research proposal and research paper (topic: nonprofit)

Sample Research Paper Proposal

The purpose of the proposal is to present your topic in outline format. The outline helps you organize your thinking. It makes sure your ideas are ordered in such a way that your case is presented in a logical manner. Your actual paper should not be written in outline format (i.e. do not use Roman numerals, letters, or numbers). You may use subheadings to indicate a shift in subtopic but do so sparingly.

Below is a sample proposal.

Hire for Potential

Proposition

Hiring managers typically make their choices based on how well a candidate’s past work experience fits the job description. A better way to choose someone for a job is to consider their future potential for success.

I Opening Paragraph ( this paragraph succinctly states what your paper is about. The reader should have a good idea of what is to come based on the opening paragraph)

Example: The nonprofit sector is notorious for having high employee turnover. Among the reasons typically cited are low salaries and few opportunities for advancement within an organization. But there is another reason that deserves attention. Nonprofits (and corporations too) tend to hire people based on their past experience rather than their future potential. The latter is an important indicator of whether a new employee will succeed. No system can guarantee that every new hire will work out well and stay for many years, but organizations can position themselves for successful hiring by considering a candidate’s potential as much as his or her experience.

II The Problem

a. The traditional approach to hiring is to match a candidate’s resume with a job description and with core competencies. This can lead to bad hires because prior work experience has limited predictive value for future success in a job.

b. Choosing a pool of job candidates based on experience is reasonable given that potential mostly reveals itself during the interview process. But once a pool is selected and interviews begin, hiring managers must look to potential.

III What is “Potential”?

a. Potential is the capacity to grow into a job and excel. It’s less about skills (though skills are important) than personal qualities and attributes, such as curiosity, determination, reliability, insight, and drive.

b. People with potential are not motivated by an organization’s mission so much as they are by a drive to achieve.

IV Advantages of Hiring for Potential

a. Employees with potential are more likely to think of new ways of doing things.

b. They are more willing to take on stretch assignments.

c. They have the qualities needed to become leaders.

V Spotting Potential

a. Interview questions that seek to determine potential include asking candidates about how they responded to challenging situations, what books have influenced them, what gives them the most satisfaction from work, what did they learn from the jobs they held as teenagers, how have they advanced themselves professionally over the past five years?

b. Additional factors that are skill-based can also reveal potential. These include communication, problem-solving, and teamwork.

VI Conclusion

Hiring new staff members based on their potential to succeed in a job is a better way of recruiting talent than the traditional approach of matching past work experience to a job description. This doesn’t mean that experience doesn’t count. It does. It simply means that a person’s past success is not by itself a good predictor of future success.