values, then the language you use should reflect that. If innovation is key, then thinking about how you present the story of your role within any public forum is vital to expressing those values and in turn authentically presenting your organisational purpose.

You may also choose to work with a recruitment partner at this stage. The role of a recruitment partner in this instance is to ensure that your role speaks to the market in the most effective way. When choosing who to work with the key is ensuring you go with someone who takes the time to engage with who you are as an organisation, your purpose – by which we mean the impact you have with and for your audiences – and can represent you with potential candidates. Recruitment partners – including Achates Recruits – will then reach out to a range of candidates who they consider to be suitable for your role based on the priorities you have identified throughout the scoping process. They become your trusted partner, a representative of your organisation, supporting the administrative burden of a recruitment process whilst also ensuring that you have the strategic support and outreach to put your opportunity in front of the most exciting and dynamic candidates who understand and are aligned with you and your organisational purpose.

Once candidate applications have been received and you are moving on to the shortlisting process, setting up interviews and ultimately making an offer, the importance of organisational purpose as your decision-making framework doesn’t diminish, it is vital that you continue to apply this same decision-making lens throughout. By doing this, you are ensuring that each step of the recruitment process is infused with purpose, thereby ensuring that you are assessing potential candidates not only for their ability to do the role itself but also their understanding of and alignment of who you are, what you do and the impact you are having with and for your priority audiences. In turn this will mean that the way in which your organisation is presented to those applying is authentic and rooted in purpose, thereby ensuring that anyone who eventually joins your team is fully immersed in working and thinking in line with your purpose right from the beginning.

You could set up your scoring matrix for applications in a way which reflects both the immediate requirements of the role but also assesses candidates based on how they have interpreted your purpose, and how they have aligned themselves with it. Your interview panel and format should reflect who you are, the communities you represent and the impact you want to have, not only the immediate colleagues the successful candidate will work with on a day-to-day basis. We’d suggest using your purpose-led values to conduct an audit of your standard processes as a great place to start thinking about a purpose-led approach to recruitment – really challenge yourself as to whether those values are reflected throughout the process and in who has a voice in making recruitment decisions. This doesn’t mean that every single organisational stakeholder is part of every single hire. It is about ensuring that you are thinking critically about what the role – and the successful candidate – will do to move your appointment towards achieving your organisational purpose. Furthermore, you will also consider who are the key stakeholders who need to be heard when considering who might be the best person to take on the responsibilities covered by the role you are recruiting into.

Finally, when you are offering a role, taking up references and eventually onboarding your new team member, it is vital that organisational purpose remains central to the process. Reflecting again on the processes you currently follow to ask yourself how those values (which are the manifestation of your purpose in action) are showing up and then adapting the process accordingly is a great place to start.

By applying a purpose-led lens throughout this process from beginning to the moment your new colleague comes on board, you will ensure that organisational purpose and culture are unequivocably and authentically represented. This means that once the team member is working at your organisation, they will already have a strong sense of purpose and culture ensuring an efficient, resilient and sustainable approach to your organisational development.