Preparation

Preparing to launch an approved competitive faculty search involves multiple steps, and the earlier the hiring unit can begin, the better.

1.1 Multi-year Planning

Ideally, preparation for a specific search should begin one or more years prior to when the job ad will be posted.

Long-range hiring plans allow the unit to think strategically about how individual searches fit within short- and long-term goals for maintaining or enhancing excellence in research, teaching, and service—and to articulate that thinking to deans or chancellors, students, advancement officers, campus partners, community stakeholders, and potential applicants. What are the unit’s likely needs, and where does the unit hope to see itself in five or ten years?

Units should share their long-term hiring plans with their partners across campus and across the UW system—other departments, colleges, or schools that may have similar needs or overlapping interests (e.g., across its three campuses, the UW has multiple units whose work contributes to the health sciences and multiple units whose work contributes to educational leadership and policy). How might units work together to help meet mutual or similar hiring goals?

1.2 Potential for Cluster Hires

Multi-year planning may help the unit think about how individual searches might be fruitfully bundled into a “cluster hire,” or how the unit might collaborate with one or more other units to organize a cluster hire across multiple disciplines or across multiple UW campuses.

Cluster hires can be especially useful for attracting applicants working in relatively small, new, or interdisciplinary fields or subfields, since cluster hires signal a significant commitment to—and investment in—a specific area of research or teaching. Cluster hires suggest the building of research and teaching communities.

More information about cluster hires is available in the Toolkit.

1.3 Forming Search Committees

As the unit prepares for a specific search, its leadership should think carefully about how to form the official search committee:

• There are multiple models for effective search committees: what is possible and practical will depend on the size of the unit, how its subfields typically interact, how many searches the unit will conduct in a given hiring season, and the overall unit culture and climate. Sample search committee models are available in the Toolkit.
• Make sure the search committee is broadly representative of the area of hiring and of the unit as a whole, since the committee will likely be the first point of contact for potential applicants.
• Include individuals who will provide a range of different perspectives and expertise. Depending on the nature of the position, you may want to invite at least one person from outside the unit to serve on the committee. You may also want to include one or more graduate student representatives; many units always include a student representative as a best practice.
• It is helpful, for instance, to balance established and early-career faculty who are close to the subfield of the search with at least one colleague who is outside the subfield. It can also be helpful to have a member of your unit’s leadership team (e.g., an associate or vice chair or an associate dean) serve ex officio on all search committees to make sure the unit’s broader interests and long-term goals are represented at meetings.
• Be mindful not to overburden individual colleagues with a disproportionate number of committee assignments or other service obligations. If particular faculty members are needed on the search committee because of their research, teaching, or administrative expertise, where might they be relieved of other duties?

Additional information about forming search committees is available in the Toolkit.

1.4 Informing Search Committees

Unit leadership should meet with search committees before they begin their work to:

1. Officially charge the committee. It is important that leadership explain the full scope of the committee’s work on behalf of the unit. For instance, although they should seek input from others during the course of the search process (e.g., after finalists visit campus), only individuals charged with serving on the search committee are authorized to make formal recommendations about candidates or finalists.
2. Discuss the unit’s specific research, teaching, service, and/or leadership goals for the search.
3. If the unit does not require committees to create a specific plan for outreach, including a list of venues for posting the job advertisement, encourage them to do so before beginning their work.
4. Discuss the unit’s expectations for running the search process, including the expectation of compliance with university policies.
   • For example, the university’s Executive Order 81: Prohibiting Discrimination, Harassment, and Sexual Misconduct, includes this Statement of Nondiscrimination:

“The University prohibits discrimination in all programs and activities, including education, employment, and patient care, based on an individual’s actual or perceived protected characteristics. Protected characteristics include race, color, creed, religion, national origin, citizenship, sex, pregnancy, age, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetic information, disability, or veteran status. Upon learning of conduct that may constitute discrimination, the University will take prompt and effective action to address it, remedy its effects, and prevent recurrence.”

• • EO 81 prohibits both discrimination and preferential treatment based on protected characteristics. Search committees cannot use protected characteristics such as race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin as a criterion or factor for selecting or not selecting particular applicants, candidates, or finalists.
  • Moreover, search committees should not attempt to gather data about applicants’ identities that is not part of their submitted application materials (e.g., by searching for applicants’ profiles or photographs on the internet) and search committees should not attempt to determine the size or composition of their lists of candidates for preliminary or final interviews based on protected characteristics (e.g., by using some form of racial or gender distribution quota).

5. Discuss the unit’s expectation of confidentiality. Maintaining confidentiality of committee deliberations can be especially challenging if there are internal applicants or other applicants who are well known to committee members, such as recent alumni.

6. Outline the ideal outreach, assessment, and recruitment timeline.

7. Emphasize the importance of each committee member’s regular attendance at meetings and full participation in the search process. Be sure to specify the role any graduate student representatives are expected to play on the committee.

8. Introduce the Interfolio applicant tracking system. It may be useful to have your Interfolio administrator join you.

9. Detail the unit’s and the university’s expectations for records management and retention related to the search process. A useful resource from Records Management Services can be found here. Contact Records Management Services if you have questions about document retention schedules or the possible implications of the Public Records Act.

10. Detail available fiscal resources and administrative support.

In addition, unit leadership should:

• Ask the appropriate dean or vice chancellor to meet with the search committee early in the process to reiterate the committee’s advisory role and its need to maintain confidentiality. The dean or vice chancellor should also instruct the committee to provide equal opportunity in its search process and to evaluate applicants and candidates based only on job-related merit or potential and not on protected characteristics. The Associate Vice Provost for APF Inclusive Excellence is also available to meet with search committees at any stage of the process.

• Schedule one or more training sessions on mitigating potential bias in assessment, both for the committee and for the voting faculty. (Potential bias in assessment in discussed in Part 3 of the Handbook.) APF Inclusive Excellence can tailor workshops to the unit’s specific needs. Arrange by email by contacting facadv@uw.edu.

• Create a clear plan for how committee members will communicate with each other, the unit, campus partners, and applicants.

• Make sure all committee members understand they will be expected to participate in both outreach efforts to potential applicants and recruitment efforts extended to finalists.

Note: Preparation also includes creating an assessment rubric and creating an assessment plan, both of which are described in Part 3: Assessment.

1.5 Enlisting the Support of the Whole Unit

Finally, as you prepare for an approved competitive search it is important to devise strategies for enlisting the whole unit in the search process. How will the unit build consensus around its needs, priorities, and selections?

• At what point(s) will it be appropriate to inform the unit of the committee’s assessment plan, progress, and recommendations?
• At what point(s) will it be appropriate to gather the unit’s input, and in what form(s)? For instance, will the unit as a whole discuss and/or vote on which candidates from the preliminary interviews it wants to recommend be invited for final interviews, or will the search committee make such recommendations on its own? Whenever the voting faculty or other unit stakeholders and partners are asked for input, they need to be informed of the relevant assessment criteria.
• How can the unit—including not only faculty but also graduate students, post-docs, and alumni—assist in attracting a broad pool of qualified applicants?
• Once an offer is made, how can the unit assist in recruitment efforts?

1.6 Enlisting the Support of Key Campus Partners

Similarly, it is important to think about which other units within your college or school and/or across the university’s three campuses may be able to offer assistance during the search process.

• Which other units might help you attract a robust pool of qualified applicants?
• Which other units or individuals should be invited to attend job talks, research seminars, or teaching demonstrations, or to meet with finalists?
• Which other units or individuals will be especially useful during recruitment efforts?

1.7 Providing Oversight for Search Committees

Unit leadership should also think carefully about how to monitor and support search committees across the entire hiring process. It may be useful to work closely with the unit’s HR consultant.

• At which points in the process will it be most useful to check in with the committee chair, request relevant data, or require a written report? It may be useful, for instance, to check in 1) before the job ad is posted; 2) before the committee begins to assess applications; 3) when the committee creates a list of candidates for preliminary interviews; 4) when the committee creates a list of finalists; and 5) before the committee makes its formal recommendations to the unit.
• Given the unit’s prior history with faculty hiring, are there any points in the process where problems are more likely to occur (e.g., in the discussion of internal applicants)? If so, how might unit leadership effectively coach the committee or the unit as a whole toward better outcomes? The unit’s HR consultant can offer useful guidance.
• Keep track of issues that arise during the search process to discuss at the debriefing.

1.8 Debriefing Search Committees

At the conclusion of the hiring season, unit leadership should plan to debrief search committee chairs and, when possible, full search committees. This is an opportunity to assess the effectiveness of the unit’s hiring process, as well as an opportunity to learn from both successes and any difficulties that arise.

During the coronavirus pandemic, for instance, search committees learned a great deal about how to successfully navigate faculty hiring in a virtual environment, including how to streamline their processes and better focus on those activities that are essential for evaluation and selection. Search committees also learned a great deal about how to work with candidates to ensure they are able to present their best selves during interviews and to participate fully in all hiring activities. Many of these lessons are transferrable to in-person processes as well.

Outreach

How can the search committee attract a robust pool of qualified applicants? And what kinds of outreach practices are allowable under current university policies?

As already noted, the committee should discuss and plan each step of the search process. In terms of outreach to potential applicants, the committee should consider:

• What kind of language in the job ad will encourage applications from qualified individuals from a broad range of backgrounds?
• Which venues will be most productive for advertising to a broad range of potential applicants?
• How might members of the committee and the unit as a whole engage their professional networks to encourage applications from a wide range of qualified individuals?

2.1 Writing the Job Advertisement

In some units, leadership drafts the job advertisement; in others, the appointed search committee drafts the job advertisement. In either process, it is useful to seek guidance from the unit’s HR consultant. Ideally, unit leadership and/or the search committee should draft its evaluation criteria at the same time that it drafts the job ad to ensure close alignment. (See Part 3: Assessment.)

Interfolio divides posted job ads into three major sections: Position Description, Qualifications, and Instructions. It is thus useful to conceive the ad as the sum of several discrete but related parts.

Position Description:

• Describe the specific position. Use language that will appeal to a broad range of potential qualified applicants (e.g., avoid unduly narrow descriptions and unnecessary jargon). Include an anticipated start date, appointment type (e.g., tenure track, teaching track, research track, etc.), appointment term (e.g., 9-month or 12-month appointment), and a base salary range. Your HR consultant can assist with these details.
• It is useful to describe the unit and its relevant characteristics (e.g., size, scope of research and teaching, areas of expertise, service to campus and local communities, and so forth).
• It can be useful to also describe the university. Here is an opportunity to introduce potential applicants to UW’s broader mission and commitments.
• Depending on the position, it can be especially helpful to describe potential partners across the university. This might include interdisciplinary research centers, major facilities, student outreach and support programs, and so forth. It might also include related searches, either within or outside the hiring unit—i.e., how this position is part of a cluster hire.

Qualifications:

• State the minimum qualifications for the position (e.g., required years of relevant experience, demonstrated expertise in particular kinds of research or pedagogy, required licensure or other professional certification, etc.). A bulleted list, a sentence, or a paragraph can all work well.
• Depending on the nature of the position, the ad may need to include an explicit statement of the minimum degree required (e.g., “Ph.D. or foreign equivalent” in a particular discipline or range of disciplines).
• The ad may also need to include an explicit statement indicating that “All University of Washington faculty engage in teaching, research, and service.” If in doubt, check with the unit’s HR consultant.
• Note that it is best not to include lists of “preferred” experiences, qualities, or areas of expertise that are not actual minimum qualifications for the position. Such preferences or options should be outlined in the Position Description rather than in the Qualifications.

Instructions:

• Describe the materials you want applicants to submit for review—and make sure these align with your assessment criteria. Depending on the specific field or subfield, as well as the academic track and rank of the position, typical materials include: a letter of interest; a full cv; a sample of scholarship or creative activity; a statement of teaching philosophy and/or evidence of teaching effectiveness (e.g., a specified number of student or peer teaching evaluations); a specified number of letters of recommendation or a specified number of names and contact information for potential references.
• The Faculty Code requires hiring units to request a statement in which the applicant describes their experiences with and potential to advance the university’s diversity mission, often called a “diversity statement” or “DEI statement.” The DEI statement is still a relatively new genre—both for the applicants who need to write them and for the hiring committees who need to assess them. Since conventions for the genre are evolving, it is helpful to provide a concise prompt that asks for the kinds of information the committee will assess and that offers clear parameters for the writer (e.g., a word or page limit).

Below is an example of a prompt asking for a diversity statement that aligns with the UW Civil Rights Compliance Office’s Human Resources and Employment Practices Checklist:

“The University of Washington is committed to creating a community where individuals from all backgrounds and experiences have equal opportunities to participate, succeed, and feel a sense of belonging. We request that each applicant write a statement about their experiences in helping to create a welcoming and inclusive environment for research, teaching, mentoring, and/or service. In a 1-page statement, the applicant should detail their experiences or plans for supporting the success of students from all backgrounds.”

Your HR consultant can review specific language for these kinds of prompts.

• For positions that are primarily administrative, such as a unit leader or college dean, it may be appropriate for units to request a statement of administrative experience and/or a vision statement for the specific role.
• List a priority deadline—the date when you will begin to read and assess applications. This date should be at least 30 days after initial posting.

A link to the Create a Position User Guide on the Office for Academic Personnel and Faculty website is available here and in the Toolkit.

Required Language

In addition to the above components, official University of Washington statements will be appended to all job advertisements posted through Interfolio. These statements address the university’s status as an Equal Opportunity employer and its commitment to diversity. These statements also provide links to the university’s privacy notice, information about benefits, and information about disability services.

2.2 Posting the Job Advertisement

Circulating ads in traditional scholarly publications remains useful but can result in a relatively limited pool of qualified applicants. To enlarge the applicant pool, post ads in a variety of publications and on the listservs, websites, or social media accounts of relevant professional organizations. This should not only help enlarge the potential pool of qualified applicants, but also help convey the unit’s commitment to access and inclusion. Maintain a comprehensive record of where ads have been posted.

Note: Depending on the nature of the faculty or administrative position, the unit may be required to post its ad in a print publication with an international audience, such as the Chronicle of Higher Education. A review by the unit’s Academic HR consultant is required before any posting.

2.3 Active Outreach and Networking

Once the ad is posted, members of the search committee, along with other members of the hiring unit, should begin actively using their professional networks. They should personally contact colleagues at UW and other institutions to seek nominations of potential qualified applicants.  Consider using the following means of active outreach:

• Send announcements to regional, national, or international organizations within the discipline.
• Take advantage of social media (e.g., posting ads on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X, Bluesky, etc.) to attract a broad pool of applicants.
• Consider inviting applications from early career colleagues who may be currently under-placed at other institutions.
• Ask current faculty, graduate students, post-docs, and alumni to help market open positions by taking copies of job ads to academic conferences and meetings they attend, as well as to the other institutions they visit to give lectures or seminars.
• Ask all members of the unit to contact their colleagues at other institutions to inquire about promising graduate students, post-docs, or early career faculty from a wide range of backgrounds.
• Have unit leadership personally contact qualified potential applicants. These communications can include the offer to have the search committee chair speak with potential applicants on the phone or over Zoom.

Assessment

Two key components help ensure the efficient, effective, and fair assessment of job applicants:

1. a clear and consistent assessment rubric (i.e., the criteria by which committees and other decision makers evaluate applicants’ qualifications and potential, which should align with the minimum and preferred qualifications listed in the published job advertisement), and
2. a clear and consistent assessment plan (i.e., the process by which committees evaluate applicants, make selections at each stage of evaluation, and ultimately make recommendations to the voting faculty and/or to leadership with hiring authority).

Moreover, in addition to ensuring efficiency, effectiveness, and fairness, assessment rubrics and assessment plans assist in mitigating the impact of personal and collective biases that can affect evaluation.

3.1 Bias and the Assessment Process

Research confirms that bias can enter the assessment process at multiple points and in multiple forms. Follow best practices to minimize the effects of specific manifestations of bias in the hiring process:

Early Bird Bias and/or Recency Bias. Beware of over-valuing applications that arrive early or late in the process, or simply giving them more attention.

• Best practice: Avoid reviewing any applications until the priority deadline, and organize applications by some method other than order of arrival.
• Best practice: in the initial round of review, allot a specific amount of time to each application.

Moving Target Syndrome. Beware of changing the requirements for the position as the search proceeds in order to include or exclude particular applicants. And beware of being distracted by interesting or impressive applicants whose qualifications fall outside the advertised position.

• Best practice: Establish evaluation criteria that is aligned with the job ad and commit to using the assessment rubric at every stage of evaluation. It may be helpful to designate a point during the process to evaluate the effectiveness and accuracy of the assessment criteria (Do your criteria allow you to adequately assess the kinds of qualifications, skills, and experiences you listed in the job ad?) and the consistency of their application (Are all members of the committee applying the criteria in similar ways?). How well are the criteria and the process working?

Known Quantity Bias. Internal applicants—current students, recent graduates, post-docs, visiting scholars, instructors, etc.—can be both disadvantaged and advantaged during the hiring process.

• Best practice: It is important to openly discuss the challenge of maintaining fairness, collegiality, and confidentiality when internal applicants or other well-known applicants are part of the pool.
• Best practice: It is also important to openly discuss how the committee and the hiring unit will define and manage potential conflicts of interest. When should members disclose professional and personal relationships with applicants? And under what conditions should members recuse themselves from making evaluations? Review Faculty Code Section 24-50: Conflict of Interest Regarding Appointment, Employment, and Academic Decisions before beginning assessment.
• Best practice: Assign a point person—someone with authority who is not on the hiring committee—as a communication contact for internal applicants. If internal applicants proceed to the interview stage, schedule them early in the process to avoid the appearance that they have an inside advantage.

Resources for defining and managing potential conflicts of interest and potential bias or perception of bias based in professional or personal relationships are available in the Toolkit.

Implicit Bias. All of us are affected by unconscious bias, the stereotypes and preconceptions about various social groups stored in our brains that can influence our behavior toward members of those groups, both positively and negatively, without our conscious knowledge.

One well-documented example is our tendency to feel more comfortable with those we perceive as similar to ourselves in one way or another (so-called in-group favoritism). And numerous studies show that in situations of evaluation, members of dominant groups (e.g., the historical or current demographic majority for a particular academic unit or discipline) are typically rated more highly than others, even when credentials are identical. This occurs regardless of the evaluator’s personal background. “Positive bias” often manifests as favoritism and giving some applicants both more attention and the benefit of the doubt. “Negative bias” often manifests not as overt hostility but rather as a kind of neglect—as an absence of attention or lack of careful consideration. Without thinking, we often ignore the less familiar.

It is therefore crucial to consider the potential impact that implicit bias may have on the evaluation process.

Research demonstates, for instance, that a range of factors relevant to academic positions can trigger implicit bias.

“Academic” or “professional” factors that can trigger implicit bias against particular applicants, whether or not they meet advertised selection criteria, include:

• Non-traditional career paths.
• Non-traditional research interests or methodologies.
• Degrees from institutions considered less historically prestigious.
• Prior work experience at institutions considered less historically prestigious.
• Do not appear to “fit” the unit’s historical or current profile (e.g., in terms of background, interests, commitments, and so forth).

“Academic” or “professional” factors that can trigger implicit bias in favor of particular applicants, whether or not they meet advertised selection criteria, include:

• Traditional career paths.
• Traditional research interests and methodologies.
• Degrees from institutions considered historically prestigious.
• Prior work experience at institutions considered historically prestigious.
• Appear to “fit” the unit’s historical or current profile (e.g., in terms of background, interests, commitments, and so forth). This is sometimes referred to as “cloning”—replicating the historical or current unit profile in new hires.

Implicit bias is more likely to affect our decision making when we are tired, in a hurry, feeling overworked or distracted, or uncertain of exactly what we should do—in other words, under the conditions we often face while serving on search committees. And research shows that bias can be contagious; we are more likely to feel, express, or enact bias after witnessing it in others.

Attention to implicit bias can help committees to acknowledge the value of applicants who are less obviously similar to historical or current colleagues, and thus to consider their positive contributions to the unit and its future. Attention to implicit bias can also encourage committees to openly discuss how members define concepts like “merit,” “quality,” “excellence,” and “potential” before they begin assessment. Do committee members have consensus on what they are looking for in application materials?

Resources and case studies about implicit bias are available in the Toolkit.

3.2 Creating and Implementing an Assessment Rubric

One of our best tools for mitigating potential bias in the hiring process is to establish evaluation criteria before the committee begins reviewing applications—ideally, at the same time that the committee drafts the job advertisement. An assessment rubric ensures that all applicants are subject to the same evaluation criteria and that members of search committees apply selection criteria consistently.

If possible, the entire unit should participate in the creation of an assessment rubric. Minimally, the search committee should be assisted by unit leadership and its HR consultant.

An assessment rubric also helps the committee and the unit clearly weight its selection criteria in terms of the unit’s priorities in research, teaching, and service. For a particular search, which areas of assessment are considered most important? (E.g., Established or potential research in a particular area? Particular pedagogical experience? Ability to teach established courses? Ability to develop new courses? Leadership experience or potential? Something else?)

Some questions to consider:

• What are the goals for this hire in terms of research and teaching?
• Does the hiring unit have specific expectations for this hire in terms of service at the unit, campus, or university level? What about service to the profession, or outreach to local communities (e.g., K-12 school systems, 2-year colleges, professional organizations, community-based organizations, and so forth)?
• Does the hiring unit have specific expectations for this hire in terms of leadership at the unit, campus, or university level?
• How does the unit weight the various goals for the hire in terms of first and second priorities?
• What types of evidence will demonstrate achievement or future potential in each area? (Answers will vary to some degree depending on academic discipline, academic track, and academic rank.)
• Does the job ad request materials appropriate to the assessment criteria?

And a caution about assessing an applicant’s Diversity Statement:

• Do not to use the Diversity Statement as a proxy for assessing an applicant’s identity, based either on their self-disclosures in application materials or on the committee’s assumptions. Assessment criteria should focus on an applicant’s qualifications, such as knowledge, training, experience, expertise, and/or potential for future contributions, not on actual or perceived protected characteristics.

In creating an assessment rubric, committees should consider how many distinct criteria will be used in their assessment. Between 5 and 8 is a manageable range. Committees should also consider whether a single rubric will be adequate, or whether it will be useful to devise multiple rubrics for the multiple stages of a complex search. Some committees, for instance, find it useful to “scaffold” their rubrics so that they use 2-3 criteria in the first round of assessment then add additional criteria in subsequent rounds. (As an example: in a search for a teaching-track faculty member, a committee might decide to focus on assessing applicants’ relevant teaching experience in the first round of assessment and wait to assess applicants’ relevant research experience in the second round.)

And committees should consider what kind of scale to employ. Interfolio uses a “star” rating system; evaluators can assign between 1 and 5 “stars” for each criterion. Committees can also devise their own rating systems outside Interfolio.

Some typical scales include:

• A simple choice of “Evidence,” “No Evidence,” and “Unknown” or “High,” “Medium,” and “Low” rankings (e.g., using only the first three “stars” in Interfolio). A simple choice may ensure greater consistency in how diverse committee members employ the scale.
• A more elaborate choice of “Excellent,” “Good,” “Fair,” “Deficient,” and “No Evidence” or similar rankings (e.g., using all five “stars” in Interfolio). Finer distinctions may require “norming” exercises to ensure diverse committee members employ the scale in similar ways.

Open Rank Searches

If the unit is running an “open rank” search (i.e., “assistant or associate,” “associate or full,” or open to all ranks), the committee should consider creating more than one assessment rubric, since different kinds and different levels of achievement may be expected from applicants at different stages of their careers (e.g., in terms of research productivity, range of teaching, experience in student advising, mentoring, or outreach, department- or college-level leadership, or national service).

Using the Assessment Rubric as a Tool for Discussion

Committees may be tempted to use the assessment rubric similarly to how they would use a rubric designed for grading coursework or reviewing grant proposals: to rank applications based on total scores. It is important to stress, however, that the assessment rubric is a tool to help maintain consistency and fairness in the evaluation process, that is, to minimize bias either in favor of or against particular applicants. The rubric is not a substitute for active committee deliberations.

Committee members should come to meetings prepared to discuss the relative merits of specific applicants, and the review process should allow committee members opportunities to discuss any applicants they find have merit based on the assessment criteria.

3.3 Creating and Implementing an Assessment Plan

Before any applications are reviewed, the committee should have agreed upon an explicit plan for how it will conduct its business in a fair and consistent manner. Some questions to ask:

• When will the committee begin reading and assessing applications? As applications come in? Or after the priority deadline? Best practice: wait until the priority deadline.
• Given the anticipated size of the applicant pool, how many rounds or stages of assessment are likely to be needed? And will a single assessment rubric be appropriate, or will multiple rubrics be needed?
• Should all committee members read and assess the same materials at the same stage of the search process? Best practice: have all committee members review and assess the same materials at the same stage of the process. If the applicant pool is large and the committee feels it needs to divide up its work during the initial rounds of assessment in order to be efficient, it is best to have at least two committee members assess each application, rather than only one committee member.
• How will committee members define and then handle potential conflicts of interest or potential bias or perception of bias, such as a prior relationship with an applicant or with an applicant’s adviser? This issue can be especially challenging if the pool includes internal applicants. Best practice: discuss these issues in the abstract and devise a plan for responding before beginning assessment.
• By what process will the committee come to a decision about its interview list? Will members vote, for example, or deliberate until they achieve consensus?
• At what point in the process will the committee review letters of recommendation or contact references? Research suggests that, although they can provide useful information, letters of recommedation can reflect their authors’ indiosyncracies and biases—rather than provide an “objective” assessment. Best practice: wait until the committee has made its own initial assessments of other application materials before reviewing letters of recommendation. Do the letters affirm the committee’s assessments?
• Will the committee conduct preliminary interviews? If so, will these be in person, over the phone, by Zoom, or by some other means? Best practice: conduct all interviews in the same format.
• By what process will the committee create its list of finalists?
• How will the committee organize final interviews—will they be conducted in person and on campus (the conventional “campus visit”) or in a virtual environment? Either can work well.
• By what process will the committee make its final assessments and recommendations?
• How will the committee communicate with applicants and with the larger unit at each stage of the process?

In sum, it is important to consider:

• At which stage(s) of the assessment process will you apply the assessment rubric or rubrics?
• How will you ensure that agreed upon criteria are applied consistently for all applicants at all appropriate stages of the assessment process?
• How will you work to minimize the potential impact of implicit bias?

3.4 Preliminary Interviews

In many fields it is standard practice to conduct preliminary interviews with a “long” short list—perhaps 8 to 10, or as many as 15 candidates—before determining which 2 to 4 to invite for final interviews. Preliminary interviews are an efficient way for committees to consider a range of interesting candidates.

To help make preliminary interviews consistent, fair, and effective:

• Avoid offering “courtesy” interviews to applicants who do not meet stated criteria, including internal applicants.
• Conduct all interviews in the same format and under similar conditions—whether in person, over the phone, or on Zoom—including interviews with internal candidates.
• Have the same committee members present for all interviews, and ask the same set of standard questions, in the same order.
• Examples of diversity-related questions that align with the UW Civil Right Compliance Office’s HR and Employment Practices Checklist include:

“Our University is committed to creating a community where individuals from all backgrounds and experiences have equal opportunities to participate, succeed, and feel a sense of belonging. Describe how your academic, extracurricular, or other relevant experiences support this commitment.”

“Describe how your experiences have prepared you to contribute to a welcoming and inclusive environment at the University.”

• Make sure all interview questions comply with university policies. Some questions are always off limits. A “Chart for Fair and Unfair Pre-employment Inquiries”—which covers everything from asking questions about age to asking questions about disability, marital status, national origin, race, and sexual orientation—is available under the heading “Guidelines for pre-employment inquiries” on the EOAA website. You can also ask your HR consultant to review interview questions in advance.

A link to the chart of “fair” and “unfair” inquiries and a guide to interviewing candidates with disabilities are available in the Toolkit.

3.5 Final Interviews

The set of final interview activities—whether conducted in person on campus or in a virtual environment—is a component of the assessment process but it is also the beginning of the recruitment process. These activities should involve not only the search committee but also the unit, the college or school, and campus and community partners.

Organizing the Final Interview

Final interview activities—again, whether conducted in person or virtually—allow candidates to showcase their professional qualities. They are also opportunities for the unit to make finalists feel welcomed and to help finalists imagine themselves as part of a new scholarly community.

It is important to clearly distinguish which components of the final interview are part of the search committee’s and the unit’s assessment process. Assessment components typically include some form of job talk, research seminar or presentation, and/or teaching demonstration; meetings with the chair or director, other unit leaders, and graduate students; meetings with relevant unit committees; and a meeting with the appropriate dean or chancellor.

• Provide finalists with a detailed itinerary of all assessment activities, as far in advance as possible. To ensure equitable treatment, itineraries for all finalists should be identical in terms of assessment activities, including itineraries for internal candidates. For example, if one finalist is scheduled to meet with a curriculum committee as part of their assessment, all finalists should be scheduled to meet with the same curriculum committee.
• It is important to maintain clear and open communication with finalists before, during, and after the final interview, and it is important to be honest about the unit’s expectations for teaching, research, and service, as well as about issues of funding, space, or other resources.

The unit’s recruitment activities—welcoming finalists to campus and helping them imagine a successful career at the UW—can take many forms, either during or following a final interview.

Similar to assessment activities, recruitment activities should be planned in advance to ensure that all finalists have similar opportunities for making meaningful connections. Unlike assessment activities, which must be uniform for all finalists, recruitment activities can be tailored to the needs or requests of specific finalists (time and resources permitting).

• Units may want to introduce finalists to relevant faculty, staff, students, and administrators within and outside the unit with whom they might share research, teaching, service, and/or community outreach interests. How can the unit help finalists imagine local professional networks?
• Units may want to ask finalists if they would like to visit relevant research centers, facilities, or other campus resources, and/or to meet with specific individuals. It is best to create a list of relevant resources finalists can review before the final interview. A sample list of campus resources is available in the Toolkit.
• Units may want to ask finalists if they would like to meet with relevant community partners and resources.
• Units may want to provide venues for finalists to ask questions they might not feel comfortable asking members of the hiring unit (e.g., about atypical resources for their research, or about partner accommodations, family or medical leave, disability accommodations, resources for childcare or eldercare, unit or campus climate, and so forth).
• Units may want to introduce finalists to relevant campus resources for their success, such as Teaching@UW or The Whole U.

Taking a “Tiered” Approach to Final Interviews

One advantage of conducting final interviews virtually, rather than in person on campus, is that units can interview a larger number of finalists in an efficient and cost-effective way.

In one potential version: The unit invites a first “tier” of, say, 6 finalists for one hour of interview activities each (an initial commitment of 6 hours) and selects 4 of these to advance to the second “tier.” Next, the unit invites the 4 selected finalists for an additional 2 hours of interview activities each (an additional commitment of 8 hours) and selects 2 of these to advance to a third “tier.” Finally, the unit invites the 2 selected finalists to an additional 1 – 2 hours of interview activities each (an additional commitment of 2 – 4 hours) and makes its final selections. In roughly the same amount of time as hosting a single finalist on campus, the unit has considered 6.

If appropriate funding streams are available (e.g., discretionary gift budgets), the unit may choose to fund “recruitment visits” for the selected finalist(s) while they make their decision on whether to accept the unit’s offer.

Final Interviews and Internal Candidates

If the list of finalists includes internal candidates, it is important to:

• Insure that the itineraries for their assessment activities—whether on campus or virtual—are identical to those of external candidates.
• Inform internal candidates about all aspects of the final interview process, and be intentional about maintaining fairness, collegiality, and confidentiality.
• Encourage internal candidates not to attend assessment activities, such as job talks, teaching demonstrations, interviews, or hiring meetings, involving the other finalists.

A best practice is to interview internal finalists first in order to avoid any potential perception that internal finalists have an advantage from having seen firsthand or gathered information about the other finalists’ interviews.

Recruitment

Just as it is important to plan for outreach and assessment, it is important to plan for final selection, negotiation, and recruitment.

4.1 Outlining a Recruitment Strategy

Unlike creating strategies for other stages of a faculty search, units likely will be unable to create a recruitment strategy until near the end of the process. Some issues to consider:

• How many viable finalists do you have? None, one, or several?
• If you have more than one viable finalist, do you have a clear rank order? In some searches, a clear front-runner emerges through the assessment process; in others, units find they have an embarrassment of riches, that is, multiple finalists they deem highly qualified and think would make equally excellent colleagues. In the latter situation, it can be useful to focus on the “viability” of the finalists and then to shift the conversation to the order of offers. If you have, say, three highly qualified and viable finalists, to whom would you like to make the initial offer, and then, if necessary, the second offer, and then, if necessary, the third offer?
• If none of your top-ranked or viable finalists accepts an offer, do you have additional candidates you would like to interview as finalists?
• If none of your top-ranked or viable finalists accepts an offer, will it be best to fail the search and run it again?
• Given the specific field or subfield of the search, and given what you know about your top finalists, what issues do you anticipate might arise during negotiations?

4.2 Making an Offer

Typically, it is the responsibility of unit leadership to negotiate an offer of employment, after receiving approval from the appropriate dean or chancellor. Finalists should not be informed they will receive an offer of employment until after this approval has been granted. The terms of an offer vary considerably by field and by track and rank, but usually include salary, benefits, and some kind of start-up package. In many fields, assistant professor hires often also include a guaranteed course reduction before the review for tenure. Offers should also spell out in detail the unit’s expectations in terms of research, teaching, and service.

Additional issues to consider:

• Compensation and rank should be based on the position and experience of the individual finalist, and should be consistent with the compensation and rank of comparable faculty in the unit.
• Notify unsuccessful applicants only after an offer has been accepted, but prior to public announcements of the appointment.
• Although one should not directly ask a finalist about the need for partner accommodation or visa sponsorship, it is appropriate to ask if there are additional factors that would influence their decision to accept a position at UW.

If partner accommodation is a concern, unit leadership should consult with the appropriate dean or chancellor about possibilities for employment within the unit, college or school, or university (e.g., tenure-track, teaching-track, or other instructional positions on a permanent or temporary basis, or various staff positions).

• The college or school, campus, or university may be able to offer recruitment incentives beyond the unit’s standard compensation package. In addition to partner accommodation, such incentives might include relocation funds, reduced teaching expectations, professional development funds, start-up funds, summer salary, and/or research support. Consult with relevant leadership.

Retention

Once a finalist has been selected and approved, it becomes the responsibility of the entire unit as well as the relevant college, school, or campus—administrators, faculty, and staff alike—to create a welcoming atmosphere to facilitate the new colleague’s transition to professional life at the University of Washington.

It is helpful to develop a clear plan for bringing new colleagues into the unit, college, school, or campus and the university community and for making sure they have access to resources that will promote success in research, teaching, service, and work-life balance. What will it take for your new colleagues to thrive at UW? And who will be most useful as resources and mentors?

5.1 After the Search

As you develop a plan for welcoming and supporting new colleagues, some things to keep in mind:

• Most of us are easily overwhelmed by too much information given all at once. Think about how to prioritize information and how to distribute an orientation to the unit and to the university across the first quarter or even the first year.
• Be careful not to immediately overburden new colleagues with additional service demands or expectations (e.g., multiple committee assignments or multiple advisees, multiple peer or student mentees, or a major overhaul of the curriculum).
• At the same time, be careful not to overprotect new colleagues from service opportunities they seek out or that will be essential to their professional and personal success, since overprotection can lead to isolation.
• The key is to help new colleagues find balance among research, teaching, and service obligations and opportunities, on the one hand, and, on the other, to maintain open communication about the unit’s expectations and reward structures. It is also imperative that new colleagues have a high level of control over decision-making about how they will deploy their time.

It is thus important to ask: How can the search committee, unit leadership, dean or chancellor, and others assist new colleagues in developing strong support networks that are relevant and useful?

5.2 Mentoring

Although there is considerable agreement that the success of new faculty depends in part on the effectiveness of the mentoring they receive from colleagues, there is a wide range of opinion about which forms of individualized mentoring and/or mentoring communities are most effective. A few things to consider:

• Mentoring can be both formal and informal, and it should extend beyond the minimum effort of informing faculty about the requirements for achieving promotion or tenure.
• Many faculty express a desire for help with short- and long-range professional development planning and with time management, as well as for open conversation about work-life balance, rather than for mentoring focused exclusively on their research and teaching.
• Faculty benefit from having access to a “team” of mentors: from within and outside their home units, from multiple faculty tracks and ranks (including peer mentors), and from across the faculty/staff divide. Rather than assigning a single mentor and hoping for the best, consider what kind of “team” might be formed to help meet a new colleague’s multiple needs and goals.
• Faculty benefit from having access to different kinds of mentors at different stages of their careers.
• Faculty benefit from having access to mentors who can help them articulate their own definitions of success in the academy, rather than (only) mentors who can provide examples of what has worked for others in the past.

In addition to local mentoring resources, the University of Washington has an institutional membership with the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity (NCFDD). This membership allows all UW faculty, post-docs, and graduate students to access NCFDD resources that are designed to offer online mentoring and to promote professional development and work-life balance through a variety of online resources.

Information about NCFDD and additional mentoring resources are available here and in the Toolkit.

5.3 Climate

Ultimately, the best retention tool is a vibrant and welcoming university community where all faculty feel they can thrive and make meaningful contributions in research, teaching, and service. Of course, climate is also an important issue during outreach and recruitment, since potential applicants may inquire about the unit’s and the university’s climate before they consider applying, and since finalists will try to gauge climate during interview activities and campus visits.

If your unit has not already done so, consider consulting with UWHR on ways to gather information from current faculty on issues related to climate through individual conversations, focus groups or surveys, discussion with unit leadership, and exit interviews with faculty who are departing the University of Washington for other opportunities.

Some issues that can negatively affect climate:

• Unintentional bias experienced in formal and informal faculty interactions.
• Experiences of feeling that one’s areas of research, scholarship, teaching, or service are undervalued by the unit.
• Experiences of professional isolation and/or feeling invisible within the unit.
• Experiences of feeling overburdened with service work.
• Lack of transparency in key unit operations, such as teaching and service assignments, merit review, promotion and tenure guidelines, or salary adjustments.
• Lack of transparency in other unit operations, such as access to travel or research support, fiscal reimbursement processes, and so forth.
• Lack of organized, formal support and sharing of information for faculty preparing for promotion or tenure review.
• Lack of open support for ongoing professional development or for collaboration in research or teaching.
• Lack of information about university resources for faculty experiencing bias in the classroom or on campus.
• Lack of information about support available for faculty experiencing stress, health issues, or difficulties in their work or personal lives.

Some issues that can positively affect climate:

• Informal social networks organized for faculty by unit leadership.
• Active appreciation of faculty efforts by unit leadership in both formal and informal settings.
• Positively valuing a wide range of research, scholarship, teaching, and service related to the specific discipline.
• Transparent rotation of committee memberships and other kinds of service.
• Transparent guidelines for merit review, promotion, and tenure.
• Annual reviews constructed as opportunities for mentoring and coaching.
• Regular reminders about resources available to faculty.
• Regular and open discussion about important issues within the unit and discipline.