Congrats! You are in charge of interviewing and managing the hiring process for Regional Director and Advocate candidates. We recently added the Advocate position, which is similar to Regional Directors (RD’s), but less hours are required. Both are volunteer positions that are part of our national political team.
What You’ll Need:
- RD & Advocate Hiring Tracker: Used to keep track of RD’s being interviewed.
- RD & Advocate Hiring – Interview Questions & Email Chain: Tells you what to email candidates and questions to ask during interviews. Don’t change without checking.
- Job Descriptions for RD’s and Advocates
- Interview Processes Document: Provides you with an outline of the hiring process for all positions within The Borgen Project.
- Calendar: You’ll be scheduling dozens of interviews a week. Use the calendar connected to your Borgen Project email account for keeping track of dates and times you’ve scheduled and confirmed interviews.
- Binder: This is where you will keep all the hard copy materials. The binder is divided into sections according to hiring process stages. Print a copy of the interviewee’s resume and attach it to the Hiring Cover Sheet before the interview. After the interview place it in the correct section of the binder.
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Key RD & Advocate Hiring Email Accounts:
- RD & Advocate candidates/Job posting: [email protected] – RD & Advocate applicants usually email their resume to this address. Because so many postings are linked to the account, it gets a ton of non-applicant email (notices about postings expiring, career fairs, etc.). For this reason, we forward all applicants to the [email protected] account to keep communication with RDs and Advocates smoother.
- RD & Advocate: [email protected]: You will use this account for all interaction with RD and Advocate candidates.
Note: All communications with applicants needs to be done in the [email protected]. Do not use your email account to contact applicants.
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Outline of Role
- Manage the [email protected] email account and send all email correspondence to applicants via that account.
- Utilize the canned responses that are in the [email protected] account when emailing candidates and double check the formatting of sent emails.
- Schedule interviews with qualified applicants and add it to the calendar.
- Print a copy of the interviewee’s resume before the interview and attach it to a Hiring Cover Sheet. After the interview place it in the correct section of the Hiring binder. This is where you will keep all the hard copy materials.
- Interview Regional Director and Advocate candidates via cell (if you’ve got free minutes) or Skype.
- Update the RD Hiring Tracker document every step of the hiring process.
- If they passed the 1nd round interview, send them a request for a pre hire quiz from the canned response. They will have 3-5 days to complete the quiz and return it.
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Interviews
Who to Interview?
Because we’re trying to get RDs and/or Advocates in all 435 Congressional Districts, we’re far less selective with the program than we are with the in-office team. If the resume looks professional, plan on scheduling an interview with them. If the resume looks sloppy and/or the resume/cover letter say something that causes concern, then don’t schedule an interview.
What to Look for
Likes
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Good people – Are they nice? Do they seem like good-people?
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Reliable – Are they taking too long to respond to your emails? Do they seem flaky?
- Passionate – How do they feel about the cause? How important is it to them?
Dislikes
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Me, Me, Me, Me, I, I, I – “I want to be a Regional Director, because it’s a good opportunity for me to help advance my career.” Eliminate candidates who are in it for themselves.
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Angry/Bitter – Anger is the emotion that drives many people to action, so naturally when it comes to politics or an issue, you’ll encounter some angry/cranky folks. We don’t want angry people… We want happy people. 🙂
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Not Totally on Board/Overly Cautious – There’s a certain personality type that is slow to get behind anything and always looking for its flaws. If their responses and questions during the interview seem cautious and not fully onboard, then listen to your gut.
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Scheduling
Utilize the calendar inside the [email protected] account to keep track of scheduling for each candidate. Keep track of your confirmed and unconfirmed meeting times.
Pleas use this color coding:
- Blue – unconfirmed 1st round interview
- Turquoise – confirmed 1st round interview
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Learn about the Regional Director Program
- Read the job description.
- Read about the role of RD’s
- Visit RD Hub
- Look through the RD’s getting started page and download the weekly tracker they follow to get a better feel for their typical assignments.
- Spend an hour with the Regional Director Manager and get an overview of the weekly reports that RD’s turn in and the types of assignments they’re working on.
- Watch this…
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Things to Know
- We like to interview as many candidates as possible. Some of our best volunteers had limited work experience.
- Use the “canned responses” that are setup in the [email protected] email account. Make sure these always look professional (no added spacing) and make changes as needed.
- If you have unlimited cellphone minutes, please use your phone or Skype. It’s okay to use the office phone, although those calls are charged to Aegis who donates our office space so we try to limit the usage.