Hot off her appearance in last month's episode, Kay Linder, Partner with ThinkingAhead's Nonprofit Leadership Search, talks about the interesting first career and skill set that led her into recruiting, how she excels within her area of focus, and what to keep in mind when dealing with candidates in this current market.

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Well, in my experience, a lot of the opportunities that I work on are either newly created for the organization or they've been recently retooled or are the back end of a retirement that person's been in place a long time.

And those are delicate to navigate.

Um, a big part of the value I think I bring to an organization, in addition to already being a specialist in the niche that I work in, is to help guide them through that process.

A lot of times that means doing a stakeholder survey with them.

Everyone that's going to be impacted by the hire, and a lot of times clients don't think about that.

It can be outside people that will work closely with this new person.

It can be staff in another department.

It can be a whole host.

And so that's a grounding to making sure we're looking for the right person.

It also helps those people feel like they're vetting into the process, and they're going to be more receptive to liking the person when they come on board.

Also navigating how to successfully recruit a candidate.

And that is What questions to ask in an interview, not to forget that the candidates interviewing you at the same time.

So be pleasant, be helpful, be very open and engaging.

Sometimes we forget to do that when we're focused on is the other person a good fit.

I think also just keeping a very.

It's an equal process for all candidates, so everybody's asked the same questions, everybody's treated the same, making sure that there's a lot of equity involved in the process is extremely important.

And when it comes down to the final decision making, as if you're a good recruiter, you always try to drive at least two finalists.

To the end.

And that way, the client has two people they could potentially hire.

They like them both.

If something happens to one of the candidates, and they happen to drop out of the equation, all of a sudden, you have another person that you're equally satisfied with.

And so that journey of.

Really helping them understand at the front end what they're looking for and navigating to make sure they end up with the right person that matches that is, you know, very important.

I think I've changed my practice area six times.

One or two of those were really quickly into my tenure because I came in and two years later there was the dot com bubble burst and 9 11.

Then there was the economic downturn, the Great Recession.

And then in 2019, I moved completely from one field to the nonprofit field.

And I did that two months before COVID.

So I went in a brand new search, had no contacts, et cetera.

And, but I tell you, going through that experience is really.

First of all, maybe appreciate how wonderful people are, how generous they were with me, with me learning the business as I went along.

And those are clients and candidates and everyone that I talked to.

And it also helped me appreciate.

How important they are to us as much as we are to them.

I think sometimes recruiters think that we are God's gift to, you know, to the world, to the employer.

And they're so important to us.

And those relationships that were fostered, even if we don't work together for many years are just irreplaceable.

Well, in this market, great candidates out there in the fields that I recruit in are being approached by everyone.

There's such a high demand and the supply of really gifted people is somewhat limited.

And so we And so, the very get go, the process, make sure we have everything lined up.

We advance block interview times as far in advance as we can so that we're keeping it on pace.

And then making sure that the client is being inviting to the candidate.

And so that when candidates are being interviewed, that they really feel the warmth and they get a sense of the true positive culture of the organization that they're working with.

And also there's a lot of sticker shock.

You know, because of the high demand, low supply.

Um, salary ranges have gone up quite a bit.

A lot of the searches I work on are after somebody's been in place 20 years, 15 years, and so that internal person has not gotten as big of a salary increase along the years as the outside market is.

And so when they go to launch a new search to replace them, I have to a lot of times do surveys with them, and it's not just your standard salary surveys, but because I know my.

field.

I can look at all the professionals I work with and I can give them a pretty candid clear picture of what it's going to take to get the top tier to be interested in their opportunity at all.

Fun story.

So I was in Nashville and I worked because my background in college was ecology and environmental studies.

I was working for a coalition of nonprofit organizations here in Tennessee that were the state chapters of.

Places like the Sierra Club and the Audubon Society, and in that role, I got to lobby at the state level.

I got to run programs and fundraise, and all of those, especially the lobbying, I think really lent itself to becoming a success as a recruiter.

With what you do, lobbying, you listen well, you're a strong communicator, you're great at matching.

You know, situations and people together, all of those things really lend themselves to somebody being successful as a recruiter.

And I think that if you are a lobbyist, you have to go in and listen to all people with different backgrounds, different biases.

A lot of times they may not like you, especially if you're an environmental recruiter, they may not like you walking in the office, but I'm happy to say that I really turned that around with those individuals.

And I think that made me.

even more emotionally intelligent and adept at figuring people out quickly and best way to approach them and communicate with them and the rest is history.