For Job Seekers

These resources are designed to assist Orthodox Christians interested in employment within an Orthodox parish, SCOBA or other Church agency, or any other ministry position. By thoughtfully undertaking the job search process, you are preparing yourself to serve Christ and His Church well.

These resources include:

• Sources of Job Leads and Ministry Contacts
• Cover Letter Basics
• Resume Structure
• Interview Preparation
• Sample Interview Questions for Practice
• Sample Questions you can ask During an Interview
• Salary Negotiation

For Parish Leaders

These resources are designed for Orthodox Christian parishes that would like to grow and enhance their ministry through expanding their staff. Many Orthodox Christian priests and parishes are finding that to meet the growing needs of those they serve, it is important to expand their staff in order to focus specifically on these needs.

The success of adding an additional worker to your parish payroll is directly related to how thoughtfully you undertake this hiring process. What are the needs of your parish? How do you determine these? How are they related to the long-term mission of your parish? Does everyone agree? How is consensus and commitment formed? Is the parish community committed to funding this person? Different parishes will have different needs: some may need a full-time youth director, others a full-time parish education director, others a more general pastoral assistant, and others a full-time cantor/chanter. Smaller parishes may only be able to afford part-time assistants, and should design job descriptions accordingly.

The following resources are provided to help you with this important work:

• Hiring for Parish Ministry
• Determining Remuneration/Salary
• Writing a Job Description for a Parish Ministry
• Creating a Posting for a Ministry Opportunity
• Creating a Variety of Interview Questions
• Equal Employment Opportunity Interview Guidelines
• Sample Interview Worksheet
• Sample Reference Check Form

About These Resources

The Office of Vocation and Ministry (OVM) at Hellenic College created these resources for Orthodoxjobs.com. The OVM seeks to nurture the next generation of leaders who are called to full-time ministry in the Orthodox Church, whether to the ordained priesthood or to lay ministry. As the need for lay employees grows, we hope these resources will help people find lay ministry work for which they are well-suited.

Since the inception of the OVM in 2003, we have had numerous calls from parish priests and parish council members asking for help finding an appropriate lay assistant, youth director, chantor, etc. Around the same time, OCF, St. Vladimir’s Seminary, and Internet Ministries was each having similar requests. In addition to helping students find jobs, we hope these resources will help parishes with the process of hiring lay assistants.

To our knowledge, these are the first such resources of this type for the Orthodox Church in the United States. As such, they are still in development stage. We will greatly appreciate the individuals and parishes who utilize these resources and then provide us feedback so that we may improve them.

Please address feedback to:

The Orthodoxjobs.com team
c/o Ann Bezzerides
50 Goddard Ave
Brookline, MA 02445
(617) 850-1308