Hiring for CiviCRM

Your CRM is central to your operations.

So is your staff.

And maybe you're thinking about bringing on a new hire.

And maybe you thought that hiring someone with deep CiviCRM experience would mean quicker on-boarding with less training.

Indeed, there is a job board right on civicrm.org where you can create a job listing.

But it's almost always empty. (Look and see right now, if you want.)

What gives? Why aren't more organizations hiring specifically for CiviCRM?

A few reasons come to mind:

• A listing on that job board will be answered mostly by professional service providers, not potential employees.

• People who want to be employed for their CiviCRM skills usually get hired by service providers. It's the same with most skilled experts, from attorneys to plumbers; they typically work at specialty firms, not in-house at those firms' potential clients.

But perhaps most importantly:

• This kind of specialized skill is only a small part of what you're really hiring for.

To put it another way:

Compared to someone who knows your tools,
it's much more valuable to hire someone who can
understand your mission,
think on their feet,
take ownership of their work,
and communicate well.

Someone like that can be trained on any particular tool or system.

The main value is not in the technical skill.
It’s in the ability to produce results, reliably, in a dynamic environment.

As always:
Never let the tool distract you from the task.

All the best,
A.