Helen Brown Group

  • Home
  • Our Services
    Overview
    • A la carte research
    • Customized News Alerts
    • Data Insight
    • Dedicated Consulting
    • Research department audits and training
    • Wealth Screening Assistance
  • Resource Library
    • Learning Media Library
    • Wealth Lists
    • Prospect Research Links
    • Prospect Research for Fundraisers
  • About
    • What We Believe
    • Helen Brown
    • Meet the Team
    • HBG Privacy Policy
  • Blog
    • Archive
  • Contact

March 26, 2020 By Helen Brown Leave a Comment

Hiring and onboarding new remote employees

When I first started The Helen Brown Group, I met every candidate in person even though they were going to be working remotely. It wasn’t until 2014 that we took the leap of hiring someone without meeting them until after they’d been hired.

Once you get over the initial fear, it’s pretty liberating. I thought I’d share the details of our hiring process in case it’s helpful to you as you start hiring staff who will be working remotely. It’s worked well for us so far, and we’re always re-tooling it based on feedback that we encourage our new employees to share once they’re settled in and have some perspective.

I hope that you find this (admittedly almost TMI) detailed description of our process useful – you’re welcome to borrow any of it that may be relevant to your situation.

Our hiring process

We advertise exclusively on the Apra and NEDRA job boards. After the applications come in, the search committee ranks all of the applicants against each other in the cohort based on years and variety of experience. We require a cover letter so we get an immediate idea of their ability to synthesize and communicate information clearly as well as highlight what they think are the most important points. This is also the first test to see if candidates truly have attention to detail and follow instructions – no cover letter, no consideration.

Because we’re virtual, geography doesn’t matter. We can have access to talent anywhere in the US. This is such a bonus!

We look for people with a variety of nonprofit and skill types in their background. Someone who has worked in two or more nonprofit types will float higher than someone with only university development experience, for example. Another positive is someone who has volunteered for Apra or their local chapter – we like to see commitment to the profession and a philanthropic spirit, as well as an instinct toward leadership and nonprofit experience.

On the minus side, people who stay in two or more positions less than a year would rank lower. Someone might make a mistake and not fit into one job (or have a terrible boss) and leave in under a year, but two or more short runs starts looking like a negative pattern.

As a firm whose clients expect (and deserve) experienced consultants, we can’t consider anyone with fewer than two years of experience, but your requirements may differ.

Speaking generally, I think this is going to be a difficult time for new people coming into the field because it’s much harder to mentor and teach people without experience who are working remotely. If you decide to hire someone with little or no previous experience, factor in more time than you normally would for training and mentoring.

Meanwhile, back to our process…

Once we have the top 7-10, we set up one-hour phone interviews over a period of a week. Our interview questions are not designed to test prospect research knowledge and skills. That’s different, eh?

We don’t do a video interview. Why? Because 99 percent of the conversations they’ll have with clients will be on the phone – we need to see how they work in that medium. Your needs may be entirely different – if your new employee needs to be comfortable using video conferencing, now would be a good time to use that medium.

For us, we also hope that using first contact on the phone contributes to the lessening or elimination of bias. We may have no idea what they look like or what their physical abilities are, but we’ll learn plenty about how they will react in certain situations, how flexible they are to change, and what sort of team members they will be.

We ask questions to see how knowledgeable they are about the nonprofit landscape and to learn where they stand on the integrity and ethical spectrum. We also work to get a sense of how well they collaborate with people they can’t see, and what their customer service skills are. We throw a few curveballs at them to see how quickly they think on their feet.

These questions may be ones that we’d ask anyway even if our staffers were on-site, but I think they take on even more importance when the person will be working remotely.

Round 3

From there, the top candidates will be told the salary range and asked if they’d like to continue based on that knowledge. The next part is pretty grueling, so it’s not fair for them to continue if the salary won’t fit their needs.

Some might argue that it’s unfair not to tell people up front what the salary is, and I can see their point. But I personally believe that all interview experience is valuable. Perhaps more importantly, there have been a few cases where a candidate is great but they haven’t been the right fit for HBG so I’ve referred them on to a trusted recruiter or a colleague who is hiring at a place where I know they would be a good fit. Sometimes they know that I’ve done this and sometimes they don’t, but if they hadn’t interviewed with us they wouldn’t have gotten that help.

For this round, the remaining candidates will be asked to complete a full profile on the same person within a timed period. All are given access to the same information, resources, and template. It is not a straightforward test, and some of the most important information can only be gotten by thinking creatively, paying attention to small clues, pulling loose threads, and asking questions.

It always takes longer than people think (if they do it right), but the deadline is firm. This is why we don’t ask prospect research knowledge questions during the interview portion – we know that we’re going to see their skill, ingenuity, and discipline in action.

When the candidates submit their finished profiles, a member of our team takes off all identifying information before the hiring committee sees them so that we’re judging the profiles blind. Did they follow the clues? We’ve got our fingers crossed and we literally cheer when we see that someone found what we’re looking for!

Round 4

Finally, we’ll ask each of the top profile-creators for a follow up call to discuss their work, section by section. We want to see how they react to constructive criticism. Are they more interested in defending their work than learning new sources or methods? How would they react if a client asked them the same questions? Where are their strengths? Where would they need remedial training? Are they being honest?

Round 5

Then come the reference calls, which are kind of tricky. You already know that a candidate is only going to list people who are predisposed to give them a good reference, so you have to ask questions that get at what you need to know. Can the reference give a specific example of when the candidate did something innovative? What did the candidate do to prove to the reference that they had attention to detail? How, specifically, have they gone above and beyond to support that reference or their organization?

All things being equal between two candidates, if one person’s references provides answers that are vague or if they can’t provide specific examples, I’ll always choose the candidate whose references can.

And finally, the offer letter. Which is really just the beginning, of course.

So that’s our hiring process. It’s long and a lot of work for all involved, but managing virtual staff is different than on-site colleagues. You’re not going to immediately see if someone is struggling like you would if they were down the hall, so the more work you do now to be aware of what the new person’s strengths and weaknesses are, the better.

Onboarding

When you onboard a virtual employee you have to make sure each person involved in the process operates from a checklist so you don’t forget any of the elements. If you forget to explain benefits or office protocols in the first few days, it’s really hard to do that work remedially.

Each member of the HBG team is involved in our onboarding process. We take welcoming and mentoring new employees seriously, and I think it’s part of the reason why people settle in fairly quickly and successfully.

Up until now, we have had each new employee come to our office in Watertown for a two-day in-person orientation. All of their Massachusetts-based colleagues would have come to HQ to meet them, and over the two days each one would spend an hour to walk them through a different piece of HBG fundamentals: Dropbox, Zoho, Zoom, 1Password, guiding principles, logging, timesheets, resources, etc.

This training and mentoring continues after they go back home, and over the next two weeks they will have had at least an hour with every one of their teammates either in person, on a Zoom web conference, or on the phone.

New employees at HBG are required to read and sign the employee handbook, which goes into detail on everything from archives to vacations, and they must sign an ethics and confidentiality pledge, too.

HBG’s operations manager checks their paperwork, explains benefits, gets them signed up for payroll, and hands them their brand-new laptop onto which she has pre-loaded all the necessary tools. For the immediate future, she’ll have to ship them their new laptop, too.

In addition to their supervisor who works closely with the new employee in their first few weeks, they’ll also be assigned a buddy who will check in on them regularly to help them navigate internal processes and feel welcome and connected.

The first three months are a critical time, especially for people who have never worked virtually before. Have patience and accept that you may need to explain things more than once. Here are ways we manage staff and workflow on an ongoing basis:

Everyday management and communication

Once someone is hired, they have (at least) a weekly call with their immediate supervisor and a monthly call with the director of research. They fill out a timesheet weekly, and are required to log all of their completed work. Some supervisors ask new employees to use a tool like Toggl so they can quickly get a sense of where a new employee is succeeding or struggling.

For the first three months, every piece of work a new employee completes is read, edited, and returned to them by their supervisor. After that, work is spot-checked regularly for quality and consistency (even for employees who have been here for years).

As I’ve mentioned a few times here on the blog, we use Zoom to communicate as a group and individually. This includes two all-staff video calls a month as well as ongoing discussions about resources, tips, articles, and general water cooler talk in a group chat room. The third Tuesday of every month we have our “3T” meeting where we have a presentation by a vendor on their product or upgrade, or we discuss a continuing education topic presented by a team member or guest.

We also keep a repository on our shared drive of articles, how-tos, reports, presentations, and other learning materials that anyone can upload and share with colleagues.

All of this is important to keep new teammates engaged, learning, and collaborating with others. It also provides insight to their managers so we’re sure that each new employee is getting settled in as best as they can.

Building community and strengthening communication early on is really important, especially when you’re working mostly by instant message or email. Unlike in an office when you can see that someone is having a bad day and cut them some slack, or get to know their style of humor and how they joke around, virtual communication doesn’t allow for that, so you have to work extra hard to find ways to build community and have people get to know each other before miscommunications happen.

So that’s our process of hiring and onboarding new virtual employees! I hope it’s been helpful and given you some ideas that you can use, and I’d be really happy to have you share in the comments anything you do (or your organization does) to hire and onboard virtual employees.

 

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Career development, Research Department Success Tagged With: hiring, human resources, onboarding

  • Get the Intelligent Edge

    Our weekly update provides insight and commentary on breaking philanthropy news and the latest innovations in fundraising intelligence.

  • HBG Privacy Policy

    By sharing your information you give us permission to send you our newsletter. You may unsubscribe at any time.

New Articles

  • Identity and Blackness in Prospect Development
  • Honoring Black History Month
  • Giving Priorities for America’s Top Philanthropists in 2020
  • Opportunity of a lifetime
  • Can your prospects be found at a luxury private community?

Keep Updated

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Get the Essential Handbook

Get Your Copy

Learn More

Categories

  • Campaign Success
  • Career development
  • Due Diligence
  • Effective searching
  • Fundraising Analytics
  • Fundraising Ethics
  • HBG Book Club
  • International prospect research
  • Most popular
  • News
  • Non-profit trends
  • Podcast
  • Prospect Development 101
  • Prospect identification
  • Ratings
  • Relationship management
  • Research Department Success
  • Researching Companies
  • Researching Individuals
  • Social Media
  • Strategic planning
  • Trust & Foundation Research
  • Uncategorized
  • Wealth screenings

ABOUT HBG

The Helen Brown Group was formed in 2002 with a goal to be different.

Allow me to explain my personal philosophy to you.

  • Learn More About HBG

Latest Intelligent Edge Articles

  • Identity and Blackness in Prospect Development
  • Honoring Black History Month
  • Giving Priorities for America’s Top Philanthropists in 2020
  • Opportunity of a lifetime
  • Can your prospects be found at a luxury private community?

Privacy Quick Links

  • Privacy Policy
  • Privacy Tools

Copyright © 2021 The Helen Brown Group LLC.

David’s career in prospect research began in 2009, as a graduate research assistant at the Shippensburg University Foundation. In 2011, He became a development researcher for the University of Virginia. In 2015, David became assistant director of prospect research at the University of Baltimore, serving for 3 years. Recently, he was the director of development for Trees Forever. David Joined the Helen Brown Group as a research assistant in January 2020. He earned a B.A. in Theater at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and a M.A. in Applied History at Shippensburg University. David is a member of APRA and APRA Great Plains.

Kenny has worked in development since 1999 and has been involved in prospect research since 2002.

Prior to joining The Helen Brown Group, he was the director of donor and prospect research at the United Way of Massachusetts Bay. Kenny is a member of APRA and NEDRA.

Tara first began her career in development in 2002 supporting the Major Gifts department at Simmons College, and ultimately went on to serve as Assistant Director of Prospect Research. Since that time, she has also worked as a Senior Research Analyst at MIT, as Associate Director of Prospect Management and Research at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and as Director of Development Research at Combined Jewish Philanthropies (CJP).

Tara originally joined the Helen Brown Group team in 2007 and served as a Research Associate and ShareTraining coordinator until 2008 – she rejoined the company as a Senior Researcher in 2013 and was promoted to her current role in 2018.

She has been an active volunteer with NEDRA for many years and served on the board of directors from 2010-2016. During her time on the NEDRA board, she served in many different roles, including terms as Vice President, Secretary, Chair of the Website and Technology Committee, Chair of the Volunteer Committee, and as Chair and Editor of NEDRA News. She is currently a member of the NEDRA Bootcamp faculty. In addition, Tara has also been involved as a volunteer with Apra, serving stints on the Membership Committee, Chapters Committee, and Bylaws Task Force.

Angie began her career in development in 1999 at Virginia Tech in Corporate and Foundation Relations and later in prospect research at the University of Connecticut Foundation.

A graduate of the University of Tennessee at Martin, her experience includes grants management at the University of South Carolina, program evaluation for South Carolina Research Authority and human resources analysis for Nissan North America.

She returned to development in 2007 and worked in various prospect research positions at Vanderbilt University, including Associate Director. She was named Director for Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s research office in 2015, and joined The Helen Brown Group in 2016.

jdsahjhDJDJHJSH

Josh began his career in development as the Phonathon Coordinator at Keene State College. He then worked at non-profit consulting firm Schultz & Williams in Philadelphia.

He started his research career at the University of Pennsylvania as a Research Assistant in 2005. He then moved over to the Wharton School of Business, where he became the Associate Director, Research and Prospect Management. Josh joined the Helen Brown Group in 2016.

Josh is also a Colorado licensed Realtor and graduate of Lehigh University.

In March 2017, Kristina joined the Helen Brown Group as a Research Associate. Before joining HBG, she was the Research Manager at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and an Associate Manager of Prospect Research at City Harvest, a food rescue organization. Kristina started her non-profit career as a legal assistant at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2004.  She is a member of Apra and Apra Greater New York. She was Apra Greater New York’s Director of Programming from June 2014 to May 2016. Kristina graduated from The University of Chicago and the Bard Graduate Center.

Grace began her career in development in 2001 as Executive Assistant to the Chief Development Officer with Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), a Harvard Medical School-affiliated academic medical center.

In 2003, she became a prospect researcher for the BWH principal and major gifts team and spent the next 11 years in various research positions with BWH, culminating as Assistant Director of Prospect Research. She has been affiliated with The Helen Brown Group since January 2014.

Heather began her career in 2002 as a prospect research coordinator for the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and then moved to Carroll College in 2004.

In 2005, Heather began working on her own as a freelancer and eventually started her own consulting firm, Willis Research Services, in 2007. She joined The Helen Brown Group in 2012.

Heather is a member of the Association of Professional Researchers for Advancement and the Montana Nonprofit Association.

Jennifer began her career in development at her alma mater, Wheaton College, where she was an administrative assistant for the major gifts department.

She joined The Helen Brown Group in March 2008. She earned a master’s degree in library science from the Southern Connecticut State University in May 2009. Jennifer is a member of APRA and NEDRA.

Rick has been a member of the Helen Brown Group team since 2005. Prior to joining HBG, Rick was director of research at St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire. Rick has worked in development since 1996, both in prospect research and major gifts fund raising. His experience includes the University of Vermont, Phillips Exeter Academy and St. Paul’s School.

Rick is past president of NEDRA and is a member of and frequent volunteer for APRA.

Josh began his career in development as the Phonathon Coordinator at Keene State College. He then worked at non-profit consulting firm Schultz & Williams in Philadelphia.

He started his research career at the University of Pennsylvania as a Research Assistant in 2005. He then moved over to the Wharton School of Business, where he became the Associate Director, Research and Prospect Management. Josh joined the Helen Brown Group in 2016.

Josh is also a Colorado licensed Realtor and graduate of Lehigh University.

Mandi has worked in prospect research and management since 2006. She began her development career as a research analyst in development research at City of Hope, an NCI-designated comprehensive cancer center in Los Angeles. From there, she became the manager of prospect development at Huntington Memorial Hospital, a community hospital in Pasadena, CA. Most recently, she was the associate director of prospect research and management at Occidental College, a private liberal arts college in LA.

Mandi has a BA degree in print journalism from Southern Methodist University and a master’s degree of library and information science from UCLA.

She joined the Helen Brown Group in May 2019.

Kelly began her career in development in 2008 as an administrative assistant in Major Gifts at Wheaton College.

In 2010, she became a research analyst at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in the Division of Development & Jimmy Fund as part of the prospect identification team. Kelly joined The Helen Brown Group in 2013.

She is a member of APRA and NEDRA.

Jayme began her career in development in 2008 at the Rutgers University Foundation, where she spent the next seven years, first in prospect management and then prospect research. She spent several years at Monmouth University as their senior prospect research analyst, working with the fundraising staff, university president, and top leadership. She has worked as both a volunteer and consultant for non-profits in the areas of research and writing.

She earned a bachelor of arts degree from Drew University and a master of communication and information sciences from Rutgers University. She is a member of APRA.

Jayme joined The Helen Brown Group in April 2019.

Julie has managed finances for The Helen Brown Group since its founding.

In her spare time, she is an editor for the PBS series Masterpiece at WGBH. Julie was nominated twice for an Emmy award for her work on the PBS show Zoom.

Heather began her career in development in 2001 as a prospect researcher for National Wildlife Federation (NWF). She was with NWF for more than thirteen years, including nearly five years as director of research and analytics. Heather is a former secretary of the board of directors of APRA-Metro DC.

She joined The Helen Brown Group in October 2014.

David began his career in development at The Gunnery school in northwest Connecticut in 2011, where he worked in database management and prospect research. Subsequently, he joined the College of Saint Rose as a development research analyst before leading Albany Medical Center Foundation’s prospect research efforts as Associate Director of Prospect Research. He has a Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology from Siena College and is a member of APRA and CASE.

Michele began her career in development in 2012 when she joined the UC Berkeley corporate and foundation relations team as a development analyst. She spent a year and a half at Cal before returning to UC Davis as a prospect analyst. She was with the prospect management and relations team at UC Davis for almost three years prior to joining the research and relationship management team at George Washington University as a Senior Prospect Analyst in 2016.

Michele received her BA in creative writing from Florida State University and her MA in higher education leadership from CSU Sacramento. She currently resides in Northern Virginia, is a member of Apra International, and serves as the social media chair for Apra Metro DC. Michele joined The Helen Brown Group in July 2018.

Angie has worked in development since 2002, partnering with a wide range of nonprofit institutions. She began her professional career at Vanderbilt University in research and prospect development.

She has also worked with a number of community nonprofits in front-line fundraising, grant-writing, and event management. Angie holds an MPA in Nonprofit Management from the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy and a BS in Journalism from Middle Tennessee State University. She resides in Nashville, Tennessee, and is a member of AFP Nashville and APRA MidSouth, where she has been active on the executive team.

She joined The Helen Brown Group in October 2015.

Maureen has been a part of the non-profit world since 1991. She started out in annual giving at Harvard Law School and continued her career as director of annual/special gifts at UC Santa Cruz.

In 1999 she made the switch from front-line fundraising to serve as director of prospect research/management at Bentley University and in 2001 began her role as administrator for the North American Foundation for the University of Manchester. She became part of the HBG team in September of 2011.

Helen has been a development professional since 1987. Her previous experience includes The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Albert Einstein Institution, Boston College, the Harvard School of Public Health and Northeastern University.

Currently she works with a variety of clients to establish, benchmark and re-align research departments; identify major gift prospects; and train researchers and other fundraisers through on-site and web-based training services.Helen is a former member of the board of the Association of Professional Researchers for Advancement (APRA) and is past president of the New England Development Research Association (NEDRA). In 2006 she received the NEDRA Ann Castle Award for service to the prospect research community.

Helen is Special Advisor on Fundraising to the North American Foundation for the University of Manchester and is a member of the board of directors of Factary Ltd. (Bristol, UK). She is a member of NEDRA, APRA, the Association of Independent Information Professionals (AIIP), Women In Development, the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) and Researchers in Fundraising (UK).

Helen is a frequent speaker and has led seminars for a number of professional associations, including Action Planning, AFP, APRA, the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), NEDRA, RIF, the Planned Giving Council of Central Massachusetts, the Georgia Center on Nonprofits, the International Fundraising Congress and Resource Alliance.

Helen is also co-author (with Jen Filla) of the book, Prospect Research for Fundraisers (Wiley & Sons, 2013).

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.OkPrivacy policy