Generating applications for your opportunity

We would recommend that you get started with suggesting your role to volunteers as soon as you are able to and be as active as you can in spreading the word. 

Likewise, if your opportunity has been live for a few weeks and you’ve not had the response you had hoped for, we would encourage you to review your role, update it, and contact volunteers. 

Learn about what you can do to generate interest in your opportunity: 

1. Review and edit your opportunity

Start by reading through your role, and making some edits where necessary.  Could it be made more appealing with a few tweaks?

• Is the summary engaging? This is what will appear in search results so it’s your chance to grab the attention of your potential volunteer. Try to include key elements of the opportunity and how it will help your cause.
• Is the description easy to read? Is it well formatted?
• Is your “ask” too much? If your role requires lots of hours a week or there is too much responsibility, you may scare off potential volunteers. Can you break the role up into two or more roles?
• It helps to be as open as possible, so if on reflection you feel you have been too  prescriptive about what you need from a volunteer, you may like to be clear about what your “must haves” and “nice to haves” are.

How to edit your opportunity 

To edit your role:

• Go to the Opportunities section in your dashboard
• Under More, Click the 3 dots next to the opportunity you want to edit
• The More menu will appear
• Click Edit opportunity
• You'll be taken to the Edit Opportunity page
• Make your changes and click Save

When you save, your changes will be published immediately. If you need to extend your deadline, you can do that here too. 

2. Ask volunteers to apply

Contacting volunteers that you think might be a good fit for your role is a great way to start conversations with volunteers.  If the volunteer appears in the search results, it means that they have opted to be contacted, so please do not feel that you cannot reach out to them. We’d recommend contacting around 5-10 people to start with. Not everyone will reply, so start with a few, and you can always contact more later. More advice about suggesting your opportunity to volunteers.

• Search for volunteers, making sure to use the filters to either expand or refine your search results. Searching by keywords is also a helpful way to refine your search.
• When you come across a volunteer that you think might be a good fit, click on the Contact Volunteer button. If you would like to save them to contact them another time, please click on Save Volunteer, and they will be stored under Saved Volunteers in your dashboard
• You will see a message box with some suggested text in it. We would recommend that you tailor your message to the volunteer, highlighting why you think they would be a good fit for the role. Contacting a volunteer is not a promise that they will be placed, but an invitation to explore more about the role. We would recommend that you make this clear in your message, including explaining the selection process so that they are clear about the next steps.
• Click Send   

3. Share your role to LinkedIn

If you haven't already opted in, consider streaming your opportunity to LinkedIn. We have a unique partnership with LinkedIn that means that when we share your opportunity, it'll appear on your LinkedIn company page, and receive additional promotion. It's free and can make a huge difference in helping your role to reach a wide audience - in fact, roles that we share to LinkedIn receive an average of three times more applications than those that aren't streamed. Find out more about the benefits of sharing your role to LinkedIn, and instructions for how to opt in.

4. Spread the word

Share your role amongst your networks. Post it on your social media feeds. Add it to your newsletter. Ask your followers to share it with their own networks - these people have shown they are vested in your cause already, so use them!

You can share the role using the social media buttons listed on the opportunity page. Any potential candidates will be directed back to the role where they can apply as a guest, or register a profile and apply.

Explore our options for additional trustee recruitment support

Need help finding your ideal board members? Through our enhanced trustee recruitment option we can give your role a boost by sharing it externally and carrying out a search of our volunteer community. Or, talk to our TrusteeWorks team - specialists in board recruitment who offer a bespoke search service tailored to your needs.