Who we recruit shapes who belongs, who contributes and what membership becomes.

National Inclusion Week is a good moment for membership organisations to look beyond who is already in the room and ask a slightly more uncomfortable question: who might never have made it through the door?

Membership organisations are built around the idea of belonging.

Whether representing a profession, an industry, a community or a cause, their purpose is fundamentally about bringing people together, giving different voices a platform and creating something stronger through collective participation.

But when it comes to recruiting the people who work inside those organisations, inclusion can become much more complicated.

Because an organisation does not have to consciously exclude people to end up recruiting from a surprisingly narrow pool.

Sometimes it happens through a job description that has barely changed in five years. Sometimes it is an insistence on previous membership-sector experience for a role where it isn't genuinely necessary. Sometimes it is an interview process that rewards confidence more than capability, or a long list of "essential" criteria that describes the person who left rather than the person the organisation actually needs next.

And sometimes it starts with four deceptively simple words:

"They'll be a good fit."

Perhaps we need to rethink what "fit" actually means

Cultural fit has been part of recruitment language for years, and there is obviously value in finding people who understand and connect with an organisation's purpose and values.

The danger comes when "fit" quietly starts to mean familiar.

Someone with a similar career path. Someone who has worked in the same type of organisation. Someone who communicates like the existing team. Someone whose CV looks reassuringly similar to the person who previously held the role.

The result can be a recruitment process that feels perfectly reasonable at every individual stage but ultimately keeps producing remarkably similar candidates.

For membership organisations in particular, that deserves attention.

The sector is changing. Organisations are being asked to become more commercially confident, digitally capable, data-led, member-focused and adaptable, while simultaneously dealing with changing member expectations, financial pressures, new technologies and increasingly complex stakeholder environments.

If the organisation needs different thinking for the future, recruiting only what it already recognises may become a bigger risk than recruiting something different.

The job description could be your first inclusion test

One of the simplest exercises a membership organisation can undertake is to take its latest job description and interrogate every requirement.

  • Does this person really need five years' membership experience?

  • Do they genuinely need a degree?

  • Does that particular system need to be an essential requirement, or could somebody learn it?

  • Are we recruiting for capabilities, or recreating the CV of the person who has just left?

  • Could someone from another sector bring exactly the perspective we are currently missing?

This is not about lowering standards. In many cases, it means becoming considerably clearer about what the standard actually is.

CIPD guidance recommends making role requirements clear, specific and behaviour-based, keeping essential requirements to those genuinely necessary for the job and assessing the role as it exists today rather than simply recycling an old specification. It also points to evidence that apparently small changes to recruitment processes can influence who applies and who ultimately gets selected.

For membership organisations, this could be particularly powerful.

A brilliant community professional might come from hospitality or consumer membership. A commercially minded partnership specialist might have built their career in media or events. A digital professional may never have worked for a professional body but could completely transform its approach to member journeys. Someone returning to work after a career break might bring experience that simply isn't captured by a conventional career timeline.

The question should increasingly be "Can this person do what we need?", rather than "Have they already done it somewhere that looks like us?"

Then look at the interview itself

Interviews can feel objective while being anything but.

One candidate builds rapport instantly. Another takes longer to warm up. One is exceptionally polished. Another gives quieter answers but demonstrates considerably stronger judgement. One has interviewed many times recently. Another has been happily employed for ten years and is understandably rusty.

Which of those things actually predicts performance?

A more inclusive process does not mean removing human judgement from recruitment. It means giving that judgement a better framework.

Structured interviews, for example, use predetermined questions and consistent scoring criteria so candidates can be assessed against what the role genuinely requires rather than against one another's interview style. CIPD identifies structured interviewing as an effective way of reducing bias and creating a more level playing field.

There are other relatively simple changes too: explaining the recruitment stages upfront, offering flexibility around interview scheduling, proactively asking whether candidates require reasonable adjustments and being clear about what an assessment or presentation will involve.

  • None of those things makes recruitment less rigorous.

  • They make it easier to discover the best person.

  • Inclusion is also about the candidates who don't apply

  • There is another part of inclusive recruitment that receives far less attention: self-selection.

Before a hiring manager has shortlisted anybody, potential candidates have already made a decision about whether they believe the organisation is somewhere they could belong.

They are looking at the language in the advert, the salary, flexibility, location, benefits, photographs, website, leadership team, values and the way the organisation talks about itself.

They are also looking at that enormous list of essential requirements.

Some will apply despite meeting only part of it.

Others will simply close the page.

That means inclusion doesn't begin at interview. It begins before you even know a candidate exists.

It is one reason organisations should think carefully about what they communicate through a vacancy. CIPD recommends clarity around salary, flexible working options, reasonable adjustments, realistic information about the role and the recruitment process itself.

There is a membership question hiding underneath all of this

Perhaps the most interesting question for our sector is whether the workforce inside a membership organisation has enough breadth of experience to understand the increasingly diverse world outside it.

Members themselves are changing.

Different generations may expect different things from membership. Career paths are becoming less linear. Digital expectations continue to rise. Some people want traditional professional development and networking, while others expect instant digital access, highly personalised content, communities, career support or entirely new forms of value.

A workforce made up of people with different professional experiences, perspectives, skills and ways of thinking is potentially better equipped to challenge assumptions about what members actually want.

In that sense, inclusive recruitment isn't simply a people issue.

It can become a member-value issue too.

Recruit for contribution, not conformity

At Membership Bespoke, working exclusively across membership organisations gives us an interesting view of how recruitment in the sector is evolving.

There are times when previous membership experience is hugely valuable and genuinely important to a role. Understanding governance, members, committees, boards, volunteers, stakeholder relationships and the particular dynamics of membership organisations can make sector knowledge incredibly powerful.

But there are also appointments where insisting on an identical background can unnecessarily narrow the field.

Part of good recruitment is knowing the difference.

It means understanding which experience is genuinely essential, which skills are transferable, where somebody from an adjacent sector could add something new and when an unconventional candidate deserves a conversation rather than a rejection.

It also means being prepared to challenge a brief occasionally.

Not because hiring managers shouldn't know what they want, but because the person an organisation initially imagines and the person who could make the biggest difference are not always the same person.

A useful National Inclusion Week challenge

So rather than simply asking whether your organisation is inclusive, National Inclusion Week could be an opportunity to examine your next vacancy.

  • Take the job description.

  • Take the essential criteria.

  • Take the interview questions.

  • Take the shortlist.

And ask:

Where could somebody brilliant disappear from this process?

Perhaps that is one of the most useful ways of thinking about inclusion in recruitment.

Not simply asking whether everybody is being treated the same, but whether the process gives different people a genuine opportunity to demonstrate what they could contribute.

Because the future of the membership sector will require new skills, new thinking and, increasingly, people whose careers may not look exactly like the ones that came before them.

The strongest recruitment processes won't just find people who fit the membership organisation you are today. They will help you find the people who can build the membership organisation you need to become.

How Membership Bespoke can help

Membership Bespoke recruits exclusively for membership organisations across permanent, temporary and interim appointments and executive search, giving our consultants a detailed understanding of where sector experience matters, where transferable skills can strengthen a shortlist and how to reach candidates beyond the obvious talent pool.

If you're reviewing a role, planning your next appointment or simply want a second opinion on whether your recruitment brief could be unnecessarily narrowing your options, talk to Membership Bespoke.