Hiring / Search and Screen Best Practices

The IU Indianapolis Office of Institutional Equity (OIE) is dedicated to garnering the greatest population of diverse talent because working with diverse faculty, staff, and students is an important competency at IU Indianapolis, IU School of Medicine, and in our campus community. Hence, we require broad searches and candidate evaluation by a search committee for nearly every faculty, academic, and staff position on campus.

The first step toward hiring exceptional and diverse talent is find it through a fair, equitable, and inclusive search process.

Search and Screen Infographic

Our staff offer expertise about writing discrimination-free position postings, finding unique recruiting sources, forming diverse search committees, and discovering candidates with the right knowledge, skill, talent, and abilities for any position.

Contact OIE for guidance in forming a search committee or to schedule face-to-face or on-line committee member training designed to help avoid ethical and legal missteps in the search and hiring process.

• Form a diverse search committee comprised of at least three faculty and staff members who are position experts, managers, human resources and academic representatives, and equity advocates – designate one person who will act as committee chair.
• Remember that search committees are advisors, not decision-makers – do not include the hiring decision-maker on the search committee.
• Read and understand the job description.
• Identify the ideal candidate’s skill, knowledge, ability, and other qualities for success.
• Recruit, recruit, recruit – in unique ways and through diverse channels.
• Fully evaluate each applicant and application based upon the information they provide – make the search process a top priority, don’t “Google” the candidates, and know that the “perfect” candidate is not perfect. Use rubrics to standardize evaluation across candidates.
• Beware of unconscious (and conscious) bias and rater error – no opinion, assessment, assumption, or decision should be made based upon a candidate’s race, age, gender, gender expression, national origin, religion, physical or mental disability, medical condition, pregnancy, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, or veteran status – nor should a decision be made based upon or a person’s height, weight, hair color, attractive appearance, perceived socio-economic status, or any other preconceived notion we use to evaluate another person. Please review more information on the bottom of this page on unconscious bias. 
• Move quickly – before someone else hires your top talent – set a goal for quick-turnaround.
• Interview broadly, select candidates who may not have specific work experience but demonstrate cross-functional dexterity.
• Onboard strategically and plan to retain top talent.

All applicant information should be retained by the committee chair for a period of five years. 

For help at any time, contact OIE. Our staff is happy to kick off your search committee process.

A Note about PeopleAdmin:

Search committee chairs need to move applicants in the workflow prior to interviewing. Moving applicants in the workflow allows OIE to accurately track adverse impact in campus hiring practices.

Resources on Unconscious Bias:

• Project Implicit, Implicit Association Test
• Understanding Blind Spots: Challenge Assumptions, PwC Network 
• Understanding Blind Spots: Enhance Objectivity, PwC Network
• An Introduction to Unconscious Bias by Robbie Short
• Unconscious Bias in 60 Seconds by Anthony McLean