Here’s an uncomfortable truth.

The best candidates are interviewing you just as hard as you’re interviewing them.

Only about a quarter of job seekers say they’ve had a great candidate experience. And more than half have walked away from an offer because the hiring process itself felt broken.

Read that again. Not the salary. Not the role. The process.

Meanwhile, boards and search committees are juggling a lot: competitive compensation, flexibility expectations, retention pressure, and the constant worry that your best people are one recruiter call away from leaving.

So how do you win in this market?

Here are 5 strategies that will help you hire top talent

Your hiring process is your first impression. And candidates are judging it from the very first email.

More than half of candidates have declined an offer because of a poor hiring experience. And 61 percent report being ghosted after an interview.

Think about that. These are people who invested hours preparing, interviewing, and imagining a future with your organization. Silence tells them everything they need to know.

Respond quickly. Communicate at every stage. Treat candidates the way you’d want your best donor or board member treated.

Because here’s the thing: even the candidates you don’t hire will talk about how you treated them.

Candidates know the position description isn’t the whole story. They’ve been around the block.

So tell them the whole story.

What are the real challenges? What does success look like in year one? What’s hard about this job that nobody puts in writing?

Transparency isn’t a risk. It’s a filter. The right candidate leans in when they hear the truth. The wrong candidate self-selects out, and that saves everyone months of pain.

Candidates who feel misled during the process become new hires who leave within the year. Honesty up front is your cheapest retention strategy.

Top candidates aren’t just evaluating the role. They’re evaluating what it feels like to work with you.

Show them.

Share how your team collaborates. Talk about how decisions get made. Highlight the mission moments that remind your people why they chose this work.

And make one thing clear: yours is a place where people are heard. Where ideas travel up, not just down. Where the person you hire can actually shape the organization they’re joining.

Mission-driven leaders have options. Give them a reason to choose yours.

When candidates ask about career progression in an interview, they’re not making small talk.

They’re deciding whether your organization is a destination or a stepping stone.

Let candidates know what the future could look like. How do you recognize and reward strong performance? Where have people in this role gone next? What does professional development actually look like at your organization?

People don’t leave organizations where they can see their future. Paint that picture before they ever sign the offer letter.

Experience tells you what someone has done. Skills tell you what someone can do.

Both matter. But in a tight talent market, the leaders who win are the ones who recognize transferable skills.

The development director who can build authentic relationships can build them for your mission. The operations leader who scaled one organization can scale yours. The executive who navigated a turnaround has skills no stable-environment resume can match.

Widen your lens. Some of the strongest hires come from adjacent sectors, unconventional paths, and yes, candidates currently in transition.

The perfect resume is a myth. Exceptional talent is real.

This is one of the toughest hiring markets in over a decade. The best candidates have options, and they’re using them.

The organizations that win are the ones that treat hiring like the strategic function it is: responsive, transparent, and built around what top talent actually wants.

For 16 years, The Batten Group has helped nonprofit organizations do exactly that, with more than 650 leadership placements and counting. We know how to bring the top 10 percent of the talent pool to your organization.

Connect with us today and let’s talk about who you’re hiring next.

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