Mike’s Monday Message: The New AFP Career Center

More than two years ago, I announced that we would be posting salary ranges for all open AFP jobs. Then this past September, I announced that we would require salary ranges on all positions posted on our AFP Global Board, effective Nov. 1. You can read about why we made the change here in my earlier message, but suffice it to say, it’s an important step in working to ensure equity in salaries in the fundraising profession.

I’m proud to share with you that this new policy did indeed go into effect on November 1, and furthermore, I’m equally proud to offer members and charities a new and upgraded Career Center with more useful services and tools for both employers and job applicants. You can check out the new AFP Global Career Center and Job Board here.

How did this all come about?

When we talked with vendors about requiring salary ranges, we found not every job board platform had the capacity to fulfill that requirement—and that was our non-negotiable point!  But then we were very excited to learn about the YM Careers platform powered by Community Brands. To their credit, they were able to not only ensure salary ranges for all job postings, but could provide members looking for jobs, and organizations looking for qualified fundraisers, a whole new range of services.

So, we’ve spent the last month with all hands-on deck putting together what I think is a great new Career Center that will help you find a job and enhance your career path and experience.

For those looking to explore job opportunities, our new Career Center is cutting-edge with a mobile-friendly design, intuitive interface, easier navigation and an overall more user-friendly experience. You can upload your resume and then maintain control of who sees your information. Plus, there are customizable alerts so that you know when a job becomes available that matches your personal profile, skills, interests, and preferred locations.

If you’re representing an organization looking for qualified fundraiser, the Career Center offers a redesigned job search which allows your open positions to be identified with improved filtering such as salary, location radius and more without job seekers ever having to leave the search results.

The Career Center is also our hub for tools and services related to advancing your overall career, including our AFP360° online career builder powered by Korn Ferry, our free online negotiation workshop offered through our partnership with the American Association of University Women, and our Compensation and Benefits Reports (with the latest report out this week).

We all know that job-hopping isn’t great for the profession as it can be hard to create strong donor connections if we’re constantly leaving organizations for new positions. At the same time, it’s so important to find the right job working for the right cause you believe in—we need to be excited and inspired by our work. That’s why I think it’s so important we have a “gold standard” Career Center—so you can find out your strengths and determine where you need to improve while identifying the organization that is a great fit for you.

Whether you’re looking for a job now or later, or you’re interested in posting an open position, I think AFP’s new Career Center will be beneficial for the entire community. I encourage you to check it out, and please let me know what you think. Send me an email at Mike.Geiger@afpglobal.org or via Twitter at @AFPMikeGeiger.

Mike Geiger, MBA, CPA