🧩 Design thinking: The blueprint for better hiring
Brands obsess over customers — their wants, needs, pain points and decisions.
The customer journey gets mapped, measured and analysed.
What about the people who serve and support those customers?
We need to put people — the humans you want to hire — at the centre of our recruitment approach.
Recruitment is rarely easy. There is a lot we can do better.
I believe hiring teams can learn a lot from design thinking — a human-centred problem solving approach.
Design thinking starts by putting people at the centre — understanding their needs, frustrations and motivations — before creating solutions. It’s about designing with empathy first, not processes or assumptions. At its core, design thinking says:
If you put humans first, you end up with better ideas, better experiences and better outcomes.
This isn't about designing jobs around people (although that is a clever approach too) — this is about how we approach recruitment and how we can hire better.
To get the best recruitment outcomes, we need to put people at the centre.
Design thinking is a practical, human-first way to solve complex problems. If we apply this thinking to recruitment, we can build processes and experiences that are compelling, engaging — and lead to better outcomes.
Here’s how the stages of design thinking translate to hiring.
Empathise. Start by listening to your people. Capturing insights is the starting point for understanding your employee experience.
Define. Analyse the insights to identify the themes, moments and messages that shape employee experience.
Ideate. Draft some key themes and messages for your value proposition.
Prototype. Armed with insights and buy in from your key stakeholders, turn draft messaging into new recruitment and employer brand content and tangible assets.
Test. Share your new content and assets — internally first and gather feedback; then externally. Track and measure its impact over time.
Recruitment is marketing. The consumer is the talent you're trying to attract. The product is the job you want them to choose — and keep.
In product marketing, no one would launch without a clear CVP — the value proposition that convinces customers to choose your product.
Yet in hiring, many organisations don’t apply the same discipline. Our research at Heart Talent shows that less than half of NFP job ads include a compelling, evidence-based EVP. That’s a missed opportunity.
Your EVP isn’t a tagline — it’s the promise behind the job on offer.
Recruitment isn’t a transaction — it’s a marketing challenge.
Design thinking gives us the blueprint to put people at the centre.
Flexible talent support for NFP leaders
I am deeply committed to making recruitment easier for nonprofit leaders.
I support leaders and organisations to attract the right people through:
traditional recruitment solutions
flexible unbundled recruitment support
helping you review and improve your recruitment approach
helping you understand and articulate your real EVP through employee research
leveraging this research to develop authentic recruitment content
building campaigns that reflect culture and the employee experience
consulting and advisory work to develop talent attraction strategy and capacity.
If you’re curious to know more, send me a message or get in touch for a chat.
As a communications professional and writer turned recruiter, I know modern recruitment is marketing, and I'm on a mission to share this approach with the sector.
Each Friday, I share talent attraction advice and insights. The Nonprofit Talent Edge will help you become more intentional, creative and proactive with your recruitment.
Have a great week.
Cynthia