Looking for volunteers? We have them!
[6 June 2006 | The Centre for Volunteering]
The Centre for Volunteering's referral service is currently experiencing something new. There is a huge number of volunteers enquiring about vacancies every week. People are really keen to share their skills but unfortunately there are not enough volunteer jobs for them.
We need your help. If you are a member, you are asked to assess your current volunteer needs, draft the relevant job descriptions and advertise volunteer vacancies through our volunteer referral service and new Fido Skilled Volunteer Search.
Fido Skilled Volunteer Search
FIDO skilled volunteer search connects skilled, experienced volunteers with not-for-profit organisations looking to recruit volunteers for short-term or long-term positions.Fido Skilled Volunteer Search has three simultaneous ways of advertising skilled volunteer positions:
- They are advertised in The Sydney Morning Herald's Help Desk column on the inside back page of the News Review section on Saturdays and on the inside back page of the main news section on Mondays.
- They are advertised on our new Fido Skilled Volunteer Search website in latest jobs every Monday.
- The Centre emails the FIDO volunteer jobs e-bulletin to over 1,000 skilled volunteers every Monday.
Interested volunteers are able to enquire and apply directly to member organisations.
Fido Skilled Volunteer Search focuses on volunteer jobs that require particular skills and experience:
- Professional volunteer jobs
- Senior management volunteer jobs
- Technical or trade volunteer jobs
- Specialist volunteer jobs
- Urgent or critical volunteer jobs
- Unique, interesting or unusual volunteer jobs.
Members of The Centre have free access to FIDO. To submit your job to Fido Skilled Volunteer Search visit www.fido.com.au and click on the not-for-profit organisations – advertise your job with FIDO button.
The Centre's volunteer referral service
Some of the biggest issues that members have mentioned when conducting internal volunteer recruitment are the number of unsuitable and unqualified people who apply, and the time needed to review applications and perform first-round interviews.Our volunteer referral service is very experienced and will undertake the recruitment process for your organisation.
Let us know what volunteer jobs you need filled. Download and complete our Job description form (MS Word document) and email the form back to us. You will need to fill out a new form for each new job.
Here's some brief information on our recruitment process:
1. Where The Centre advertises
We advertise your volunteer job/s in our jobs database and on The Centre for Volunteering, Seek Volunteer and GoVolunteer websites to ensure maximum exposure of your volunteer jobs.
2. Referring volunteers
We interview people when they express interest in your job/s and identify suitable volunteers for appropriate positions. We introduce them to your organisation via an email and provide brief contact details (full name, phone number and email address).
3. Contacting prospective volunteers
A few organisations have told us that the referred volunteers do not always contact them. We recommend volunteer managers contact each referred volunteer directly to confirm the volunteer's interest and provide any extra details about the job. This friendly and simple technique should help you improve the attendance of volunteers.
4. When a position has been filled
As soon as each of your jobs has been filled, you need to let us know so we can suspend them from our system. (Otherwise, we will keep referring volunteers to you.)
5. Changes to your contact details
Please advise us of any change to your contact details, such as phone/fax number, email, address and names of new contact staff. Then we can update this information in our database and give the right information to the prospective volunteers.
6. Visiting The Centre
You are welcome to visit The Centre where we can demonstrate how the volunteer referral service operates. Alternatively, you can arrange a date for one of our volunteer liaison officers to visit your organisation to answer any questions you have.
7. Sending us feedback
We will monitor any suggestions you have to help us improve our services.
If you are interested in using The Centre for Volunteering to help fill your volunteer roles and are not currently a member, please find out how to become a member.
If you have any questions, please phone Claudiene Duarte, volunteer coordinator, Volunteer Referral Service on 02 9261 3600 or email cduarte@volunteering.com.au