Step 1:  Determine the future needs of the agency and develop a profile of the ideal candidate. 

What will be happening in the community that will affect the agency’s mission and operations? What are the strengths and the weaknesses of the organization as it moves into the future? What will the staff be like, and how will it change? 

How does the board want the director to divide his or her efforts between internal management of the agency and external management of the board’s agenda in the community?

• List demands of the job—issues facing the agency.
• List assets of the ideal director. 
• Agree on salary range. 
• Complete candidate profile. 

Step 2: Plan hiring strategy and recruit applicants. 

The board should outline the tasks it will have to complete and layout a rough timetable for hiring the new director. Doing this accomplishes several purposes:

• First, it gives board members a realistic view of how long the hiring process will take.
• Second, it requires them to decide how to provide for management of the agency in the interim if the director being replaced already has left or will leave before recruitment can be completed. 
• Third, it gives them an idea of how much time they should expect to devote personally to the effort. The board should agree on realistic target dates for completing each task in the hiring process, consistent with the commitments that members and others who will participate are willing to make.

• Agree on tasks and schedules. 
• Make interim arrangements for agency’s management. 
• Agree on process and schedule. 
• Decide how to involve staff and others. 
• Advertise. 

Step 3: Screen applicants. 

The board should allow two to six weeks to complete advertisement of the position and receipt of applications. It should designate one person to receive the applications, check them for completeness, and ensure that only board members have access to them. 

One board member should be designated to be responsible for the orderly processing and handling of applications. In some cases, the outgoing director or another staff member might fulfill this role, but the board should consider all the possible ramifications of either one’s doing so and be certain that the person would under no circumstances become a candidate. Whatever arrangement is devised, the person handling the applications on behalf of the board must have the full confidence of all the members.

• Receive applications. 
• Screen applications. 
• Choose whom to interview. 

Step 4: Assess candidates. 

The most common method of assessing candidates is to interview them. However, an interview has limited reliability in predicting success on the job. The best predictor of a person’s behavior on the job is the behavior itself. An interview reveals only what a candidate says about his or her behavior. To a large extent, the person being interviewed can tell the interviewer what they want to hear without having to back it up. An “assessment,” a series of exercises designed to demonstrate candidates’ actual ability to perform relevant work tasks, is a more reliable predictor of a person’s ability to do a given job. However, because a valid and effective assessment can be complex and time-consuming to design, most boards still depend on interviews to assess candidates. 

• Plan assessment process. 
• Design interview (or assessment center) (see Figure 5; also see guide, page 33).
• Conduct interviews (or assessment.

Step 5: Hire a director. 

After the interviews, the panel usually tries to reach a consensus on one candidate unless the board of directors has instructed it to do otherwise. If the board uses a panel of less than its entire membership, the panel might recommend the first choice and a backup, or rank-order the finalists from best to communicate worst, and then that to the board. The panel’s explaining the reasoning behind its recommendations usually helps the board. 

• Agree on choice. 
• Negotiate details. 
• Draft employment agreement. 

Final Steps: Establish and maintain a good relationship. 

The relationship between a governing board and a director can enhance or impede governance significantly, so devoting some time to establishing and maintaining a good relationship is essential. Putting the necessary effort into this typically requires a lot of discipline by the board. Members are usually relieved that a decision has been made, all the extra meetings and work on recruitment can end, and they can return to their routine. It is useful at the outset for the board and the director to establish what they expect of each other beyond the general tenets of the bylaws. No two boards are exactly alike, nor are any two directors. The very process of recruiting a new director often raises issues and creates dynamics that might unify or splinter a board. Either way, the board is likely to undergo some change. No matter how much experience a new director has or how many directors a particular agency has had, the relationship among a specific board, a particular chair, and a specific director are sure to be different in some ways than any of them has ever experienced. 

• Set clear expectations. 
• Plan for formal evaluation