Archive

Talent Tip #182: 5 Ways to Make Your Interns’ Experience More Valuable (For Them, For You, and For Your Donors)

June 23, 2026

Every year, liberty organizations recruit some of the brightest young people in the country.

Then we hand them a laptop, point them toward the coffee machine, and hope for the best.

Fortunately, it doesn’t take much to transform a good internship into an experience that develops future liberty movement leaders and delivers long-term value for your organization and your donors.

1. Give Interns Meaningful Opportunities to Learn About the Ideas

Internships should expose young people not only to the work…

Talent Tip #181: The Best Career Advice I Never Got

May 19, 2026

This month, the Talent Market team reflected on the career advice they wish someone had given them early in their professional lives.

The result is a collection of lessons learned through wrong turns, frustrating moments, and the occasional near-emotional-collapse caused by Excel. We hope these reflections are helpful, encouraging, and perhaps mildly therapeutic for everyone, regardless of where you are in your career.

Talent Tip #180: AI: Cover Letter Friend or Foe?

April 21, 2026

By now, most job seekers have at least dabbled with AI when writing a cover letter. And why wouldn’t you? It’s fast, articulate, and never stares blankly at a cursor blinking in an empty text box.

But as they say in Spinal Tap, there’s a fine line between clever and stupid.

If you use it correctly, AI can be a powerful ally in the job hunt. Abuse it, and it will turn on you like Regina George.

Talent Tip #179: It’s Not You, It’s Me: The Most Likely Reasons You Got Declined

March 24, 2026

Hopefully, you had a chance to read last month’s Talent Tip about why candidates often don’t receive feedback when they get turned down.

While the silence can be frustrating, most hiring decisions aren’t mysterious at all. They tend to hinge on a small set of predictable factors—many of which you can address once you know what they are.

So let’s pull back the curtain. Below are the most common reasons candidates get declined and what you can realistically do…

Talent Tip #178: It’s Not You, It’s Me: Why You Don’t Get Rejection Feedback

February 17, 2026

It’s not you. It’s me.

There are good reasons to use this hollow rejection when you’re breaking off a relationship.

You don’t want to be hurtful. You don’t want to get into an argument. And you certainly don’t want that person reacting poorly to the real reason and then driving to your house in the middle of the night and shoving a banana in your tailpipe.

Hiring managers employ the same no-feedback strategy for many of…

Talent Tip #177: 2025 Hiring Trends: Ask the Talent Market 8-Ball

January 20, 2026

People ask us questions all year long about hiring, careers, and where the liberty movement is headed. As we kick off the new year, we decided to consult the most reliable oracle we know: the Talent Market database—channeled through our very own Magic 8-Ball.

Unlike some predictions, every answer below is grounded in Talent Market’s data from thousands of searches and placements conducted over more than 16 years.

Here’s what it had to say:

Talent Tip #176: The Annual Talent Market Naughty and Nice List

December 16, 2025

As the year winds down and Santa checks his list twice, we at Talent Market figured it was only fair to do the same. After all, no one behaves quite like a hiring manager in December. Some respond to emails faster than Rudolph on a sugar high… and others vanish into the winter fog like they’ve joined the Witness Protection Program.

So grab some cocoa, settle in, and enjoy our completely scientific, highly objective 2025 Talent Market Naughty…

Talent Tip #175: The One That Got Away: What Dating Can Teach Us About Hiring

November 18, 2025

We’ve all had that “one that got away” moment in dating. You meet someone amazing but you hesitate. And next thing you know, they get swept away by someone else.

Hiring isn’t all that different.

One of our clients recently interviewed a development director who was a total catch. She’d led a multimillion-dollar campaign, understood donor cultivation inside and out, and clearly shared their passion for free-market principles. The hiring team was smitten.

Their response after…

Talent Tip #174: Hiring Horror Stories

October 21, 2025

The Shape-Shifting Applicant

Once upon a dark, stormy job search, a candidate submitted six applications to different roles within 24 hours. His resume was consistent, showing a solid career in marketing, but his cover letters were like something out of a twisted AI experiment. One cover letter painted him as an expert in Congressional rules and procedures, while another claimed significant experience with foundation relations. Then there was the expert in employment law letter, the seasoned major gifts…

Talent Tip #173: Romance and Remote Work: Dad Was Right

August 19, 2025

I was recently talking with a nonprofit CEO who was venting about one of the trickiest aspects of modern management: remote workers.

“I can’t see what they’re doing,” she said. “I don’t know if they’re actually working or just folding laundry between Slack messages and sending emails from the wine department at Costco.”

Her frustration isn’t unique. And oddly enough, it reminded me of a conversation I had with my dad years ago when I was struggling through a long-distance…