Hiring can be hard. Here's what most leaders do.
Intense competition for talent, increased salary expectations, low brand recognition. If talent attraction is a challenge, you’re not alone.
63% of nonprofit employers told Heart Talent competition is their biggest talent challenge.
1 in 4 have lost a preferred candidate to another job offer.
47% report challenges with the size and quality of the talent pool they attract via job boards.
In November 2024, 50% of employers who were actively recruiting failed to fill a job vacancy within one month.
This is Australia-wide data, collected by Jobs and Skills Australia.
While 50 per cent is an improvement on the 72% peak in mid-2022, this data represents a lot of wasted resources without a positive result.
When our team spoke with leaders and people teams about what happens next when they can’t fill a vacant role, five common actions emerged.
1. Readvertise
Readvertising the role is the most common action nonprofit leaders take when they fail to fill a vacant role. While this might seem like an obvious next move, it is worth considering the opportunity cost of readvertising.
The cost to advertise a job vacancy across two job platforms is $600 to $800. Typically a job ad might be live for 30 to 40 days and attract anywhere in the range of 20 to 200 applications.
Readvertising not only doubles advertising costs. It also increases the resources required to review, assess and respond to all applications.
Perhaps more importantly, employers should consider what message a readvertised job sends to the talent market.
2. Headhunt
A small number of nonprofit employers named ‘headhunting’ as a sourcing strategy for hard-to-fill roles.
This approach is only utilised by people and culture teams. Without this capability in house, hiring teams miss out on passive talent (around 70% of the workforce).
3. Outsource
Most nonprofit employers report using recruitment agencies for hard-to-fill roles or as a last resort.
While limited budgets are an important factor for NFP employers, partnering with a recruitment business has one important benefit that mitigates risk while also saving employers time: The recruitment guarantee.
4. Internal talent mobility
Considering a promotion internally is a smart retention strategy.
Most nonprofit leaders report succession planning as something their organisation needs to improve.
5. Review and reset
When they struggle to find suitable talent for a vacant role, forward-thinking employers opt for a review and reset approach, rather than readvertising or outsourcing.
This is by far my favourite action. In fact:
The number one reason a recruitment process fails is skipping the first and most important step - discovery.
When you skip the discovery stage, you’re setting off on what could be a long journey without a map.
If you're considering option 3, read more about our approach and methodology here.
This week’s insights are taken from Heart Talent’s NFP Talent Attraction Report.
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