Our Hiring Process: Overview
YouthNature went through our first open hiring process as an organization this summer. We hired six part-time Regional Directors and one full-time Communications Director in August after close to two months of development and planning. Now that the hiring process is over, we wanted to provide an overview of what this process looked like internally, how we made decisions, and what we’ve learned. The purpose of this blog is two-fold: we want to model transparency in our hiring practices, and provide general feedback for the 650 people who applied; and, we want to share these lessons learnt to support other youth organizations who may be hiring in the future.
Designing the Application Process:
CV and Cover Letter: We asked for both a Curriculum Vitae (CV) and cover letter. A CV is an accumulation of past work experiences, academic background, publications, and other relevant qualifications that typically is longer than a resume. In our experience working internationally, a CV is more commonly asked for than a resume. We chose a CV + cover letter as opposed to say, a specific form with questions, to allow for the applicant to speak to what they think is important.
Position Descriptions: We released detailed full position descriptions that were intended to provide all necessary qualifications for the applicant to speak to in order to build a strong application.
Timeline: Applicants had a deadline of three weeks to submit, with no extension due to the overwhelming response we received.
Questions on application process: We received a flood of questions to our general email inbox, and tried to answer them where and when appropriate. Many general questions were compiled, and we released a series of “Frequently Asked Questions” on our social media to try to limit duplicate emails.
Designing Selection Criteria:
Selection Committee: The selection team was made up of the existing Y4N Coordination Team, and several volunteer Global Ambassadors, including team-members that had formerly held Regional Director roles. These members were from Canada, the United Kingdom, Colombia, Mexico, Belgium, and Nigeria.
Members of Youth4Nature that applied for the roles were excluded from the entire process.
We created two distinct Selection Committees: one for the Communications Director role, and one for the Regional Directors. Both committees had at least 5 people on them, with overlap between committees.
Selection criteria: The two Selection Committees collaborated on a set of general criteria and scaling, and then refined their criteria based off of position descriptions.
Skills and Experience made up more than half of the weighting.
The rest of weighting considered Interests, Motivations, Qualities and Values - this was important to us. We looked for an understanding of and affinity towards our work, and a clear demonstration of values in alignment with our own as an organization.
We had two initial “Checks” when evaluating applications - if these criteria were not met, we did not review the full application. These criteria were: 1) age, and 2) if the cover letter was addressed to Youth4Nature and for the specific position, and the applicant submitted both a CV and a cover letter.
We gave applicants a weighted score based off of the above criteria, with those that made it past a threshold to be considered by at least two members of the Selection Committee. We noted stand-out qualities and experience in a “Comments” section for use when determining the top candidates.
We narrowed down the top pool of candidates for each position, and as a team narrowed that down further to the top five through a voting process from all Committee members.
For the Communications Director position, we asked the top eight applicants for a portfolio submission that showcased their past work in communications. We then used that to determine the top five for interviews.
We selected five people to interview for each position for a total of 40 interviews.
Interviews and Final Selection
Interview questions: There were a general set of interview questions for the two sets of positions that were written by the Selection Committees.
The team took turns leading interviews based off of the questions, and there was at least one tailored question asked by a member of the Committee per interview.
Interviews: Interview teams varied per individual seven positions, with the Managing Director attending all interviews, joined by a minimum of at least one member. Interviews lasted 45 minutes to one hour. We prioritized that at least one interviewer was from the region of the specific Regional Director position when possible, with the exception of West Asia and Asia-Pacific. For consistency, each position had the same set of interviewers.
Post-interviews: All interview teams discussed all the candidates from the interviews, formed a top two or three, and decided on an ultimate candidate together through consensus decision making with the full selection committee. All interviewers were given the opportunity to speak to broader committee about the candidates they interviewed and explain their top selection.
Challenges from Youth4Nature:
We received far more applications than we anticipated and had planned for - almost 650 from 109 countries. Our Selection Committees were mostly volunteer or working part-time: only a maximum of two people could go through each application.
The applications we received were of a high quality, but the applicants might not have been the best fit for our specific positions.
Legal and financial challenges: Y4N is an organization legally registered in (what is currently called) Canada - this limits our ability to hire staff from other parts of the world. The Communications Director position, as a full-time role and as a core part of the operational/coordination team, was restricted to Canadian citizens, permanent residents and refugees, because we risk legal consequences for hiring an international contractor for this role. This is why most of our Coordination Team is Canadian too. This is inherently exclusive, and we aim to invest some of our legal resources into exploring options around this: how to hire youth outside of Canada as full-time employees with roles distinct from contractors, without risking tax implications.
Representation challenges: We recognize that our Coordination Team is all Global North and 80% white. Moving forward, we commit to analyzing what institutional barriers might be in place that inhibited more BIPOC from applying or engaging, and more importantly, we will explore what internal biases may exist within the team that influenced our decision making.
Successes:
The response to our call for applications overwhelmed us, but it also confirmed what we already know: so many young people from all corners of the world are leading for nature, climate, and justice.
Lessons Learned - What We’ll Do Better Next Time
Communications Director Role:
We relied on our own networks, and recognize that this may have prevented our reach to more Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour. Next time, we will pursue a wider outreach strategy that directly advertises to organizations and networks that better represent these communities.
Regional Directors:
Our team is growing, and becoming more regionally diverse. This will help to make future hiring committees more geographically diverse to represent the positions we are hiring for.
General:
We will clearly articulate the importance we place on value-alignment, and that we are seeking demonstrated knowledge of, interest in, and affinity to our work.
Next time, we will have an equal proportion of Global North and Global South representation in the planning of selection criteria, and a regional representative in all region-specific interviews.