We Spoke to Emily Frith, CEO of Adoption UK, About Challenges Facing Charities in PA Recruitment
What are the challenges in recruiting corporate affairs roles for a charity?
Obviously, it’s very challenging for charities to compete with the private and public sectors when it comes to salary and benefits packages for employees. However, that means that we are attracting people who are very aligned to our vision and mission. This helps create a very positive team culture, where employees are motivated by seeing the value of the work that they do.
It also helps that we are a very flexible workplace, and are harnessing the benefits of hybrid working, which can help with recruitment.
We have set ourselves ambitious plans to increase the diversity of our workforce, so we are also looking for support to help us to reach candidates who would not perhaps have thought of working for a charity before.
A limited budget means you are often relying on people to be multiskilled, we need communications professionals with a knowledge of public affairs and visa versa, these candidates can be slightly harder to find.
There are also universal challenges we all face, job boards like LinkedIn and Indeed ensure you get loads of candidates, but their “one-click” approach to applying means the quality varies wildly, we can struggle internally to have the capacity to find the diamonds amongst the crowd.
What is your ideal candidate?
As well as experience and acumen in the role you have applied for we are looking for someone who has a sense of purpose and buys into our mission.
Empathy is very important, at Adoption UK we work with a lot of people living with significant challenges, so it is really important that our team are aligned to our mission and have high levels of emotional intelligence. If you are just looking for a role that will look good on your CV in future then a position here isn’t going to work out for you.
Being passionate about the issues we tackle brings a level of authenticity that resonates with both our team and the people we serve.
What should people expect from a job like this?
Working in government affairs and communications within a charity is incredibly rewarding but can also be very demanding. Candidates should expect a dynamic work environment that requires both strategic thinking, creative problem-solving and an ‘all hands on deck’ approach. The role often involves managing multiple projects simultaneously while responding promptly to urgent issues that impact our mission.
I like to think it can also be fun! Some of the best and most enduring professional relationships I have made have been from roles in purpose led organisations like charities. We all share a belief in the importance of what we are doing and the value it brings, which makes for a happy collegiate work environment
If you work for a charity looking to expand your team, please get in touch for an informal chat to see if we can help.
