Hiring / Search and Screen Best Practices

The first step toward hiring exceptional is a fair search process.

Our staff offer expertise about writing position postings, finding unique recruiting sources, forming 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 search committee comprised of at least three faculty and staff members who are position experts, managers, human resources and academic representatives – designate one person who will act as committee chair.
• 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 a variety of 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.
• 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.