Top 10 Employee Benefits Offered By Nonprofits

Employee benefits should be on the top of your "must-have" list when looking for a nonprofit job. While salary gets all the attention, having good benefits can make all the difference when it comes to having a job that fulfills your needs.

The NonProfit Times is in the midst of collecting data for its annual Salary and Benefits Survey and while a lot of that information has to do with employee salaries, benefits are also a part of the picture. As a job seeker, you should be seeking out jobs that offer perks that will give you flexibility when it comes to things like sick days, vacations, and bereavement time.

NPT's 2012 Salary and Benefits Report listed the top 10 employee benefits offered by nonprofits. You should be sure that the organization you want to join has at least some of these, if not most of them, before deciding to accept their job offer:

• Paid Company Holiday - 84.87 percent of employers
• Medical Insurance - 81.72 percent
• Paid Vacation -70.41 percent
• Paid Sick Leave - 65.19 percent
• Paid Bereavement Time - 64.39 percent
• Dental Insurance - 64.18 percent
• Retirement Plan - 64.07 percent
• Basic Life Insurance - 55.04 percent
• Flextime - 49.46 percent
• Employee Travel-Accident Insurance - 42.07 percent

8 Things To Include In A Job Description

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How do you get someone to apply for a job at your organization? The obvious answer is to write a job description to post on your website or on a job board, but not any old description will do the trick.

James Weinberg and Cassie Scarano, co-founders of Commongood Careers, wrote in “Nonprofit Management 101” that, to attract great talent, you need a job description that will leave the candidate no choice but to apply. They explained that a job description is a marketing tool at the end of the day: It must engage potential candidates by communicating the opportunities available through the position, in addition to outlining the requirements.

Weinberg and Scarano listed eight things that must be included in a job description if it is to have its desired effect:

• Title: Keep it short, concise, descriptive of the position, and widely recognizable.
• Organizational Overview: Introduce your organization through a succinct and enthusiastic paragraph that outlines your mission and programs, success to date, growth plans, future opportunities, and culture.
• Position Overview: Use one well-written paragraph to describe the overall function of the position and highlight the opportunities for impact and leadership.
• Responsibilities: Use five to seven bullets to provide detail about the responsibilities of the position. Use engaging and active language and avoid jargon.
• Qualifications: This section should outline the experience and competencies required for success in the position and your organization without being overly prescriptive.
• Compensation Range: Disclosing specific compensation is not required and in fact, is not recommended, as it limits the candidates you will see.
• Application Instructions: Be very specific about how you want candidates to apply for the position.
• Equal Opportunity Statement: It is good practice to have an equal opportunity employer policy and to include that in your job description.

4 Ways To Recover From An Interview Mistake

Preparing for a job interview is the best way to avoid making mistakes but it's not a fool-proof method. Even if you practice for hours on end, you can still end up putting your foot in your mouth.

Interview mistakes are embarrassing and can also be costly if you don't recover from them. Since there is no way to turn back time, your only option is to go into damage control mode. Consider the following the tips when you are attempting to recover from a big mistake during your job interview:

• Apologize: To quote Elton John, sorry seems to be the hardest word to say but, if you are going to have a shot at the job, you're going to need to say it anyway. Hiring managers can be very forgiving so long as you come across as genuine when you ask for forgiveness.
• Don't be too hard on yourself: You need to move on from your mistake once you apologize. Don't spend the rest of the interview beating yourself up, as this will only distract you and make it clear to the interviewer that he does not have your undivided attention.
• Think fast: Are you sensing you are going to be late to the interview? Get ahead of the situation and phone the office to tell them you are running late and when they should expect you to arrive. Whatever the situation, remaining calm in the face of potential disaster is the best way to handle mistakes.
• It's never too late: Sometimes you don't realize you've made an error until you have left the interview. You might think it's too late to correct your mistakes, but this couldn't be further from the truth. When you send your follow-up e-mail later in the day, make a note of your mistake and correct it.

How To Network Without Being Annoying

This article was originally posted on the NPT Jobs Career Center

When it comes to the job search, it’s not so much what you know that is important but who you know. That doesn’t mean your career skills aren’t important — far from it — but it is true that it is much harder to get a job without a good group of networking contacts. Getting these contacts is the easy part; it’s a little harder to find a way to stay in touch with them without getting on their nerves.

Using online tools like Facebook or LinkedIn, job seekers are able to better keep in touch with the contacts they have developed over time. I can be argued that it’s too easy though, when you consider that these people do have lives and don’t necessarily want to be contacted every single day. So how do you find a balance between staying in touch and being a pest? It’s a hard act to pull off but, by following the following four tips, you can rest assured knowing that you are not alienating your best job resources:

• Determine which social media site your contacts are most comfortable receiving messages and use that to your advantage. Occasionally commenting on their statuses or sending a quick message is a good way to remind them you still exist without rubbing them the wrong way.
• Don’t feel pressured to spend hours with your contacts. An occasional coffee meeting or a quick lunch is a good way to keep you fresh in their minds should a good job opportunity come up for you.
• Do you have a connection who could potentially help but you don’t get along? Don’t try to force a connection with this kind of person as not only will it not help you, it will probably make you more annoying to them. Stick to networking with people with whom you have a great relationship.
• Nobody likes a one-sided relationship except for the person who is benefiting from it. Make sure that you are doing things for your contacts and avoid talking only about yourself when you chat. Ask how they are doing or what they are doing with their lives.

Featured Nonprofit Job: Major Gifts Officer, Islamic Relief USA

Islamic Relief USA (IRUSA) is looking to hire a Major Gifts Officer. Interested in this type of nonprofit job? Read on for more details.

The chosen candidate for this position will be responsible for identifying new donors and cultivating and developing relationships with current and prospective individual major donors in order to build donor support of the organization’s mission and to build the group’s impact on the community.

Other essential responsibilities include:

• Manages relationships with a portfolio of major donors.
• Implements fundraising strategies from individuals through major gift campaigns, personal cultivation/solicitation, planned giving vehicles and special events designed for individual donors.
• Develops and manages the major gifts annual operational and revenue plans in conjunction with IRUSA’s annual budget.
• Coordinates and liaises with other Fund Development team members and executive management regarding relationship building and donor cultivation events.
• Contacts and meets with prospective donors through personal visits.
• Writes and/or edits proposals, reports, acknowledgements, briefings, and letters to donors and prospects, pledge reminder letters and other documents.
• Maintains and provides accurate records of all donor-related activities.

Qualified applicants will have a Bachelor's Degree, a minimum of five years of fundraising experience, and a history of success cultivating major donors. A CFRE is preferred but not required. You can find out more about this job by visiting the NPT Jobs Career Center.

Featured Nonprofit Job: Chief Technology Officer

The modern nonprofit can't survive in today's society without an expert understanding of technology. That's why the Urban Land Institute (ULI) in Washington, D.C., is looking to hire a Chief Technology Officer.

The chosen candidate for this position will be in charge of planning and implementing enterprise information systems to support both distributed and centralized business operations. The individual will also be responsible for overseeing enterprise-wide IT operations and will report directly to the CEO.

Other important responsibilities include:

• Communicates the benefits of information technology to the organization.
• Develops and implements long-range plans for information technology at ULI.
• Collaborates closely with other ULI executives to create an overall cohesive approach to information technology within the organization.
• Creates strategic working relationships outside of ULI both within the information technology industry and in the real estate field.
• Responsible for strategic systems planning and design. This includes system architecture, evaluating new systems, determining standardized programming languages, setting documentation standards and assuring functionality and quality of systems.
• Oversees IT projects including procurement, hardware and software maintenance, network operations, installation, database administration, and website development and maintenance.
• Ensures optimal customer service by overseeing staff’s responsive technical assistance and support to users.
• Responsible for generating annual IT budget in consultation with CFO.

Interested in learning more? Head to the NPT Jobs Career Center for requirements and application instructions.

The First Day Employee Checklist

The first day at a new job is a little bit like the first day of school. Feelings of loneliness, confusion, and an overwhelming sense of anxiety are common for new hires on Day 1 and, unfortunately, sometimes busy supervisors can contribute to these feelings.

Nonprofit managers must do everything in their power to be available when a new employee starts work. While all first day hires need help acclimating to their new environment, it is even more imperative to be present when the worker is new to the job market or is working in the nonprofit sector for the first time.

In "The Big Book of HR," authors Barbara Mitchell and Cornelia Gamlem created a checklist that managers should follow on Day 1 of any new employee. The checklist offers some items that might seem like no-brainers, yet it's exactly these items that are critical to ensuring that Day 1 is successful for all parties.

• Does security know the new hire is coming?
• Does the employee know where and when to report on Day 1?
• Is the work area ready: computer and phone – hooked up and ready to go? Are there supplies, welcoming items?
• Does staff know when the new hire is arriving?
• Is there a plan for the first day and beyond?
• Does the manager’s schedule include time for the new hire?
• Does the new hire have a copy of his/her job description?
• Does the new hire have a copy of the organization’s strategic plan and mission statement?
• Does the new hire know what to do in case of emergency?