Wear Your Heart on Your Sleeve When You Interview
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By Laura Gassner Otting
You’re called in for an interview for the job that could launch your encore career. The standard advice would be to promote your achievements, but that may not be the best strategy. Instead, voice your passion about this new stage in your life and share the “aha!” moment that set you on your new path.
Job seekers transitioning into the nonprofit sector are often filled with assumptions and expectations about the sector itself, some true and some not. Likewise, the nonprofit sector is teeming with assumptions and expectations about these job seekers. To avoid being stereotyped, encore careerists need to stand out in a different way.
There is no doubt that many nonprofit hiring managers staring at any would-be encore careerist’s resume think that they have seen it all before: another for-profit refugee looking to “give back.” The best way to avoid being pigeonholed by these assumptions is to confront them head on. Encore careerists should be prepared to hear them, and correct them, throughout the job search process.
For example, your cover letter can discuss how you have sent your children to college and are more financially able to make the sacrifices necessary to give back to your community. Or you might use your résumé to list the volunteer work you’ve done throughout the years to allay concerns that you prioritized moneymaking ahead of your passion.
Networking provides another chance for you to learn about and discuss how work in the nonprofit sector is different, and demonstrate that your expectations are aligned with reality.
The chief stereotypes you must confront all orbit around the idea that for-profit employees are interested in themselves instead of their community, their country or their world. However, we all are forced to live within certain economic realities. Sadly, the mortgage company won’t give us back any points for helping the homeless, nor will the supermarket comp us groceries for feeding the poor.
Working for the private sector is not and was not a sin, and you should be proud of the work you did there. This work has prepared you for the nonprofit sector in ways that will benefit the nonprofit for which you ultimately work.
Yet a nonprofit hiring manager may not see it that way and might need some additional stroking. Take care to craft your story about when you discovered you were unfulfilled by the pursuit of money and became dedicated to a cause. Nonprofits love to hear about corporate denizens who wake up one day and realize that they want to do more meaningful work.
If you wear your heart on your sleeve, you’ll always get compliments about your fashion sense from nonprofit coworkers.
Laura Gassner Otting is president of the Nonprofit Professionals Advisory Group, which helps increase the capacity of nonprofits and their staffs. She is the author of Change Your Career: Transitioning to the Nonprofit Sector.
Enthusiasm a worthwhile qualification in either sector
Thanks for your observations, Laura. I spent most of my life working in the for-profit sector in the software industry. When I went back to school at 50 to get a Master’s Degree in Counseling Psychology, I thought I was just trying to move from one for-profit career to another. But it turns out that I was really making a transition to a much more public-service oriented part of my life, and it has taken me a number of years to switch my mindset over to one more suited for non-profits. I have a lot more to learn about the mentality of non-profits but I am learning.
When you suggest using enthusiasm as a selling point at a job interview, I see the analogy in the for-profit world, where many interviewers take the applicant’s attitude into account, asking if the applicant knows and likes the industry and has enthusiasm that will fit into the team. I have found in a variety of for-profit settings that employees who care about their team contribute a lot more than those who don’t. So I can relate entirely to a hiring manager in any organization wanting to feel that the applicant is eagerly looking forward to participating.
Jerry
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Doesn't ring true to me
In my area, central Ohio, there are so many job seekers out there that just being committed to a purpose doesn’t make you different enough. Non-profits need talented people just as much as the for profit sector does. I think there is a fine line between sounding sincere and sounding like you’re pouring it on too thick. I would think that all applicants would have some interest in the cause they have applied to work for or else they wouldn’t have submitted the application. I do know that when I worked for Girl Scouts that people with “green blood” were always appreciated, but it seemed like management also got a big thrill out of converting new staff to the cause if they had no Girl Scout history. In other words, just having devotion to the cause wasn’t enough.
Is it just me
or does the non-profit sector seem to revel in some kind of misguided moral superiority? The need for those of us from the for-profit world to invent tales of finally “seeing the light” and admitting to the “error of our ways” sounds like something from the Gulag mentality of the old Soviet Union. I’ve worked in both sectors and can confirm that being good at your job and helping people is a function of personal dedication and accountability, of working smart and being a team player in a well-run organization regardless of profit status. Be phoney and disingenuous in an interview! Apologize for your actual accomplishments! What other great advice does the author have? And do you really want to work for someone whose first expectation is phoniness??