In Episode 39 of Best Hire Ever, Kris Dunn talks with Cameron Corder, CEO of the Cleveland County YMCA (NC) on the art of recruiting great talent for a mission-based organization. Cam and Kris discuss recruiting strategies for nonprofits in competing with the rest of the world for talent, and what the for-profit world can learn from Corder’s 25 years of attracting great people to the YMCA mission.
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Show Highlights
1:30 – Cam walks through his background at the YMCA and mission of the Y that most people aren’t aware enough of.
6:00 – In his 25 years at the YMCA, what has Cam learned about recruiting for a mission-based nonprofit like the YMCA?
10:50 – What’s Cam’s sweet spot in messaging around the opportunity to come to a nonprofit and serve a mission? How does he translate that messaging into getting hires who he might not otherwise get? It turns out that the biggest draw is the track record of people who went on to the next thing from his Y organization.
16:10 – Is the mission-based message a big part of retention? Does it become part of why people stay? Cam talks about the network of the Y and the diversity inside the Y being representative of the community it serves.
20:35 – What can the corporate world learn from the Y related to having a cause/mission as part of their identity and using that to recruit more effectively? Cam and KD talk about the need for companies without an obvious mission to create service missions for the communities they serve.
24:55 – Cam talks about how he’s used the tag “BHE” as a broad recognition that someone’s a great hire rather than say “Best Hire Ever,” which feels limited to one person. BHE as a recognition program!