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Faculty Recruitment

Conducting an Affirmative Search

Advertising an opening in the Chronicle of Higher Education, The Washington Post and/or Black Issues in Higher Education alone, does not constitute an affirmative hiring effort for George Mason University's searches. Print advertising is only one strategy for a committee or unit to pursue when attempting to reach out to a diverse qualified applicant pool. More active strategies, including person-to-person contacts, are required to meet the twin goals for the recruitment process.

Recruitment is a Continuous Process:

1. View recruitment as a continuous process. Faculty members must be aware that their professional interactions with students, both graduate and undergraduate, and their junior and senior colleagues have direct affect the recruitment "pipeline" and make it more (or less) likely that minorities and women will pursue and succeed in a particular academic career.



2. Accept unsolicited resumes even though there may not be a position vacancy immediately available in the unit. These resumes should be treated in the same manner as any other resume received for an available position. They should be acknowledged and the sender should be told that their information would only be kept on file for one year. When a vacancy occurs and an individual who submitted an unsolicited resume seems qualified for consideration by the search committee for a position, the unit/department must communicate with the individual by way of a letter or telephone call to ascertain whether the individual would like to be considered for the position. If the individual expresses interest in being considered for the position, all pertinent information about the vacancy must be given to the candidate.



3. Ensure the involvement of the provost, senior faculty, department heads and deans in the recruitment of women and minorities into the departments. It is essential that an attitude and message that says "GMU-needs-you-and-we-really- mean-it" is vital to successful recruitment. Women and minorities are in demand by numerous colleges and universities across the country. Consequently, the university must demonstrate that diversity is valued and respected and that the University is serious in its efforts to recruit and retain women and minorities.

There are many ways to convey this attitude. For instance, the University of Wisconsin-Madison uses a "group recruitment approach." Four or five faculty members call candidates at regular intervals to emphasize the institution's and unit's interest and to answer any questions candidates may have.)

Deans at California State University (CSU) "take their show on the road" and agreed to earmark twenty percent (20%) of their recruiting budget for teams of faculty to travel to clusters of campuses in various locations in the country. These teams then talked to doctoral candidates about positions at CSU. Doctoral-granting institutions with a significant number of minority (particularly African American) or female graduate students and located near other promising institutions were selected for visits. This strategy proved to be profitable and an excellent way to develop networks for future hires.

A third strategy is "growing your own." Some universities have had a practice of not hiring its own graduates, but as the vicissitudes of the labor market continue, this practice may have to be re-thought. When there is an active effort to "grow-your-own," mentoring students and preparing them for success as employees must be done from the earliest stages of their involvement with the University.

Departments and Units should:

1. Discuss, as soon as a vacancy or newly created position becomes available, what a good search or recruitment effort should be for their specialty or field of study.



2. Thoroughly discuss minimum required qualifications and preferred qualifications.



3. Develop recruitment plans particular to the discipline. Personal and professional networks, professional associations, colleagues at other institutions, and minority and women faculty should be consulted or called to request nominations. Corporations and government agencies can also be good sources of non-traditional but qualified, diverse candidates.



4. Target their efforts in order to be effective. Effective recruitment efforts will vary from position to position based upon the experience and credentials required for the position, the level of the position, and the specific group(s) to be reached. Recruiting via phone calls, campus visits, and other strategies should focus upon the designated needs of the unit. Targeting efforts maximize time and resources.



5. Ensure their Search committees include women and minorities. When the unit does not have minorities and/or women who can be appointed to the committee, the OEDS encourages units to venture outside of their own immediate faculty or department and include woman and minorities from related disciplines or closely related administrative units. Women and minority representation on search committees may expand the committee's abilities to identify and reach out for qualified women and minority candidates in nontraditional ways. In addition, the inclusion of women and minorities may help to eradicate the feeling of isolation and exclusion from the decision-making processes that is sometime experienced by women and minorities.

Effective searches do not "just happen." They are the result of good planning, clear goals and invested time and energy. The successful recruitment of women and minorities in the workplace begins with support from the highest administrative levels of the university.