All faculty searches for a career-track position require a search committee led recruitment process or a posting waiver. Career-track means any tenured/tenure-track position and any Practice series or Instruction series hire.
The department chair or school director assembles the search committee, identifies a committee chair and diversity advocate, and charges the committee. This is a step-by-step guide for search committees running a faculty search:
- Step one is to prepare materials the department chair needs to secure formal approval for the search to begin. The search committee is usually responsible with providing: 1) writing a first draft of the job posting, 2) drafting a plan describing how the search committee will encourage a diverse applicant pool, including to whom the search committee will reach out and where it will advertise; and 3) all members of the committee attending the university-wide faculty search committee workshop, preferably as one group. Then, wait for the department chair to secure formal authorization to begin. Resources to help with advertising inclusively and broadly are here.
- Once approved, Step two is to now begin the recruitment process. Department faculty affairs staff post the job on Interfolio. Department faculty affairs staff assist with posting the position on other venues identified for job postings. The search committee should contact individuals using their own networks to seek nominations for the position and spread the word. The search committee should activate other faculty in the department for names of individuals to reach out to (for nominations and to solicit direct application). Take special effort to seek to access communities that are underrepresented in the department and/or in this field/discipline when recruiting the applicant pool.
- Around the application deadline, Step three is to meet and discuss what metric and standards of evaluation will be used by the committee to vet applications. The college requires that as part of this discussion, search committees are required to have an informed discussion about implicit bias and the criteria that they will use to evaluate applicants, then submit a written report to their chair/director, and a copy to the dean’s office, that summarizes their discussion of implicit bias, including materials presented and non-discriminatory evaluation criteria chosen. Resources for this discussion are here.
- Step four is to evaluate applications, decide on a long list for phone interviews/first round interviews.
- Step five is to conduct first round interviews. Resources for this are here.
- Step six is to meet and decide on a short list. Often including contacting their references to assist with the decision. Deliver the short list to the chair or director who brings it to the dean for approval, prior to any final interviews being scheduled. Decide whether to release some of the candidates (by telling them that their candidacy is not advancing for this position). Seek advice of the department faculty affairs staff person on when to do this.
- Step seven is to conduct final interviews.
- Step eight is for the search committee to make its final recommendation to the department chair or school director.
- Step nine is clean up at the conclusion of the search. The tasks are to 1) gather all records from the search (recordings, notes, any directly received application materials) and send to the department faculty affairs staff person for records retention requirements, 2) verify that all applicants have been told the final status of their application (e.g. telling those whose candidacy will not advance), 3) in some cases, the department faculty affairs staff person will contact you to ask for you help with certain with hiring paperwork. For tenured/tenure-track hires this may include a written teaching assessment and a description of the process used to complete the search.
Page last updated: 3/3/2023
