13 Tips for Pastoral Candidates in the Initial Hiring Process, Part II of II

[This Part II of II; for Part I, click here]

Getting a job in Christian ministry is difficult and time-consuming. This is true whether you are applying for a job at a church doing a large, national search or whether you are applying for a job through your network of friends and ministry contacts, and thus competing against a much smaller pool of candidates (or no other candidates at all). Regardless, it’s hard work. But if you are serious about finding the right job, here are a few more tips to help you during the initial phase of the hiring process. (For “tips” 1-6, click here.)

7. Only send PDFs (not Microsoft Word documents).
Never send your information in Microsoft Word documents (or the Mac equivalent). You can’t control how it will look on another person’s computer screen. You can, however, control how a PDF looks. When I’ve been on search committees, every time I’ve looked at a resume with messed up formatting, it’s proved a distraction. Look, if you spend time getting the formatting perfect, especially on the resume—which typically has difficult spacing—don’t assume the person getting your email has the same version of Word. Rather, send it as a PDF to protect your hard work. If you do not know how to save as a PDF, Google it or ask someone for help. Don’t be lazy with this. It’s important.

8. Only send one attachment.
If you’ve paid close attention so far, then you realize that you’ll be sending several documents—a cover letter, resume, bio with picture(s), references, and possibly even a recommendations. That’s a bunch of documents.

However, do not send an email with a bunch of attachments! Multiple attachments are the pits, especially for the person who is receiving these emails. And there’s a good chance he or she could accidentally not print one of them or not staple or paperclip them together. As I said above, your one attachment should be a PDF.

But you might be asking, “What if each of the documents is in a different Word document—how do I make them one PDF?” This is not a problem. Save each as a PDF and then merge them into one PDF. If you don’t own a program that can do this, you can use one for free here.

9. Send from your personal email account.
Whatever you do, do not send all of this information through the mechanism provided by some job-search websites, such as ChurchStaffing.com, even if that feels like an easy button to press. As a candidate you might not realize this, but when you send your info in this way the final product looks lousy. Instead, try to look up the church’s website to see if the job is posted there. If so, follow those instructions on who to email. Related to this, don’t have a cheesy email address. For example, don’t haveIAmSoOnFireForJesus@aol.com. And I’d suggest not using your student or current work email, as well. This is true for multiple reasons, but mainly because people might try to contact you after you have left your current school or employer but won’t be able to. Therefore, what you want is an email that will stay with you after you leave. If you don’t have an email like this, just create one at Gmail with your first and last name.

10. If you are in a different country, work extra hard. Don’t take this the wrong way, but when my previous church hired people, we posted the jobs on all of the major websites and our favorite seminaries. And each time we received a dozen or more resumes from people out of the country, and almost every time, what these people sent looked sketchy. I have no idea if the people applying were actually sketchy or not—but it was difficult to tell.

If you are applying for a job not in your own country, please know that you have a massive hurdle to overcome, even if only from a financial standpoint on the church that hires you (i.e. it will cost more to fly you in for the interview and to move you). That’s not to say you won’t have much to offer. In fact, you probably do, especially by way of perspective.

Here are a few tips to overcoming this hurdle. First, have someone from the country you are trying to move to look over your material before you send it. Second, if you have references in the country you are trying to move to, put them down. And if you have worked in that country before, or have education there, highlight that as well.

11. Make the follow-up phone call.
If you like the job, after you send your email, call the church to tell them. In fact, I’m tempted to say you should call even if the paper says “don’t call.” I say this because you want to stand out. The search team could be reading two hundred packets and when they come to yours, you want them to have heard from someone, maybe the church secretary, “Hey, this guy called a few days ago and sounded really nice.”

When you make the call, don’t do what I did once. I was so excited about the job, so excited to tell the search team or the receptionist or the pastor or whoever answered the phone that, when someone did, I rambled and mumbled and paused awkwardly because I hadn’t thought through what to say beforehand. Don’t do this. I ended up getting that job, but afterwards, they had a good laugh with me (or was it at me) about it. Here’s what you want to do: know what you are going to say on the call and then keep it short and sweet. You are just saying a quick hello to let them know how interested you are and what specifically attracted you about the job and church. If you want, you might even ask a question, such as “Why do you love your church so much?”

12. Stay positive regarding previous job transitions.
When writing or speaking about previous transitions, keep them positive. I’m not saying you should lie. Don’t do that. If the church is any good, when the time comes they will ask for more details. What I am talking about is in the initial stages choose to stress the positive reasons that you are looking for a job. For example, if part of why you are leaving your current church is because there was a change in the senior leadership and you no longer fit in as well, don’t go into all of that on your cover letter. Anytime there is a transition, we all assume—or should assume—there were reasons. It won’t help anyone involved if you complain about it, especially in the initial contact.

13. Be intentional on your social media, blog, and website.
Finally, as soon as you begin to contemplate a transition, only post content online with this potential transition in mind. As soon as anyone takes you seriously as a candidate, they will Google you, and when they do, they will follow the online breadcrumbs to your social media, and if you have them, your blog and website.

Think about this every time you post something. If you are inclined to post to Facebook pictures of the steak dinner that you are about eat, that’s probably fine. But if you are given to posting links about your love for the Tea Party or, on the other end, how awesome Keith Olbermann is, scale it back. And if you tend to re-tweet people with theological differences than you in order to mock them, don’t. I follow a guy on Twitter who does this, and I enjoy it. He’s good at it, but he’s in a role where it makes sense. You’re probably not.

The general principle is this: anything that you don’t want a search committee to see, don’t post. Remember, the search team doesn’t get your inside jokes. They weren’t there that one time when… Responsible online participation should be true all of the time, simply because you are a Christian, especially a Christian pursuing full-time ministry, but it’s worth the reminder when looking for a job.

[Part II of II; for Part I, click here]

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13 Tips for Pastoral Candidates in the Initial Hiring Process, Part I of II

People often say you never get a second chance to make a first impression. While that’s true, it’s also true that in many job searches, if you don’t make a good first impression, you’ll never even get a chance to make a second.

With this in mind, when I was looking for my first pastoral job, I knew the initial contact would be important. However, I wasn’t ready for what I experienced.

After I sent my resume and cover letter to one church, I called to see how the process was going and to let them know I was interested. The kind woman who answered the phone said, “It’s so nice of you to call. The search is going great.” When I asked how many people had applied, she said, “I think it’s up to 300.”

A few weeks later, I applied to another church, and in that search, I later found out I was one of 600 candidates from 11 different countries! See what I mean. If you don’t start strong in this process, you might be a great candidate, but they are moving on—without you.

Now, I’m several years removed from these experiences. Now, I can say (both as a candidate and someone who has been on pastoral-search committees), that the size of those searches is on the high-end. But they are not unheard of, especially for the large church that puts a well-crafted job description on major websites, such as ChurchStaffing.com.

Below are 13 tips to help candidates differentiate themselves from the dozens—and maybe hundreds—of other candidates in the early stages of a pastoral job search.

1. Always include a short, cover letter.
Include a cover letter with each submission. Much of your cover letter can be boilerplate (this is who I am; this is where I worked; this is where I went to school; this is where you can listen to my sermons; this is what I’m passionate about and why you should hire me; blah, blah, blah). But, you should definitely tailor at least one paragraph to demonstrate two things: first, that you actually read the job description, and second, why you think you would be a good fit. To do this, make sure you spend time on the church’s website. Perhaps you can even comment on something on their church calendar, or some connection you have to their particular city or state, if you have one. But don’t get wordy; your cover letters should be short—certainly less than one page.

2. Choose the right resume style for you.
There are two basic approaches to the resume: the traditional, business style or a skill-based style. In the traditional style, you state “I worked here and did X, Y, Z; and then I worked here and did X, Y, Z.” This style will appeal to those on the search team who are in the business world and accustomed to these types of resumes.

The other approach is a skill-based resume. In this approach, you highlight three or four skills that you have (say preaching, administration, and leading short-term missions), and then you explain when and where you’ve used them. It’s not a rule, but people that work in a church tend to like this style; it helps them quickly see your strengths. Additionally, the skill-based style resume helps a candidate highlight his skills even if he has had minimal church ministry experience, and/or developed his skills in non-ministry jobs, such as education or engineering. One other thing to think about: as with the cover letter, tailor the verbiage on your resume to the specific job description you are applying for—but of course, do this only within the bounds of integrity.

3. With audio and video samples, suggest a few of the best but give them several.
If you are a preaching pastor, pick your best two sermons and tell people where they can listen to them online. If you are fortunate enough to have your sermons available on video, pick your favorite two-minute clip and post it somewhere online like Vimeo(not YouTube, which tends to be cluttered). As I said, churches often receive more inquiries than they want, and a solid two-minute clip is all they need at the start of the process. You can always give them more later. But keep this in mind: if the only video footage you have is lame, don’t show it to people. Video of you preaching in a seminary classroom, if it’s anything like mine was, definitely falls under this category. In this case, just give links to audio.

Speaking of audio, early in the hiring process, only give your best sermon or two. Later, if you’re a preaching pastor, encourage the search team to listen to at least a dozen sermons, a dozen sermons that you don’t hand pick. For their sake—and for yours—a diet of your typical preaching should be sampled. Sure, we all have that one great sermon, that one we’d preach at conferences (if we ever got asked), but such sermons aren’t reflective of our norms, and hiring expectations need to be grounded in the typical, not the exceptional.

But what if I don’t have sermon audio? This is common for seminary grads, but there are easy ways to avoid it. When you do preach (in your own church or as a guest in other churches) make sure you get a recording. If you preach at a country church that doesn’t record, as I did for a few months in seminary, you’ll have to do it on your own. You can use your iPhone, or if you want to improve the quality, without spending much money, I’d suggest an entry-level handheld digital recorder such as the Samson Zoom H1.

If you’re a worship leader, what I said of video and audio applies to you as well; except, at some point, you’ll very likely have to find a way to show video. Thus, if you don’t have this already, find a way to get it even if it means recruiting some friends with the necessary skills and equipment, even if this means “leading worship” when no one is in the sanctuary. Be careful, however, as this will be dicey if your potential transition is not public knowledge. In another post I’ll say more about when and who to tell about a transition. For now, suffice it to say this: tell your senior leadership early and certainly before the transition is public. The point to make here is to say that when preparing some early documents to give to churches, you don’t want the senior pastor walking in the sanctuary after youth group only to ask why you are making a music video! Awkward.

4. Include high-quality pictures and a family bio.
You should include pictures of yourself, and if you are married, pictures of your family. Generally speaking, in the business world you don’t want to do this (and it’s often not even allowed), but ministry is different. In fact, because ministry is about relationships and knowing one another, I’m tempted to say it’s wrong to not have a picture, though you are free to disagree. Be careful not to overdo it, though. You don’t want lots of pictures, one or two professional photographs should suffice.

You may be asking, “Where do I put these pictures? In the email? On the cover letter? Where?” Good questions. Here’s what you do. Write a short bio sketch of your family and put the picture at the top of the page. The writing should be informal and conversational. Look at it this way, it’s another chance to display your writing and people skills.

5. Select quality and diverse references.
It’s common for candidates to write that references are “available upon request.” I understand why people do this; either they don’t want to overwhelm churches with lots of paper, or they want to wait until the job search has progressed before they gather this info. However, I say provide them right away. It shows you have nothing to hide, and if you are serious about the job, you’ll have to provide them at some point anyway.

I would suggest picking a diverse group of three to four references. You don’t want them to all be from the same place. For example, you might choose a seminary professor, a former pastor, someone in your congregation that works in the business world, and the parent of a child in your youth group. If you are brave, you might even include a non-Christian who knows you well. This—in fact—is a requirement for pastors since Paul tells us we must “be well thought of by outsiders [to the church]” (1 Timothy 3:7).

In addition to your references’ contact information, make sure you include a short sentence about your relationship to each person. For example, “Tom has been my neighbor for the last ten years. He’s not a Christian, but we are good friends and have had many conversations about the gospel. He has also visited my church several times.” Or, “Steve is the worship pastor at our church. We work closely together, and our families are dear friends.”

And this leads to my last point, namely, as the process moves forwards, it is appropriate to give your references a heads up that they may be getting a call soon.

6. Use simple, professional formatting.
Simple, professional formatting is essential if you’re going be taken seriously. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked at resumes with goofy margins or fonts. Make sure to keep all the fonts consistent. The resume, the cover letter, the family bio, and the references should all have the same font. This feels silly to say, but trust me, it matters.

My preference is to use serif fonts, that is, fonts with the little lines on the edges of most letters (in contrast to the font in this blog post, which is a sans-serif font). Serif fonts, like Times New Roman or Garamond, while bland, look more professional. Also, even among serif fonts, don’t get cute. Choose a simple, standard one. If you choose to use a weird, artsy font, you’ll definitely stand out, just not in a good way.

[Part I of II; tips 7-13 here]

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