Institutions of all sizes are interested in streamlining their faculty recruitment processes in order to save time, improve their equity practices, and attract high-quality candidates. A holistic faculty recruitment tool provides a centralized platform that encourages seamless collaboration and transparency across departments and hiring committees.
Factors to consider in faculty hiring
There are plenty of nuances in recruiting and hiring practices of faculty and staff. While certain pieces of information — the CV, cover letter and letters of recommendation — offer helpful insight into candidates’ skills and experiences, these documents aren’t enough on their own. Traditional hiring tools leave out other, multi-dimensional factors that impact the big picture. Some key attributes to consider in the higher education hiring process include:
- Experience
- Expertise
- Accomplishments
- Diversity
Addressing diversity in applicants
One significant shortcoming of traditional hiring software is the difficulty in tracking relevant pieces of information regarding faculty demographics. Traditional faculty recruitment technology gives a snapshot into different candidates’ experience levels, but does not target characteristics that might not typically appear on their CVs.
As an example, many institutions overlook applicant diversity. It’s not that they are intentionally avoiding diverse staff and faculty applicants. In fact, it’s often quite the contrary. Many universities measure recruiting data related to diversity and find that there is a disparity in the percentage of diverse applicants applying for roles and the amount of candidates being called for interviews and receiving offers. They then seek out best practices for recruiting and working with diverse candidates. Some characteristics they might look out for in candidates include, but are not limited to:
- Gender identity
- Race and ethnicity
- Sexual orientation
- Disability
- Age
Interfolio Faculty Search addresses various disparities in faculty hiring to provide equitable opportunities for all prospects and candidates. Our solution provides transparency in applicants’ talents and diversity. In addition, our built-in equal employment opportunity (EEO) forms and reports ensure near 100% compliance regarding diversity data during every step of the recruitment process. This provides an overall more insightful process for hiring professionals and a more equitable experience for diverse candidates seeking faculty and staff positions.
Standardizing candidate criteria
The hiring process requires input from multiple parties, from department heads and administrators to human resources professionals. With so many moving parts and invested parties, it’s essential that institutions empower their staff to collaborate and communicate with consistency. One such way to develop a more holistic approach to faculty recruitment is through the standardization of processes.
A decentralized approach to candidate recruiting and hiring makes it difficult to observe and track hiring data. By switching to a system in which hiring, onboarding, and interviewing materials are readily available to all faculty members, institutions are able to standardize their approaches. In turn, the recruitment process becomes more responsive and produces better results.
Interfolio Faculty Search empowers deans and administrators to standardize criteria, job postings, and messages to candidates to develop and foster an equitable recruiting process across the institution. They can ensure job posting language is consistent, all while tracking when and where jobs are being posted. With one tried-and-true approach to hiring, human resources professionals can make sure they are attracting the best talent. In addition, standardization solidifies the notion that candidates are given equal opportunity at the university.
Streamlining recruitment processes to save time
Staff can save time during recruiting by digitizing formerly manual processes. Most broadly, this refers to the collection, organization, and distribution of applications. Rather than posting each job individually on the institution’s career site, several openings can be shared at once, all with standardized language. This reduces time spent on tedious, administrative tasks and allows hiring faculty to focus on more strategic tasks. For example, rather than utilizing the time they have allocated for recruitment to writing and uploading job descriptions, they can take a more active role in seeking out qualified candidates.
When you’re ready to streamline your hiring processes and improve equity in recruiting for faculty positions, you may be ready to integrate your system with Interfolio’s Faculty Search solutions. This centralized platform provides hiring managers with more insight throughout the recruitment process. If you’d like to find out more about how Interfolio can provide you with a more equitable experience for faculty members and applicants, check out our selection of resources.