 Welcome back to the nonprofit show. I like to say welcome back because my assumption is you found your way here before. But if not, welcome. We're glad that you found your way here to the nonprofit show. Today we are excited to have back with us, Katie Warnick. Katie has been with us for a long part of this journey. So grateful to have your support. She serves as the CEO of Staffing Boutique. Yes, and has brought to us today a conversation all about recruiting tips. And this recruiting tip episode is focused designated specifically to that CEO executive director role. So before we jump into the deep end with you, Katie, we want to remind all of our viewers, if we haven't had the pleasure of meeting you yet, Julia Patrick, she is here, of course. She is the CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. And I'm Jarrett Ransom, co-host, CEO of the Raven Group, but also known as Nonprofit Nerd. So honored to serve alongside day in and day out. You know, we would not be here if it weren't for the amazing rock stars like Katie and so many others that are part of our presenting sponsors. So thank you to our friends that allow us these opportunities. And that goes out to Bloomerang, American Nonprofit Academy, Fundraising Academy at National University. Also thank you to Nonprofit Thought Leader, your part-time controller, Staffing Boutique, Nonprofit Nerd and Nonprofit Tech Talk. Katie, you know, when you joined us early, I want to say March of 2020, we weren't quite sure what we were doing and you were along for the ride and you saw the vision probably right at the same time we were seeing the vision. So thank you for being a huge part of the show, helping to produce over 900 episodes and you can find them on streaming broadcast podcast and you can also download that app. So wherever you stream your entertainment, consume your entertainment except for the sphere. We're still working on putting us in the sphere in Vegas. You can find us on the non-profit show. Would that be amazing? Yeah. Oh my gosh, I would never leave. I'd have to like, I'd have to move to Vegas and just sit in the sphere because it's cool outside. Yeah, it is really cool outside. But hey, for those of you again that are joining us, if you haven't met Katie yet, I would love to reintroduce her to all of you. Katie Warnock, CEO and founder at Staffing Boutique. Check out her website at staffingboutique.org. Grateful to have you back with us today. Thanks for having me. You know, Katie, it's fascinating how our conversations have changed. I think, and Jared, I'd love your opinion about this. It seems like for so many years, staffing and employment issues were like kind of the same, the process kind of the same. Then all of a sudden the pandemic comes and everything's upside down, the labor market shifts, the economy shifts. And we keep coming back to you saying, what's happening? What's happening? What are you seeing? And every single time that we're with you, it's like a hair and fire moment because the marketplace and the environment with which we hire and manage labor who shifted so dramatically. And I think it's a fascinating time. Been a real roller coaster over here. Yeah, it has. Yeah, it's been a real roller coaster. Well, let's talk about hiring a new CEO and executive director. And you told, started telling this to us right in the beginning, it's like, hey, there's gonna be this tsunami of people retiring and they're aging out of this type of leadership and we're gonna have to fill all this. What are you seeing? Cause you're advising us to start with determining what we need. Yeah, what am I seeing? So I think that if we were to talk about this and just this is gonna be the theme of the next 30 minutes, right? So I'm going to emphasize the word time, allow enough time, right? That's how we're gonna end this as well. Just allow enough time for this to go well. So I think what you need to do when you are determining the nonprofit needs, you need to look at your organization, you need to evaluate what the current CEO is doing or the current executive director and is it working? And so that takes a minute to sit down with the current person in the place, the CFO, any executive staff that has to deal with that person directly outside consultants, the board chair and really determine where your organization is. If it's been successful, is it falling short at the end of fiscal years? Really taking in that feedback from everyone internal and external and deciding where the organization wants to go with that new CEO, right? So really setting up for success, the new person who's taking over. This is a great time to evaluate your organization and if growth is in the future, right? The next three to five years is the organization just grinding and it's sort of business as usual. Do they want to take on more projects, more programs, maybe embark on a capital campaign and think about all of those aspects before you decide who your search committee is to handle this recruitment process that will take some time, right? So the other thing that I just wanted to say about that is search committee. We kind of take for granted that every nonprofit knows what to do when they're searching for a CEO or an executive director and the reality is a lot of them don't, you know? A lot of the organizations that I deal with don't even have HR departments. That's why they use me for recruitment. It's typically the business manager or the COO is the person that kind of handles that HR function. So what are we looking at in terms of search committee for a CEO or an executive director? You know, it's obviously going to be someone on the board but it's really important to appoint a search chair to handle the current CEO, executive director search. It takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of administrative work and you're not gonna have an executive handling the search. You need someone above that. So that's why you're going to the board and setting up the expectations of what that hiring process is going to look like once you've evaluated your current organization's needs. Okay, so you said so much that's kind of freaked me out because I love your advice, but now I'm thinking, you know, on the boards that I've served and I'm thinking in my mind, you look around the table and you've got to be like, who can do this? Who can even, I mean, Jared, do you see where I'm going with this? This is such a huge lift. You're volunteer. You're probably serving in other boards. You're dealing with your own business and now you've got to find somebody who's gonna be championing the search committee. I mean, it's really frightening to think about this. It is and I have been in a lot of these conversations over my career because I've served in that professional interim space and oftentimes, right, like the board will say out loud, I didn't expect to be putting this much time into this task or even managing this task, you know? So it takes a lot. I find a lot of board members tend to, I'm gonna say it out loud, get comfortable with the current executive director and they want, no matter what, everything to work out because they don't wanna go that extra mile that it takes because it can be a very lengthy and involved process. And I think it should be, right? Like this is one of the top hiring positions for the organization. Yeah, great. Yeah, and so, you know, having the search chair is super important. Setting the expectations of how much time it is going to take upfront is really important. I've actually had to do the search a number of times and every time I deal with the search chair, it tends to be someone with more of an HR background. Maybe they're HR and corporate and they sit on the board or maybe they have some sort of like legal background and they take it on, but they always say, this is a lot of work, you know? It's a lot of coordinating schedules, which is super hard just in general when you're dealing with board members. And then, you know, you need to be able to debrief everyone on where you are with the interview process. So you need to be able to take good notes and then also be able to sort of regurgitate those notes to the current board and also kind of be able to handle any sort of questions or anything that's going on from internal staff and be able to handle them accurately and confidentially. Yeah, and confidentially. I love that you said that. Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot that goes on there. Well, let's talk about the job description because I feel like that's probably one of our first task is we say, okay, we're now searching for a new CEO executive director. Let's pull out that job description. Let's dust it off, right? Is that what's happening? Like, are we literally dusting off one from the 80s? Are we writing from scratch? Are we going to chat GPT and asking it to write one? Like, have you read this complete job description? Yeah, I think that that is always, for any position, I always make that joke. Like, is this the job description that someone just saved on the drive like 15 years ago or is this an accurate job description? And again, you know, the tasks of the CEO has probably changed just since COVID to Julia's point earlier. You know, so you really need to evaluate what that job description looks like. Asking the current CEO, you know, what does your day look like? What does your week look like? What does your month look like? And jotting down those bullet points and making it an accurate job description. I think that the one mistake so many people do make when they're writing job descriptions is it becomes more of a wish list than a reality, right? So you really want to make it accurate because it's really important for the incoming CEO to know what the expectations are, right? So it needs to be accurate in that respect. I think you should write a new job description. You said something very interesting and that was, you know, like interviewing the CFO or the development director and getting input about what that talent might look like or be needed. Do you ever see this being done with job descriptions where you somewhat share it and you're like, hey, CFO, hey, development director, take a look at this. You know, are we missing anything? Or- I've seen organizations do it. You know, I've actually done it here when I had to rehire. You know, I was like, write me what you do because I don't know. You know, I knew what the job was when I hired for it originally but the job has since changed. So I was like, write me down what the next person is going to do. So I think that that's a great way to start your job description. One thing that I'll add and I think it was pretty alternative but there was a survey that went out to all staff members asking, what is most important that the CEO possess like skill set, expertise, whatnot? So this survey went out to the entire staff but what I found interesting was there was a delineation. Should the CEO come with previous nonprofit experience or should they not, right? Like are we looking to really garner a new talent in the for-profit? And I was just, I found it very interesting and the results that came back, you know really helped to shape that job description but it used Julia. I really use the voice of all of the employees not just that executive level. You know, I like that. Yeah, I like that because especially in these times of phenomenal change, not just from the pandemic but the technological change, the way we fundraise and communicate, it's a new day for leadership in such a big way. So I think that's a great idea. I can't imagine a lot of doing that. You know, this next question I have for you, Katie, I'm really intrigued by it because this, I think of, you know, Jared Ransom, the nonprofit nerd talking about professional interim CEOs. Let's all push our glasses up as Jared just did. You know, this new voice in business, for-profit as well as nonprofit, the interim position, what are your thoughts on this? I love this idea. You do, okay. Let me tell you what, because what happens often and this isn't just CEO positions but this has happened to me a number of times throughout my career doing this is a CEO or an executive director is leaving the organization knows they have ample time and they think that they're going to be able to fill this whether it be on their own or through a staffing firm and that person exiting has a set date and it could be, you know, three months down the line like they're giving a sufficient amount of notice but I don't think the current organization takes into account how long this search is going to take and now what happens is it's two weeks to the exit of the existing ED or CEO and they don't have anyone secured and they're not even close to wrapping up interviews. So now what happens? Now they're sort of doing everything in their power to fulfill what's going to happen and they wind up hiring an interim anyway, you know and that's when they come to me and now we have just two weeks to fill an interim where we could have been proactive, gotten an interim while they did the search process and said from the beginning, this could be six to nine months, this could be six to 12 months and get someone in the door that way, you know so many things don't fall through the cracks. The CEO is such an important role. It's so important for your donors to have a contact at the organization, there needs to be someone there so I am a huge advocate for this and then on top of that, you know just getting a fresh set of eyes in, getting someone in who's going to maybe have more of a professional development focus. Sometimes there are emotions with a new with a CEO leaving or an ED leaving for the staff. So that person can come in and sort of weed through those emotions of current staff and past staff members and that way when the new CEO gets appointed it's a fresh start, you know. I echo all of that, Katie and I think you were so spot on the best intentions are laid for that timeline to be as short as possible to bring in the executive director, right? Like really casting the net far and wide finding that unicorn, bringing them in, onboarding them but the reality is in my experience and you mentioned it too it could be anywhere from six to nine months and you know really having a gap is not going to serve the organization it's not going to serve the board members because guess what? Now that search committee, someone likely needs to step up and be that day to day contact for the staff and they don't want to do that, right? Like that's, so bringing in a professional interim I think should be part of as soon as you get a resignation from a CEO if you're lucky enough to receive a resignation I know there's a lot of moving targets, right? Where people haven't been given that but if you're given that luxury use that at the same time to start recruiting and bringing in a professional interim I think at the same time. Yeah, I agree with you. You know it's, I know it's been fascinating to watch your work in the interim space, Jarrett and I think one of the things I find the most intriguing and the most difficult for the sector to understand is that the interim is not a babysitter while things are working out. They're taking a look at things they're offering their opinion they're like you use that word they're a fresh set of eyes navigating the process but let me ask one more question would that interim be a part of this hiring thing or are they separate? I know that it's an ethical issue to apply for the job that that's definitely frowned upon and not done but do they help administrate some of this process that we've been talking about? I vote no. Okay. No, but I mean then you really have to look at timing. You ideally wanna have looked at the nonprofit's needs before that interim person came in. So your staff and your search committee should have an idea of what the next CEO is going to bring to the table. That's what I think. Now there's been instances where I've seen interim CEOs stay on for close to two years. And so that's a different situation. I think certainly at that point, they do have a say in it, right? Because things have changed in the past 14, 15, 16 months but my initial answer is a hard no. Okay, good. That's good. And I've been involved. Yeah, I've been involved in both. I would say I think it's more streamlined for a larger organization to not involve that interim. I find often for smaller organizations the board needs a little bit more shepherding. And so I have served in that capacity of the scheduling, making sure our calendars are in line, things like that. So I've seen it done both ways and I don't know that there's a right or a wrong. I think it's one of those, it depends but I fully recognize and respect Katie. Like, there are some nuances with that and you're right. I mean, there have been some interim positions that I know have wanted the interim to stay longer than that six to nine months. And I feel that once that happens, it's just, it's a comfort zone, right? And we can't allow that comfort zone to remain because then we're not doing what we're hired to do which is to help them move forward with that full-time CEO. Great. And another thing just to add there, if you're getting an interim, it doesn't always have to be a 40 hour, 50 hour a week job. There are part-time interim, you can save a little bit there and really just look at what the initial day-to-day responsibilities that need to be tackled by that interim. That's not gonna be the person that's gonna hit every bullet point on your job description but what are the things that shouldn't fall through the cracks during this transition for your organization? I love that. I love that. Well, let's talk about the process and you made the comment starting off that we need to kind of get a champion of this process, probably someone from the board, they're gonna shepherd through all this. Do you find that people understand how to map this out and what it is and vetting and all that? I mean, is that why this takes so long or is it? Yeah, I think that if they're smart and they go in this with a strategy and idea of how they're going to recruit, I think that they can do it. I think that having a search chair and a search committee upfront, going over what realistically screening is going to look like. So obviously I'm going to say work with a staffing firm but if you can't or you don't want to, you really need to point out some of the basic things. Number one, how are you gonna recruit? Are you gonna network? Are you posting this publicly? Is it a confidential search? Just kind of all of those little things that need to be accounted for upfront. The other thing is what is the interview process going to look like? Who is this person meeting? Is it one round? Is it two rounds? Is there going to be an assignment? All of those things. What does compensation look like for this person? What's the full package look like? You don't wanna start a process, find a candidate you're in round three and you're nowhere close in salary ranges. How all of those things decided upfront to be transparent with your candidate pool? The other thing is just, who's getting back to these candidates? Who's the point person? Is there a process of getting back to these people? You don't wanna interview one candidate and then they don't hear back from you in three weeks and you were interested, but you need to be sort of corresponding correctly and that's a lot for someone who is the search chair that goes back to that, all that work that goes into the search chair. Another thing too, when you're dealing with executive level positions and you're dealing with board scheduling, it's so, so hard to nail down board members with schedules, right? So a lot of the times, I suggest getting times on their calendar. If your board meets every Thursday, monthly, say, okay, well, after this board meeting or before this board meeting, we're gonna allow three hours of time for scheduling for interviews, even if there's not even a candidate in play. But put that scheduling in before or after a board meeting will go a long way because then at least two or three board members that need to meet this person know that on this night, they have to be at the board meeting prior and if it gets canceled, not a big deal, but at least you'll allow that time. I think that just sort of those basic things and logistics go a huge, long, huge, long way to work your strategy for filling this job, I guess a little bit quicker, but again, allow for time. That is very wise. I love that. I have to ask about the background check because I feel like, you know, for recruiters yourself, you know, and others, Katie, this is something you do on a regular basis, but searching for an SEO executive director from a board committee is sometimes very rare and some board members will never go through this process, right? Just based off of their term limits, but others might have the beautiful opportunity to do it more than once. But looking at this also, one of the hangups I've seen is that background check, especially when an organization doesn't have an HR department. Just, you know, who does that? How do we do that? What is the process of that? So I just, I'm calling that out because I think that's something that needs to go into the timeline and the process and something that, again, that we just need to account for because I've seen that become a hangup. Sure, yeah. And of course, there are companies you can partner with to do your background checks and you can do the MoloCart, but yeah, someone should be the point person on that. You know, Katie, when we first started talking to you, you know, more than 900 episodes again, timing was changing because of, you know, COVID and then because of the economy and the demographic shift and labor and I could go on and on and on and on. And I'm curious right now, are you seeing that people are like ready to work? Is it harder? Is it easier to find this type of leadership? Is it, has it not changed? Like give us kind of that bigger viewpoint to kind of, so we can understand what's, who's even acting. I remember one of the first times I was on during COVID, whatever in 2020 and we talked about how a lot of CEOs and executive directors were actually postponing retirement because they didn't want to leave their organization in the current situation. And then what like two years later, I think that there was a bit of a mass exodus, you know, all these people that were set to retire went ahead and finally got to retire. So hopefully they're enjoying retirement. As of right now, I, you know, I think I said this the last time I was on, I just don't, I don't know what's happening. You know, it's a lot of people are sitting tight. A lot of people are very happy in their organizations. There's a lot of vacancies, you know, there are jobs out there. But at the same time, it just, it doesn't seem right. There's something going on with the market. It's, it seems like it's, I don't know, it seems like it's quiet and people are holding steady as if they are waiting for a change to come. But the change isn't coming, right? Because we were fearing a recession probably 18 months ago. And I don't want to sit here and say, like, it seems like everybody is fearing a recession, but it seems, it seems like that. Like it seems like we're all on a cliff and something is about to happen. We're not really sure what, right? So, you know, in terms of what, what are people doing? Again, organizations are hiring there are jobs out there, but it's, it's very quiet. Interesting. Do you think that has anything to do with a general election coming up in a presidential election? Do you think that? I think that you just hit the nail on. Okay. Because, well, you know, because the political sense of nonprofits and funding and just in general of fear, you know, I feel like people can navigate anything if they know what it is for good or for bad. But when it's like what you said, it was really interesting the way you phrased this, we're kind of all on the cliff and are we going to fall off or are we going to be, are we going to back up? Yeah, and it's weird. It's weird because what, was 2022 one of the biggest years for philanthropy? I feel like it was. So I think it was 2022. So, you know, coming off a really strong year, but it's eerily quiet. That is interesting. Yeah. Well, one of the things I'm seeing too, and I know we don't have too much time, but we're seeing some of the younger professionals looking to rise the ranks, right? They're looking to take on their first CEO position, maybe their first development director position. So really I'm seeing also as we look at this, you know, mass exodus that recently happened, but then we have so many eager younger leaders that are like raising their hands, right? And stepping into that position. And that to me is interesting because I think a lot of our organizations, you know, are transitioning from that CEO that's been there for 15 years to a CEO that might be in their 30s, even 40s, and this is their first time leading an organization. That's something that I've started to see in the sector. Yeah. It's a new dawn. Well, you know, I say this every time you're on, Katie, well, it's a new time. I mean, because it just seems like it's not the same old same old. And so it's really a lovely thing to have you come on and give us this overview of what you're seeing. I think especially coming from the East Coast, you know, you see things in a different way. A lot of times first is that it moves west. And so Katie Warnick, CEO and founder of Staffing Boutique, check out staffingboutique.org and you can learn all about what they do, how they do it. And it's just a fascinating aspect to how we need to be working in the nonprofit sector because we're people-based. I mean, if we don't have our teams put together, we can't serve, right? And so really, really interesting. Katie, I always love our time with you. And it is a hair and fire moment, I think at least once every episode with you, because I'm like, oh my God, it's a good thing. Hey again, everybody. I'm Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. Been joined today by the nonprofit nerd herself, Jared Arrance, I'm CEO of the Raven Group. Again, we have these amazing partners. Most of them have been with us from the very beginning. They include Blumerang, American Nonprofit Academy, your part-time controller, nonprofit thought leader, fundraising academy at National University, Staffing Boutique, nonprofit nerd and nonprofit tech talk. Hey, Katie, you know, I loved this conversation and I think that we had spoken about drilling down even further with some other high-level C-suite positions. So we're gonna revisit this with you with like development director, CFO, you know, a program director, some other things like this so that we can kind of understand some nuances that we need to be looking at because so much is changing in our labor market. And so I really look forward to this trajectory to take with you, thank you. Amazing, love it. Yeah, absolutely. Jared, go ahead and sign us off, sister. Yeah, well, thank you so very much. Thanks to all of you that have joined us today. You know, we have produced over 900 episodes and we wouldn't be here if it weren't for you also joining us along this journey. But we have closed every single episode with the same statement or mantra and we invite all of you to stay with it as we move forward. But every time we say it, Julia, it always like, it sounds a little different. It's the same words, but it always gets home a little different. And it is to stay well so you can do well. Thank you so much, Katie.