September Surge
September is coming, and so are the jobs.
Every year the same thing happens. Hiring slows over the summer because everyone is out. Not just the hiring manager, the whole chain of people a search has to move through, all gone at different weeks. Then Labor Day passes and everything opens at once. We are preparing roles right now to go live in a few weeks. This year there is more to it than the usual calendar.
Primary season just wrapped, and organizations across this movement are taking a hard look at what their teams need to be heading into November and past it. That work has to get staffed. I wrote back in the spring about how movement hiring changed rather than collapsed, and this is the part of that shift you can use.
The real question: are you ready?
If the right role landed in your inbox next Tuesday, could you move on it that week?
For most people the answer is no, and the reason is usually mechanical. The resume is nine months old. The LinkedIn is older. The calendar is full of everything except the search
Get ready on paper.
Update your resume now, while nothing is urgent. The version you write at eleven at night for a role you really want isn’t always equal to the version you wrote on a quiet Sunday when the stakes were zero. If you want the recruiter side of this, we broke down what actually makes a resume stand out in the nonprofit and progressive world.
And if you are looking at more than one kind of role, that is more than one resume. A resume aimed at every track lands weakly in each one. Write a version for each track you are serious about.
Line up your references while you are at it. Waiting until an offer is close is how people end up scrambling for somebody who has not heard from them in three years. Our guide to stellar references walks through who to ask and how to set them up to actually help you.
Make your LinkedIn match all of it, and then move on. An hour spent rewriting your headline a fourth time is an hour that a conversation with a real person would have used better.
Get ready on your calendar.
A search takes hours that are already spoken for. You have to claim them on purpose.So block it. Two hours a week, on the calendar, protected the way you would protect a meeting with your board chair. And what goes in those two hours is people, not applications.
A 1:1 conversation with somebody inside an organization will move you past a resume screen faster than your resume will. When a person on the hiring side already knows your name, your application gets read by a human instead of sorted by a system. Applying puts you in a pile. Networking puts you next to somebody who can pull you out of it.
Set a goal you decide. Eight conversations before Halloween is a goal you control. An offer by November is a goal somebody else controls.
Measure the first one.
And what makes those conversations worth anything is what happens after them. The people in my network who do this well are back in my inbox six weeks later with an update, and again at twelve. That follow-up is the whole game. Our Networking Toolkit has a tracker that holds the cadence for you so you are not carrying it in your head.
September is also when informational interviews get easy, because everyone is back at their desk and roles are going live. If you want the version that works for a specific job you have your eye on, here are six tips for position-specific info interviews.
And if you are doing all of this around a job you still have, we covered that a few weeks ago. Two to three conversations a week is enough.
Do not do this alone.
Here is the biggest thing I can tell you. This work is hard, and it takes longer than you want it to. Doing it by yourself, in your own head, on your own timeline, is the hardest possible version of it. Find people who are in it with you.
Our Launch Your Search cohort starts September 16, which lands right inside the window this issue is about. Four weeks, a group of six or fewer, led by NRG’s career coach, Kristin Saybe.
It’s an opportunity to work through the whole arc: organizing your strategy; sharpening your materials; building your network; and telling your story. If you want a reset before the fall picks up, that is what it is built for.
And whatever you are stuck on, we might have written about it. Five years of this newsletter is sitting in the archive, all searchable and free.
You can start all of this before you know exactly what you want next. The point is to be reachable when the thing shows up.
Happy job searching!
Naomi
Director of Policy & Research @ National Institute for Reproductive Health | Remote (U.S.) | $115,000–$125,000
Field Organizers @ LCV GreenRoots (Riverside Organizing) | Various locations | $3,475/month
Distributed Organizers @ LCV GreenRoots (Riverside Organizing)| Remote (U.S.) | $3,475/month
Vice President, Corporate and Foundation Relations @ Active Minds | Remote (preference for NY, DC, Bay Area, or LA) | $130,200–$162,750
Development Director @ More Perfect Union | Remote | $150,000
Finance Manager @ Chicago Teachers Union Foundation | Chicago, IL | $125,000–$135,000
Major Gifts Officer @ Pregnancy Justice | New York, NY (Hybrid) | $126,252–$132,644
Chief of Staff @ Mother's Outreach Network | Washington, D.C. | $110,000–$115,000
Civic Engagement Director @ East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy | Oakland, CA | $100,000–$110,000
That's not all! We're hiring for additional jobs and you can see all of them on the NRG website.
NRG Networking Hour
Join us September 10th for our next NRG Networking Hour — a Pay-What-You-Can event for mission-driven job seekers to connect in small, facilitated breakout groups
Launch Your Search Cohorts
Over four weeks, starting September 16, you'll have an opportunity to join a small group led by NRG's career coach to work through every stage of the job search: organizing your strategy, refining your materials, building your network, and telling your story with confidence.
📢 Follow NRG on LinkedIn to stay up to date on the roles we’re hiring for. If you find this newsletter helpful, forward it to your friends and help us build our network! If you received this from a friend, sign up here to receive future “Get Hired'' newsletters.
Let’s move,
Naomi
P.S. If you’d like a partner to help you with your job search strategy, learn how NRG’s coaching programs can help you.