Our Blog on Recruiting, Hiring, and Search Committees
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The Head’s plan for CFO succession
A main job of the Head of School is to persuade supporters that gifts are put to their highest purpose, applied effectively in support the mission of the school. The case for the efficient functioning of the school rests on leadership from the CFO or Business Officer to foster a culture of continuous improvement.
What conditions allow the ethos of administrative excellence to slip?
Because most leaders do not...
Set advancement priorities before a search
Your goal is to get development, admissions, and the marketing & communications functions operating together in a coordinated way. You are also reinvesting in outside talent responsible for leading that effort. How can you create the conditions for someone new to be successful when the Director of Advancement role is new to your organization?
Getting your team aligned...
When to use an interim
Finding the best candidates happens more consistently when you clearly articulate the new person’s remit. What are you asking someone new to do? That’s true for both interim and permanent roles. So what do you really need?
The key thought experiment is: What will you wish...
Budgeting the Salary Range
What should the salary range be? You have likely heard the term ‘market competitive’ salary. In HR parlance the idea of market competitive is connected to the concept of ‘P50’ (the 50th percentile mark, the amount that half of survey respondents say they make less than). The concept is beguiling.
To be clear, we agree 100% with the principle underpinning the bell curve approach to salary ranges: don’t overpay for talent. It’s worth being patient and working to generate options instead of overpaying.
But there’s sometimes confusion about...
Recruiting the Chief Financial Officer
"Even though I had help and vetting from 2 trustees with a finance background, the worst mistake I ever made as a Head was hiring the wrong CFO"
It’s a sentiment we heard here at a conference for independent school professionals just yesterday. Why would recruiting for the Business Officer or CFOO role prove unusually daunting for a Head of School? In these cases, the standard questions prompt some unusual answers.
What will this person do?
The role definition for the business officer isn’t stable or standardized across institutions. It’s not unusual for...
When Candidates are Evaluating You
Our clients often have prior experience selecting from among a group of candidates eager to be considered for the role. But how to respond when that dynamic is flipped, and candidates are mostly evaluating and choosing you?
“I’m the smartest person they could…
Remove Obstacles for the Next Head of School
It is customary for new leaders joining an organization to embark on a listening tour, getting to know people and building trust. What is revealed in these conversations?
Experienced leaders who have exercised influence in a variety of settings know that…
Manage the turnover in educational talent
“Education is no longer the flexible employment option of choice.” What schools used to offer - including housing for some, lighter work duty during summers, paired with family-friendly time off policies during the academic year - may once have been attractive and competitive. But with the advent of widespread…
Form a Head of School Search Committee
Are you forming a Head of School search committee? We recognize this moment in an organization’s lifecycle. Hiring the Executive Director or Head of School is a responsibility that can’t be delegated. It requires a defined commitment of…
What the candidates who got away can teach us
Too many of the most highly desirable candidates were still opting out of the school’s hiring process, sometimes even after an offer. We wondered: what might these former candidates say about their experience in the hiring process?
We were left wondering: are the ways that anti-bias approaches to hiring are being implemented in schools unintentionally signaling to candidates that the organizational culture values conformity and process rigidity, over relationships and unique perspectives?
Bottom line: You can gain advantages by taking a page out of the recruiter’s playbook: systematically build relationships, elicit what’s important to candidates, and provide visibility…
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