The best known form for Serenity Prayer:

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.

This thought guided me through the whole selection process of candidates.
I believe that people are driven not only by hard incentives, independent on whether they are volunteers or not. The mix of mastery, autonomy and purpose is present in every sector:

• Autonomy: Our desire to be self directed. It increases engagement over compliance.
• Mastery: The urge to get better skills.
• Purpose: The desire to do something that has meaning and is important.

Once a candidate applied for a NGO, one can guess that “purpose” is not the missing part. But then it comes the first question. Are other NGOs – which are not related to United Nations Volunteers – getting the same attention as we, partner of this big brand, receive?

How selfless are our candidates? How much of their motivation is based on purpose?

This is just a provoking thought, but a legitimate one. Our approach during the interviews was not necessarily to understand what are the benefits people were craving for themselves. If they are in a selfish way willing to spend their time for a good cause in order to be more knowledgeable at their jobs (Mastery) that is also a valid reason.

The main criteria that guided us to identify our new team members follow:

1. Motivation: What did they learn yesterday? What was the best and worst experience they’ve made, why? A recent challenge they overcame? These kind of questions lead candidates to tell us where their passions lie, what makes them wake up every morning.
2. Skills and competences: Soft and hard skills were discussed using the “STAR” model, that is, Situation, Task, Action and Result.  How people approached different processes and workflows. They gave us examples of real life. They told us their stories.
3. Working method, ethic and principles: The role description mentioned understanding what it means to work in an agile environment. We observed in which parts they’d prioritise the principles on the left:
   • Individuals and Interactions over processes and tools
   • Working Software over comprehensive documentation
   • Customer Collaboration over contract negotiation
   • Responding to Change over following a plan

Hard filters we applied:

• Response rate: 1/3 did not react promptly to our questions because they could not find the time, that is, they had other priorities. Being able and willing to invest time is essential.
• Experience: Not in number of years, but in development using a certain programming language and framework, in methods to design the right product, in building the product the right way.
• Time zone: Remote work is challenging. We understand that it is essential to see each other once a week to grow as a team. If one of the candidates was not able to join weekly Skype calls, that would  harm our teamwork.

Last but not least, “courage” was one of the most relevant criteria. But how can we measure it? Is there a question we can ask to find out if candidates are courageous enough to change what they can?

That is the soft part that very few people talk about when giving feedback to candidates. Perhaps because we simply cannot quantify it. Maybe because employers would be in trouble to disclose that.

Once we spot candidates – with our brains and hearts – who do believe that they can use their passion, energy and skills to change the things we can, voilà, these courageous fellows are our people.