For over 20 years we have worked with a wide variety of faith-based organizations in the identification and selection of senior leaders.
Our experience has helped us understand the ever-changing landscape organizations like yours experience. As we work with you, we’ll:
- help you best handle the challenges and problems you may encounter through the search process.
- walk alongside you and guide you.
- find the perfect fit for your organization.
Our Extensive Network and Longstanding Relationships
When board members conduct their own searches, they oftentimes find themselves talking to a limited network of contacts. Limited time and resources mean they usually aren’t able to uncover a sufficient number of qualified candidates. In most cases, they rely on advertising to attract candidates rather than engage in focused research to identify a broad candidate pool.
We bring an extensive network of nonprofit leaders, board members, and subject experts to the search process. We’ve been developing an extensive network of deep, trusting relationships since 1997. Our network helps us identify strong candidates. These men and women offer candid input about the candidates that we might be considering. Thanks to our network, we’re often able to gain significant insight into someone’s suitability by making a few strategic phone calls.
Our Tools and Technical Know-How
Powered by SIMA® and with deep expertise in the retained search field, JobfitMatters brings a level of sophistication to your search that cannot be duplicated in-house. We have proven tools that produce real, actionable results, and we are masters in the technical aspects of the search process. At the same time, we’re also able to offer flexibility and imagination, because no two searches are quite the same. The unique dynamics of your search and each individual position will require expertise in conducting a senior leadership search, creativity, and innovation. We take pride in our long history of matching our work to the specific needs of our clients.
JobfitMatters ensures your board and search committee won’t have to start from scratch and spend time re-creating the search process to make it work. Instead, keep your focus on the changes that the organization is experiencing, and outline the specifics of what you’re looking for in the new leader.
Our Efficiency and Effectiveness
There’s no way around the fact that executive searches take time. Often, the do-it-yourself approach actually takes longer than if the right search consultant had been hired.
Because we already know all the elements involved in the search process, we can help predict and alleviate problems and issues your organization is liable to face, and what factors are unique to your situation. We’ve developed numerous strategies, tools, and techniques for handling those matters efficiently and effectively. As a result, we can significantly accelerate the search while keeping costs to a minimum.
Our Ability to Drastically Reduce and Focus the Work of Search Committee Members
It’s not just about conducting the search process and doing it well. A good search also requires someone to manage and give direction to that process. When you work with JobfitMatters, the leader in charge of your search only has to manage us as your search firm, not the entire process. That frees up your search committee to focus on what matters—evaluating candidates.
There are a thousand little details that go into conducting a proper search. Keeping track of candidate information, thinking through schedules and travel logistics for candidates who come on-site for interviews, putting together packages on each of the finalists for each member of the board or search committee, to briefing interviewers on the best way to conduct the candidate interviews, the list goes on and on. We know how to handle those kinds of administrative tasks efficiently so they don’t become headaches for you.
Our Professionalism and Reputation
After your organization has completed a search and hired a new leader, your constituents and employees are going to evaluate the quality of the selection process you used. By engaging JobfitMatters, you will be able to demonstrate that the search was conducted at the highest professional level.
A JobfitMatters partner brings many years of experience in all aspects of the search process. They will take charge of the search and help everyone understand how the process works and what their respective roles in it are. JobfitMatters partners will work on the search full-time, spending more than fifty hours a week doing research, talking with people in our network, conducting telephone and face-to-face interviews with candidates, checking references, and applying a careful judgment to the selection process.
Because we’ve been doing that kind of rigorous, professional service for nearly two decades, we’ve developed an outstanding reputation as one of the pre-eminent firms specializing in nonprofit search in the United States. For many of our clients, we’ve become the “go to” organization when they need to make a key hire.
Our Ability to Reduce Risk
The transition to a new leader always involves complicated, potentially unpredictable dynamics. An internal candidate may aspire to the position and you don’t want to lose that valuable team member if not selected. The outgoing leader may be the organization’s founder, which raises a host of challenges. Additionally, the outside interests of a community or foundation may play into the dynamics of the hiring decision.
It has been proven that by working with JobfitMatters, you can minimize or avoid a lot of these risky dynamics. As objective outsiders, we’re able to screen applicants through a carefully designed objective filter that you and your leadership team have approved. We can have conversations with people that might be difficult for you to personally have. We can make discreet inquiries into candidates’ qualifications and backgrounds that you would not likely be able to access. In short, we can help you keep the process on board, on track, and resistant to political pressures.