Blood Cancer UK estimated that it saved £20,000 by choosing to run its latest recruitment in-house, rather than rely on an agency.
In an interview for May’s Charity Finance magazine, published by Civil Society Media, the charity said that its plan for recruiting the charity’s new director of fundraising was developed by fundraising, communication and HR staff.
This led to Blood Cancer UK creating and releasing two videos on social media, leading to more engagement from potential candidates as well as boosting what the charity called the “bottom-line consideration”.
Reaching candidates
Jess Bradley, the head of human resources and occupational development at Blood Cancer UK, told Charity Finance: “There are some fantastic people working inside the charity sector and outside, and we want to get in front of them.”
Bradley said that the charity’s aim was to “put ourselves in the candidate’s shoes.
“What do they want to know about us? What is useful when you are applying for a job? What are the things that annoy you?
“We thought: ‘Right, let’s make sure we don’t do those really irritating things, but also that we stand out as an organisation’.”
This led the charity to choosing a new, in-house approach, instead of working with a recruitment agency.
The HR, communications and fundraising teams collaborated to create a mocked-up Zoom call, where six current fundraising staff discussed working at the charity.
That video was then posted on Twitter and Youtube, with candidates invited to view it and ask questions ahead of applying for the role.
Badley said: “One of the things you don’t get in an interview process is to hear from the rest of your peers.”
She described the video as “a snapshot of what we are actually like, something which is not scripted, a chance to see how we react to each other as a team as well”.
Our Director of Fundraising role is still open. We asked some of our team what it's really like to work for Blood Cancer UK & what they would say to anyone thinking of applying.
— Blood Cancer UK (@bloodcancer_uk) March 25, 2021
You can see what they had to say in full here: https://t.co/t6YDWUynHv
But here's a sneak preview... pic.twitter.com/YXg7rrswet
Savings
Badley said that the charity had seen an increase in the number of informal approaches to discuss the position after the video was posted, compared with previous recruitment.
She added: “For us as a charity, there is absolutely that bottom-line consideration.
“It will have saved us potentially £20,000, compared with using an agency.
“That is a researcher. We can use that money to pay their salary.”
The full interview is part of a feature on charity recruitment, published in May's Charity Finance magazine.
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