by James Weinberg, founder and CEO of Commongood Careers.

Recruiting and employing a 60-year-old former corporate businessperson may be different than bringing on a 25-year-old recent business school graduate.

But both candidates may be attracted by some simple innovations in how the workplace is structured that are often overlooked by nonprofit organizations.

What can be done to encourage more nonprofit organizations to hire experienced workers seeking jobs that combine personal meaning, social impact and continued income?

The Tapping Encore Talent report by Civic Ventures offers some practical ideas, based on meetings and brainstorming sessions held across the country. The report was funded by the MetLife Foundation. Here are some ideas:

How can you determine whether a job applicant will be able to successfully make the transition from the commercial world to your nonprofit organizations? Bridgestar, an initiative of the Bridgespan Group, provides sample interview questions that will help you probe the applicant’s motivations and skills. Here are selected questions from Bridgestar’s Hiring Toolkit for nonprofit employers.

Interviews provide an excellent opportunity to assess talented boomers who are hoping to transition from corporate and governmental sectors to the nonprofit world. Bridgestar offers the following helpful tips for interviewing prospective sector-switchers:

• Ask open-ended questions. For example, ask, “What is important to you in a workplace?” instead of, “Do you like structure in a workplace?”
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Take the pain out of sorting through resumes by creating a review process. The following tips from Bridgestar will help you find the most relevant candidates, including talented encore jobseekers.

Step 1: Agree on your resume review process and team member involvement.

Rusine Mitchell Sinclair left a 25-year career at IBM last year “to bring my experiences as an IBM executive to thousands of girls across North Carolina.”

Now, IBM is helping other executives and managers follow Sinclair to the nonprofit sector. The Financial Times calls IBM’s program a “Retirement Plan with a Difference.”

Project: Mature Worker Connection: A Program of the Pima Council on Aging

Location: Tucson, Ariz.

Innovation: Increases employment opportunities for workers ages 50+ and educates employers about the benefits and advantages of a more mature workforce

Project Leesburg Regional Medical Center and The Villages Regional Hospital

Location: Leesburg, Fla.

Innovation: Offering flexible work options, child care and internships shows experienced hospital staff members that they are valued and inspires them to stay on the job longer.

Project: Allied Coordinated Transportation Services, Inc.

Location: Lawrence County, Penn.

Innovation: Older drivers with empathy provide transportation as well as socialization for riders who can no longer drive in a program funded by the Pennsylvania Lottery.

by Claire Altman and Jess Geevarghese

Project: ReServe Health Navigator Program

Location: New York, N.Y.

Innovation: Helps avoid re-hospitalization of frail patients by assigning older adults to support them

Experienced boomers want meaningful work. Nonprofit organizations need talented employees. A new survey of hundreds of employers shows that supply and demand may finally be coming together.

The Tapping Encore Talent survey by the MetLife Foundation and Civic Ventures found that half of nonprofit employers see encore employees as “highly appealing,” citing their experience, commitment and reliability. And those who have recently hired late-career workers are even more positive.

Nonprofits face an unprecedented leadership deficit, as a wave of retirements hits just as social needs are exploding. The Silicon Valley Encore Initiative is an effort to fill the gap by helping recently retired or soon-to-be-retired corporate employees transition to encore careers in the social sector.

“We thought it was a terrific idea – one worth writing about and one worth emulating,” said Jeff Chu, senior editor at Fast Company, which named the initiative one of the magazine’s Social Enterprises of the Year. “It’s a clever solution to a nagging, ongoing problem.”

Baby boomers eager to “recareer” have inspired community groups, private companies and community colleges to offer programs aimed at helping ease the transition, reports The New York Times.

“With more than a quarter of the American work force age 50 and over, according to federal labor statistics, more people are deciding the hobbies-and-leisure retirement model isn’t for them,” writes reporter Elizabeth Olsen.

This interactive online tutorial for nonprofit employers has interactive tools to help them attract and retain paid and unpaid workers age 50 and older. Topics include assessing workforce capabilities, marketing to older adults and job “sculpting.” It’s available free at http://cil.templecil.org.

Bridgestar, 2006
Topics in this kit for employers include creating job descriptions, developing a candidate pool, screening and interviewing candidates, and finalizing a choice. This resource from Bridgestar is especially helpful for nonprofits recruiting candidates from the corporate sector. Available online at resources.bridgestar.org

By Mary Young with Diane Pikatialis and Anna Rappaport. The Conference Board, 2007. As baby boomers begin to hit retirement age, companies are scrambling to figure out how to avoid a potentially devastating brain drain. This 2007 study from The Conference Board includes 12 case studies of nonprofit and for-profit employers that are trying to engage, retain and recruit mature workers.

National Human Services Assembly, 2008
This online resource from the National Human Services Assembly includes assessment tools, case studies, research summaries, and guidance for human-services nonprofits about work-life topics and ways to support a multigenerational workforce. Available online at www.nassembly.org

AARP, 2008
This online interactive questionnaire designed for employers analyzes information submitted about current demographics and capacities, then generates a tailored report describing the potential impact of the aging workforce, workplace strengths, current employment practices, areas for improvement and steps to create an “age-friendly” workplace. Available online.

Idealist.org, 2008
Idealist.org offers an extensive HR resource directory for nonprofit organizations includes information about compensation and benefits, cultural diversity, employment law, organizational culture and management. Available online.