Where Most Needed

There's not a great deal of interchange between secular and faith-based nonprofits, though they have much in common with respect to organizational difficulties.  Christianity Today provides us with the human resource meditation of the week, in a column by Rev. Jack Connell titled Anatomy of a Bad Hire, written right after the termination.  He suggests four errors that could have been avoided:

1. More face time and interaction between the candidate and other staff.  Rather than relying on a one-on-one interview, the pastor resolves that in the future he would spend more time to give the candidates exposure to different settings interacting with staff. 
2. Setting the pay too low.  Upon hearing the job description, a colleague suggested an appropriate salary level, but our friend thought that he could get someone for $20,000 less.  Some well qualified candidates dropped out after hearing the salary, which limited the field of choices.  Of course, the cost of the bad hire well exceeded the expected savings. 
3. Don't settle.  At some point in the process, the pastor decided to "settle" on this candidate, and thereafter overlooked seemingly small incidents that should have been given more weight or raised flags, like an email that went without a response. 
   
4. Relying on "signs."  It wasn't that the candidate had the same birthday, but something equally irrelevant played a role in sealing the decision to hire.  Next time, the pastor resolves to pay attention to the process and ignore the coincidences. 

I've always relied on other staff input in hiring, typically including some interviews with subordinates (for a supervisory position), peers, and managers in other departments who interact with the position.  This other input has saved me more than once from "settling" and "signs."   

But getting the salary right is always problematic, particularly in accounting support where candidates above entry level typically have options.