Recruitment is a love letter to your mission

We’re hiring . . . We’re looking for . . . Join our team . . .

Do any of these lines make you feel something? Or are they just telling you something?

Recruitment is about attraction. Creating a genuine connection with a human audience. It’s about tapping into emotional drivers, making people feel something, and inspiring them to act.

Great recruitment is more persuasion than process.

Recruitment is about winning hearts — like a beautifully-written love letter.

• A love letter makes you feel something.

• It invites and creates connection, even desire.

• It communicates intention.

• It’s honest, real and human.

• It’s not written to inform, it’s written to move.

This is where a transactional, process-led approach to hiring can fall short.

Yes, people need information. Yes, the hiring team needs to evaluate, assess and select.

But first, comes the invitation.

Hiring can be hard. People expect more, they change jobs more often and nearly half of Australian employers find it difficult to fill vacant roles.

36% of employers are unable to fill jobs within a month. This is 2026 data. While recruitment activity has slowed, the challenge remains.

It’s tempting to cite the skills shortage or market forces as the reason, but relying solely on external factors to explain recruitment challenge is an oversimplification.

The antidote is an attraction mindset.

We talk a lot about purpose in the non-profit sector. It gives our actions meaning and describes the impact we hope to have.

Purpose is more than why — it’s how. Purpose is a practice — and it’s revealed in how you recruit. How you communicate, how you behave, how you make decisions — all of these things matter.

Your recruitment campaign is not a “we’re hiring” announcement. It’s not about telling people information, it’s about connection.

Persuasion over process.

Attraction over acquisition.

Winning hearts and minds.

A great recruitment campaign helps people see themselves in the work. It creates alignment before the first conversation.

• The job ad.

• Your careers page.

• Your tone of voice and language.

• Every email, phone call and message.

• The interview experience.

• The post-interview experience.

• Your response times.

• How you handle feedback.

Recruitment is your culture in public. A brand moment. A love letter to your mission.

It’s an expression of your purpose — this is where people experience it first.

You’re not just hiring. You’re inviting someone into something that matters.

Make them feel it.

Want to learn how to put this approach into action and get better, faster and more sustainable recruitment results?

I'm excited to introduce the a new type of support for the NFP sector: The Attract Recruitment Mentoring program.

Read more here or get in touch to find out more.