Run The Mission · Free Tools

The Role Design Builder

Design the role before you post it. Get a job description that filters for the right person and a hiring plan your team can actually run.

Wendling Nonprofit Consulting  ·  wendlingconsulting.com

A bad hire costs a small nonprofit somewhere between six and nine months of salary, plus the program damage nobody puts on a spreadsheet. Most of that cost is decided before the posting goes up.

Most job descriptions get written in a hurry. Copy the last one. Change the title. Add fourteen bullets and a line about wearing many hats. Then the pool comes back thin, the hiring team disagrees about what they are even looking for, and the person who takes the job leaves in nine months because the job was never actually defined.

The description is not paperwork. It is the first operational decision you make about that seat. This tool walks you through the decision.

How this works
  1. Answer the questions below. Anything you leave blank stays as a labeled prompt you can finish later.
  2. Watch the three documents build on the right as you type.
  3. Download or copy. You get a public posting, an internal alignment brief for your hiring team, and a screening rubric tied to the outcomes you named.
Part 1

The seat

Basic facts. Get them on paper so the rest of the tool has something to hang on.

Part 2

Why this role exists

If you cannot name the operational problem this seat solves, you are not ready to post. This is the section that separates a real role from a wish list.

One or two sentences. What is breaking right now that this person fixes.

Name it in real terms. Hours, dollars, compliance exposure, staff burning out, families not served.

If it is a backfill, say honestly why the last person left. You do not publish this. Your hiring team needs to see it.

Part 3

Where the time actually goes

Not a list of eighteen bullets. Five areas of work with a percentage of the week attached to each. If the percentages do not total 100, the job is a fantasy and the person you hire will figure that out by month four.

Why this matters. The gap between the posted job and the real job is the number one reason nonprofit hires leave inside a year. Forcing the percentages is how you find that gap before the candidate does.
Total: 0 percent
Part 4

What success looks like

Outcomes, not activities. "Manages the CACFP program" is an activity. "Zero repeat findings at the next state review" is an outcome. Write the outcome you will actually judge the person on, because you will judge them on something whether you write it down or not.

What has to be true three months in for you to feel good about the hire.

Name the actual check. A number, a date, a document that either exists or does not.

Part 5

Must have versus teachable

Most nonprofit postings list twelve requirements and screen out the best candidate in the pile. Be honest about the short list of things you cannot teach, and move everything else where it belongs.

Discipline check. Cap the must have list at four. If you have five, one of them is a preference wearing a costume. Degree requirements belong here only if a funder or a regulation actually requires one.

One per line. Maximum four.

One per line. This list is where you widen the pool.

Short. Real. Not aspirational.

Part 6

Pay and the honest parts

Post the range. Every posting without one filters your pool toward people who already know they can afford to negotiate. Then name the hard parts of the job out loud. Candidates who take the job anyway are the ones who stay.

Health, retirement, leave. Also the things that actually matter here and cost you nothing to say.

Say the true thing. Every job has this. Hiding it just moves the discovery to month three.

If the honest answer is nowhere, say that. Some people want the seat, not the ladder.

Part 7

How you will screen

Decide the evaluation before you meet anyone. The alternative is a hiring team that argues about vibes in a conference room and hires whoever interviewed best.

Named people, not committees. Say who has the final call.

One per line. Keep it under four. Every extra round loses you good candidates to faster employers.

Tie these back to the outcomes in Part 4. If a signal does not connect to an outcome, cut it.

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