Ask ReproJobs: What are the best practices for searching for a new Executive Director?
Dear ReproJobs:
What advice do you have for organizations searching for a CEO, President or ED? Aside from posting on ReproJobs and including salary and benefits, what steps for outreach do you recommend to find candidates who represent those most impacted by repro rights, health and justice work? Any reccs for the interview process in terms of what to ask candidates to vet them for toxic leadership? Alternatively, what are best practices for how to bring candidates through the process in a way that values their time and expertise regardless of whether they are selected for the position?
- Hiring Intentionally
Dear Hiring Intentionally,
There is a lot of CEO turnover in the movement right now, so this question is very timely. Reading between the lines, it sounds like you’re asking these questions:
How can we conduct outreach to reach people of color? (That’s often what people mean when they say “most impacted,” but we know this can also mean LGBTQ+ people, disabled people, people struggling to make ends meet, anyone who’s been marginalized within, by, and from the professional repro world)
How can we make sure our candidates don’t harm our staff and tank our organization’s work and reputation?
How do we respect job applicants through the process?
We’ll answer them backwards. First, how to respect the time and expertise of your applicants. Be as transparent with them as possible. Share your timeline for hiring, and let them know when you need to extend it. A simple email to share that you know you said you’d get back to them within a week, but it’ll actually be two more weeks, lets a candidate know that a) you know the job search process is stressful, and b) you respect them and value their wellbeing enough to want to ease that stress. Keep people informed along the way – let them know when you’ve made a hiring decision, and thank them for their application. Besides being the right thing to do, this shows that your organization values people’s time and all the effort and preparation that goes into interviewing. Second, ask them to send you completed work products instead of asking them to spend hours working on a specific project for your organization. Unless you can afford to pay them for their time, asking candidates to create original work (a presentation, a report, a legislative brief, or whatever) is a huge waste of time for everyone who doesn’t move forward in the interview process, and tends to generate bitterness and resentment. Chances are they have something they can share from their past roles that will showcase their writing skills, or ability to summarize research, or budgeting skills, or whatever it is that you are looking for. If not, pay candidates as consultants for time spent creating unique documents for you.
Next, how to protect your staff from hiring a toxic CEO. This one’s not easy and requires a lot of due diligence on your part. One way to get at this is to talk to the people the prospective CEO has managed in the past. Not just the people they list as references, and not just their friends on their previous job’s Board of Directors. Talk to their previous direct reports, and other folks who are below them in the hierarchy in the organization. You can be direct and say that you want to know about this person’s management style, about how they treated employees at all levels of the organization, and how they respond to constructive feedback. Ask for specific examples. Ask about what the organizational culture is or was like under the leadership of this person. Were staff expected to work 24/7 or encouraged to take time off? Was there a culture of hostility or open feedback? If something didn’t go as expected, did they blame everyone but themselves? How did they approach conflict? Ask if they would want the candidate as a boss again, and why or why not.
Ask the Executive Director candidates to connect you to coalition partners, and ask about how this person works in partnership with other organizations. Are they generous with resources? What kind of role do they usually take in a group? Do they have an analysis around race, power, and privilege? How does or doesn’t that show up in their work with others? How do they manage disagreement about priorities? Again, ask for examples.
In terms of conducting outreach to reach the folks most impacted by repro, that’s where you might need to branch out of your usual networks. Yes, send the job description to all the repro listservs, post them on our jobs board, and make sure to post it on all the other non-profit job boards too. If you have already-established relationships with leaders of color in repro, send them individual personalized emails (not a form email!) saying that you’re hiring for a CEO position, and asking if they could share the job description with their networks. Share the job description with all your local repro organizations – the abortion funds, the volunteer clinic escort groups, the abortion clinic staff, the local advocacy groups. The truth is, though, you need to put as much effort into hiring diverse candidates as you do into retaining them. It doesn’t mean much to have a Black CEO of a company with 99% white staff, or with staff of color who are never promoted while white staff soar through the ranks, or queer staff paid less than straight staff, etc etc. Candidates can and should do their due diligence in asking how you retain your workers, particularly workers of color, queer workers, disabled works, so be prepared to answer that.
Hiring is the most important job many of us do, and the leader of an organization can make profound change for the better or worse. You’re right to approach this thoughtfully and with a lot of care. Good luck!