You can ask people to apply in a range of ways. Each has it's own advantages and challenges.Think about who you are trying to recruit, and the attributes which are most important to you.
Attributes can be professional skills and experience, lived experience, protected characteristics, values, personal qualities.
The best approach will encourage people from your target audience to apply by removing barriers, and demonstrating that you will value why they bring. It will also make it easy for you to identify the candidates who have the right attributes.
CV and cover letter
This is the standard approach, and most people are familiar with it. However, it can be difficult to shortlist from these documents. It is hard to interpret a candidate's CV if they are from an unfamiliar profession or industry, or to understand how their skills are transferable to your charity.
Also, CVs may not demonstrate many of the qualities you seek, such as lived experience or passion for your cause. Give candidates clear instructions to include these points in their cover letter, so that you shortlist the people with the attributes that you actually need, not the ones with the generally most impressive CVs.
Application form
This can be a good way to get applicants to give you the information that is most relevant for shortlisting. For example, you can ask why they want to be a trustee of your charity, or their experience of volunteering. However, application forms can deter applicants. Forms require extra administrative effort from applicants, and they can seem bureaucratic and old fashioned. People often find it off putting if their first interaction with your charity is form filling so you may well find that people drop out at this stage.
Focused questions
Ask people to reply to questions that are designed to demonstrate the attributes you are looking for, and shortlist on their responses alone. This approach can make shortlisting easier and it significantly reduces unconscious bias because it is focused only applicant's attributes. However, it does mean investing more time up front, to ensure that you have asked the right questions. Reach Volunteering has recruited staff using this approach.
Other alternatives
If your target audience are digitally confident, how about video or voice recording applications? If you are looking for people with no previous experience of trusteeship, consider offering them an opportunity to learn more about the role first, through an open day or video call, and then invite people to express interest.
