FACULTY RECRUITMENT AND RETENTION

You are always recruiting!

The professional relationships and collaborations you create with students, trainees, postdoctoral scholars and colleagues today lay the groundwork for effective and excellent recruitment months, or even years, down the road.

Learn more about effective habits for scouting here.

When you are giving a talk or presentation, particularly outside of UW:

– Consider sharing a slide like this one to tell the audience a bit about yourself and why you are at the UW.

– Ask your hosts for an informal time to gather with students, trainees/postdocs and early career faculty to socialize, learn about them and build connections.

Who should be on a search committee?

The members of a faculty search committee should broadly represent the key collaborators for the person who is hired, and they should have roles and expertise that will enable different perspectives to be shared throughout the search process.

Consider inviting at least one person from a different division, section or department to serve on the committee, as well as a student or trainee representative.

HOW a search committee is formed signals the values of the hiring unit and how it distributes power. Please see here for different models for forming a search committee.

In alignment with the mission and values of UW and UW SoM, it is everyone’s responsibility to learn and implement best practices in recruitment to advance a diverse and inclusive faculty. Learn about our obligations under university, state, and federal laws here.

Individuals from underrepresented backgrounds in medicine and science commonly receive a high number of requests to serve on committees. Please be mindful that the responsibilities of shared governance, which include serving on search committees, should be distributed equitably amongst faculty.

What is the search committee charge, and why is it important?

A charge is the opening message to the search committee from the hiring authority (e.g., Department Chair, Division Head, or Dean).

An effective charge contains the following:

– Goals and timeline for the search

– Expectation that all search committee members will maintain strict confidentiality of all committee discussions throughout the process

– Expectations for the committee and its scope of work

Is the search committee in an advisory role to the hiring leader?

From whom should the committee hear to inform their search? For example, will there be listening sessions or discussions with the faculty, staff, postdocs, trainees, etc. of the hiring unit?

What are the expectations for outreach to create a broad pool of qualified and diverse applicants?

At what point will the search committee’s work conclude and transition to the hiring authority? Is the search committee expected to provide a ranked or unranked list of top applicants at that time?

– Relevant availability data for the field or subfield. National databases and academic/professional associations are a good starting point for finding availability data. Two resources to explore are AAMC and NSF databases:

AAMC Physician Workforce Data Dashboard

NSF Survey of Earned Doctorates (see “Detailed Field of Doctorate” tables)

A good record-keeping plan will help your search run more efficiently by:

cutting down on unnecessary emails;

minimizing confusion from multiple circulating versions of the same document; and

ensuring compliance with state laws.

Search committee chairs and their administrative partners should review this webpage early in the process and make a clear plan for how search records will be managed.

Nondiscrimination and Affirmative Action (taken from the UW APF Handbook of Best Practices):

Laws and practices related to affirmative action continue to evolve through initiatives and court decisions, and these changes have direct implications for faculty hiring. The University of Washington adheres to policies and practices of nondiscrimination that promote equal employment opportunity and are consistent with state and federal laws.

The UW Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action (EOAA) offers this succinct definition for affirmative action: “Affirmative action is a program required of federal contractors [like UW] to ensure equal employment opportunity. It requires a good faith effort to achieve and maintain a workforce in which minorities and women are represented at a level proportionate with their availability in the labor pool from which the employer can reasonably be expected to recruit. Affirmative action also includes good faith efforts towards covered veterans and individuals with disabilities.”

Section 5.D. of Executive Order 31 affirms this commitment as well: “The University seeks affirmatively to recruit qualified minority group members, women, protected veterans, and individuals with disabilities in all levels of employment as part of its commitment as a federal contractor.”

Affirmative action is distinct from nondiscrimination. Affirmative action refers to policies and practices specific to the outreach phase of the appointment process. The specific goal of affirmative action is to enrich applicant pools so that they are inclusive of all groups, including those that have been historically underrepresented, marginalized, or disadvantaged in specific academic disciplines or in higher education as a whole.

What is NOT allowed by law?

– Search committees cannot use markers of identity such as race, ethnicity, or gender as a criterion in assessment, or as the basis for hiring or advancement.

– EO 31 and I-200 prohibit discrimination and preferential treatment based on identity.

– A range of outreach efforts to broaden pools of qualified applicants are required of federal contractors, allowed under EO 31 and I-200, and encouraged by the University.

In 2015, the UW Faculty Senate passed this Resolution which states that search committees should have access to anti-bias training. In the SoM, the Dean has affirmed our commitment to this work by requiring that all search committees complete training in anti-bias and best practice strategies. All faculty leadership search committees should have a live training. Contact the Assistant Dean for Faculty Recruitment and Retention to set this up as soon as the committee is formed to allow enough lead time for scheduling.

All other faculty search committees can reach out to the Assistant Dean for Faculty Recruitment and Retention at any time with requests for committee training and/or any questions. Given the high volume of ongoing searches and requests, search committees may opt to use this pre-recorded training from The Office of Healthcare Equity for their search as an alternative.

In 2025, these required trainings will evolve into a new series format with updated content, offering both in-person, virtual and pre-recorded options.

A job ad is more than a check box in a long list of tasks for a faculty search. It is an opportunity to tell potential applicants who we are, what we do, and signal our enthusiasm for welcoming highly qualified and collaborative colleagues who will advance our mission, vision and values.

A strong job ad typically includes:

Expansive thinking and language that will attract a broad pool of applicants.

Is it clear that applicants with a range of relevant expertise and interests in your field are encouraged to apply?

How have you highlighted our mission and values?

Here are examples of job ads that include our commitment to diversity and inclusion in the position description.

A clear and well-informed description of the position, including potential funding, research, educational, and career advancement opportunities, as well as possible collaborators across UW.

As above (“Preparation”), the search committee should understand the context and needs for the faculty position after hearing directly from the existing members of the department, division, section, etc.

How to post a job and work effectively in Interfolio:

Interfolio is the system through which we ensure consistent, fair and legal recruitment practices at UW.

Start here for information on posting ads through Interfolio, and to access multiple Interfolio user guides.

Work with your Academic Human Resources specialist early and often to make sure that the Interfolio job posting process proceeds smoothly with a clear timeline.

Interfolio divides posted job ads into three major sections: Position Description, Qualifications, and Instructions.

Position Description

• Describe the specific position, hiring unit (e.g., department/division), and university. Use inclusive language that will appeal to a broad range of applicants.
• Describe potential collaborators across UW and SoM; for example, research centers, outreach programs, and/or faculty development resources.
• If there are preferences for the search (e.g., particular area(s) of expertise), these should be stated in this section.

Qualifications

• State the minimum qualifications for the position (e.g., minimum degree(s), required experiences or training, etc.).
• Preferences for the position (e.g., types of prior experiences, particular areas of expertise) should be under the Position Description, above.

Applicant Instructions

• Describe the materials you want applicants to submit for review, and make sure these align with your assessment criteria (see “Assessment”).
• These materials should be discussed by the search committee early in the search process. Depending on the specific field or subfield, as well as the academic rank of the position, application materials may include: a letter of interest; a CV; a research statement; a teaching philosophy statement; a sample of scholarship; a specified number of letters of recommendation or a specified number of names and contact information for potential references.

Diversity Statements

Committees are now required to request an explicit statement that describes the applicant’s experiences with and commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion, often called a “diversity statement” or “DEI statement.”

The DEI statement is a relatively new genre—both for the applicants who need to write them and for the hiring committees who need to assess them. It is helpful to provide a concise prompt that asks for the kinds of information the committee wants and that offers clear parameters for the writer (e.g., a word or page limit).

Here are sample prompts for DEI statements. See below (“Assessment”) for sample rubrics to assess DEI statements.

Your goal is to circulate the job ad as widely as possible. To this end, using a variety of avenues of communication is vital. In addition to posting on professional job boards and in scholarly publications, consider posting on a wide range of listservs, websites and social media accounts of relevant professional groups or organizations.

Search is a verb! Activate your professional networks.

Members of the search committee, along with other faculty members of the unit, should personally contact colleagues at UW and other institutions to seek nominations of potential applicants.

Ask all members of the unit (e.g., department faculty) to contact their colleagues at other institutions to inquire about promising graduate students, post-docs, or early career faculty, particularly from underrepresented backgrounds.

Send announcements and request nominations from departments at institutions that serve large numbers of underrepresented populations. Your campus allies will be able to help you locate such institutions.

Send announcements to diversity-related sections of regional, national, or international organizations within the discipline.

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.

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.

There should be a throughline between the mission, vision, and values of your unit, the job ad, and the assessment rubric and plan used by the search committee. This means that there should be consistent themes and content across all stages of the search process.

A search committee has 2 key responsibilities in the assessment of applicants:

– First, a search committee is responsible for developing a clear and consistent assessment rubric (i.e., the criteria by which they and other decision makers evaluate applicants’ qualifications and potential); and

– Second, a search committee is responsible for a clear and consistent assessment plan (i.e., the process by which they evaluate applicants, make selections at each stage of the process, and ultimately make recommendations to the voting faculty and/or to leadership with hiring authority).

When the job ad is being written, to ensure consistency and alignment between the job description and assessment criteria

An assessment rubric should be finalized by the search committee prior to the review of applications, to ensure that the process remains fair and focused on the key qualifications determined ahead of time (see “Preparation” above)

They save time

They keep evaluators focused on the priorities for the search

They help ensure consistency across reviews of multiple applicants

They are a starting point and guide for search committee discussions

They help mitigate the impact of personal and collective biases and provide a structure by which all applicants can be assessed fairly

– Want to learn more about common biases that impact faculty searches? See this excellent summary (Section 4.1) from the UW Handbook for Best Practices in Faculty Searches.

Here are sample rubrics for you to use and adapt to your search

– Generally, the search committee should aim to develop a rubric with 5-8 criteria (or domains). This range strikes a balance between being comprehensive and efficient in assessment.

– Some committees may choose to have a single rubric, whereas others may find it helpful to have multiple rubrics for different stages of a search.

This “staged” approach with separate rubrics should be determined ahead of time and applied in the same way for all applicants.

Some committees find it useful to “scaffold” their rubrics so that they use 2-3 criteria in the first round of assessment (e.g., application screening) and then add additional criteria in subsequent rounds (e.g., interviews).

Consider and discuss these questions as a search committee:

– What are the goals for this hire in terms of clinical work, research, teaching, leadership, service, and/or outreach?

– Is there a prioritization amongst these goals for the department or division?

– How is the unit’s mission and commitment to DEI a part of each goal?

– What types of evidence will demonstrate achievement or future potential in each area?

– What would constitute a low, medium or high ranking within each area?

This is a tip sheet for assessing diversity statements, and below are two examples of rubrics used to assess diversity statements

– Rubric 1 (Nguyen and Thomas)

– Rubric 2 (UC Berkeley)

A caution about DEI assessment criteria

– Assessment criteria should focus on applicants’ knowledge, experience, and expertise, as well as on their potential for future contributions, not on demographic or identity markers.

– Be careful not to use DEI assessment criteria as a proxy for rating applicants’ identities, based either on their self-disclosures in application materials or on the committee’s assumptions.

A specific example is assessment criteria that specifies evaluating an applicant’s ability or potential to serve as a “role model” for students from underrepresented backgrounds. What kinds of evidence in applicants’ submitted materials or in candidates’ responses to interview questions will the committee actually assess to discern this?

Once again, up front discussion and consensus by the search committee are key to creating and implementing a fair assessment plan

Consider and discuss these questions as a search committee:

– How will committee members define, disclose and handle potential conflicts of interest (COI) 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.

Start by reviewing this handout which defines COI and provides guidance for search committee members

See this one-page handout for recommendations on working with internal applicants

– 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 recommendation often reflect their authors’ idiosyncrasies and biases—rather than provide an “objective” assessment.

– Many SoM faculty searches proceed in multiple stages; for example:

Application review

Invitation for virtual interviews

Invitation for in-person interviews

– The search committee should determine ahead of time how, and approximately how many, applicants will move from each stage to the next

– It is also a best practice to keep the larger unit (division, department) posted on the progress of the search at different stages

Preliminary (first round) interviews are an efficient way for committees to meet a range of qualified candidates who have moved forward after initial screening and discussion by the committee.

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

Avoid offering “courtesy” interviews to applicants who do not meet the pre-determined criteria for the job, including internal applicants.

– Conduct all interviews in the same format, under similar conditions, including interviews with internal applicants.

– Search committee chairs should review the list of fair and unfair inquiries with all interviewers.

– Determine interview questions ahead of time. Assign 1-2 questions to each committee member, and ask the questions in the same order each time.

You can find lists of potential interview questions here and here. Note that many questions ask applicants to provide an example of their work or behavior as opposed to merely describing it.

Applicants who move forward after preliminary (or first round) interviews are often invited for campus visits.

This provides additional opportunities for applicants to showcase their accomplishments and professional qualities, as well as a chance for the hiring unit to showcase its people and their values in action, and to help potential recruits feel welcomed and see themselves as a part of the community.

At this stage, interview itineraries likely contain both assessment and recruitment activities.

– These activities should provide broad exposure and interaction with people within the hiring unit, SoM, and campus and community allies.

– The search committee chair should be clear with all applicants which components of the final interview are part of the assessment. This could include: a job talk, research seminar or presentation, teaching demonstration, meetings with graduate students and/or trainees, and meetings with key leaders in the hiring unit.

– Itineraries for applicants at this stage should be identical in terms of assessment activities, including for any internal applicants. For example, if one finalist is scheduled to meet with a curriculum or diversity committee as part of their assessment, all finalists should be scheduled to meet with the same curriculum or diversity committee.

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

Tips for successful campus interviews

– Provide adequate time for meals and breaks throughout the day.

– Consider lunch panels with a diverse group of faculty, staff and students/trainees in which attendees share something about their work. This provides broad exposure to the department or division, and avoids putting the applicant “on the spot” the entire time.

– Highlight campus-wide and community partners and resources:

UW SoM Office of Faculty Affairs (a resource for new and established faculty with a wealth of information on schoolwide career advancement opportunities, teaching and learning resources, and well-being programs)

UW Medicine Office of Healthcare Equity (open to all at UW Medicine, a resource for education, action and transformation to advance healthcare equity)

The Whole U (For UW faculty and staff, a resource for holistic wellness, building community, and perks)

Use this candidate resources template with links (instructions here).

Check back soon for additional resources on faculty retention and success.