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Solving a Busy Agency's Unique Hiring Challenge

Jewish Family Service of Worcester, MA, provides counseling and social services to support individuals and strengthen family life, without regard to race, religion or ability to pay.

The Challenge
Like virtually every other human services and healthcare enterprise, JFS finds itself in an increasingly demanding economic environment. With each passing year, more and more people call on JFS for professional counseling and assistance with a growing variety of family and personal challenges.

For example, troubled relationships, parenting problems, loss of a family member, substance abuse and addiction, violence and domestic abuse and other stresses can affect us at home, work or school.

As the population ages, the demand for elder services, including guardianship and geriatric care, is becoming increasingly widespread and complex. Adoption services, mediation, divorce counseling: all require experienced specialists.

At the same time, the financial resources available to support these services and the professionals who deliver them are becoming increasingly scarce. Managed care pays only a portion of the real costs. State funding levels are at historic lows.

And over the past several years, United Way and other voluntary support has remained level at best in the face of growing program costs. Yet because JFS serves those in need without regard for their capacity to pay, it is rare for the agency to turn down calls for help for any reason.

Always a challenge for JFS and other non-profit agencies, sound financial management has never been more vital for its long-term viability. So when Virginia, JFS's longtime fiscal director, resigned reluctantly to care for her own aging mother, JFS Executive Director Stephen Slaten, PhD, knew he had his hands full recruiting her successor.

'Not only were we losing a proven, loyal colleague in Virginia,' Steve says, 'but we also realized the number of other 'Virginias' in the employment market would be limited indeed.'

The job called for a degreed professional with experience in a variety of finance roles, some of them generic, others unique to JFS: developing and monitoring fiscal systems, managing cash flow and fiscal reporting requirements, preparing budgets and audits, administering government contracts and foundation grants, and working directly with the Board.

To complicate things, the competition for top talent is heating up. Worcester is an established and growing center for healthcare and biotechnology. For example, Worcester is home to the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, a major regional teaching and research hospital. The biotechnology sector has established a significant presence there as well. And commuting from Worcester to Boston is commonplace.

Consequently the ability to attract individuals with a special "calling" for human services continues to be a major hurdle for small agencies such as JFS.

Further, Steve's position as Executive Director includes by default roles such as HR director. So the prospect of recruiting a new fiscal services director quickly, while managing the rest of the agency's strategy, operations and development, struck him initially as daunting.

The Solution
The Interview Exchange staff handled the entire process of sourcing and screening applicants. First, Steve emailed us a job description. We used this document to help him prepare a job ad. Then we helped Steve select job boards likely to generate the optimal mix of reach and visibility, in this case Monster.com and BostonWorks.com.

We then prepared eight questions for the COREquisites applicant questionnaire, which serves as the fundamental Interview Exchange tool for identifying job seekers who possess the specific job requirements and preferred applicant qualifications.

Steve posted the job on Monster and BostonWorks. The posting included an 'Apply Here' web link that connected job seekers directly to www.InterviewExchange.com. Here, job seekers are given an opportunity to complete the brief COREquisites questionnaire and to submit a resume. Time so far: less than two hours out of Steve's busy day.

'The COREquisites screening questionnaire made it fast, simple and painless for us to identify applicants who possess what we believe are the skills, experience and motivation essential for success in our unique organization,' Steve says.

Within a couple of days, Steve started seeing the results: after viewing the Monster and BostonWorks job postings, 48 of 141 job seekers who clicked 'Apply Here' completed the COREquisites questionnaire and submitted a resume. That's a 'selectivity' rate of about 21%.

As usual, the job boards fulfilled the vital role of generating plenty of job seeker interest in the position. And the Interview Exchange fulfilled its dual roles: first, handling multiple applicant sources simultaneously; and second, enabling Steve to quickly prioritize the applicant ShortList based on each individual's score on the COREquisites questionnaire.

'The system is really effective at quickly showing us a list of applicants who, by our own definition, qualify for the job,' Steve observes. 'Knowing these applicants possess the 'must-have' credentials I specified in the job posting, plus other 'nice-to-have' attributes, I can then spend more time with these individuals. It gives us confidence that we've attracted people whose match our preferred applicant profile.'

He adds, 'Fortunately, our staff turnover is low, but when we do need to fill critical position, such as Virginia's, we need to turn on a dime without breaking the budget. The folks at the Interview Exchange made sure we met our goals - almost overnight.

'The system shows me a consolidated view of applicants sourced through both job boards. Without this capability, we'd have to log into our account on each board individually to view applicant information. The savings in time and hassle are exceptional, to say nothing of the system's reasonable cost, compared with executive search firms or other outside resources.'

The Outcome: Fast Turnaround and Positive Agency Image
It wasn't long before Kathleen, JFS's new fiscal services director, was on board and busy taking the financial reins of this highly regarded, fast-paced agency.

'I found the process of responding to the questionnaire instructional and considerate of my time and career management goals,' says Kathleen today. 'The questions were brief and to the point. They focused very directly on the factors needed to succeed in the job. This gave me a good sense of whether I was under- or over-qualified for the position.

'And I was pleasantly surprised by the professional image JFS projected by its use of well-conceived technology to streamline the recruiting process,' she adds. 'The entire experience colored my impression of JFS very positively even before Steve called me to schedule an interview.'

For more information, please contact the Interview Exchange at 508.836.3800 or office@interviewexchange.com.