Comprehensive Faculty Searches: Best Practices


Comprehensive Faculty Searches: Best Practices

Principles	Variegation is inherent to excellence. Excellence thrives in an environment where colleagues of varied backgrounds collaborate to create new knowledge to understand and change the world. An open faculty position is an opportunity. New colleagues bring innovations, new areas of expertise, and new discoveries. New colleagues from a variety of backgrounds add to this rejuvenation through new intellectual directions and critical perspectives. The outcome of a search creates the future of the department or school.
Initiating a search	Defining the field In your search posting, is your definition of the field open and inclusive? Are you casting a wide net? Are you explicitly seeking new areas of knowledge? Are you open to emerging fields, or approaches to a discipline, that are novel and underexplored? Do you intentionally invite expertise from fields in which frequently overlooked scholars specialize? Does the wording in your advertisement create a sense of welcome on this dimension? Strategies for inclusive success: scan the field to see where the emerging and cutting-edge scholarship is coming from. Identify those areas as examples of areas of interest. Counterproductive tactics: defining the field narrowly (you will have a smaller applicant pool); constructing the scope of the search to replicate the expertise of a departing colleague (focus on the future, not the past). Developing the search posting One way to demonstrate that you are serious about wanting candidates whose research, teaching, or service will contribute to the culture of heterogenity in the department or school, is to say this in the posting. Atypical and innovative applicants may be more likely to apply where search ads indicate a collegial and open-minded climate in the school, department, and section.
The search process	The search committee The search committee’s membership should be diverse across many dimensions (e.g., career stage, background, field specialization) but should avoid over-taxing any particular faculty for the sake of representation. All committee members are responsible for running an expansive search. At least one person should be charged with widening the pool of applicants, and all members should have assignments to support this endeavor. Agree as a committee on process, plan of action, and delegation of responsibilities. Recruit proactively. Develop an ambitious outreach plan. This means reaching out to colleagues, deans, chairs, and field leaders to identify a pool of excellent and varied candidates. Ask those colleagues to encourage strong candidates to apply. If your field’s scholarly association provides information about new job candidates, use it. Review the Survey of Earned Doctorates to uncover more previously under tapped potential candidates. Reach out directly to promising candidates to make sure they know of the opening and to offer to answer informational questions. Recognize that many candidates will have biases about Yale that your outreach can overcome. Advertise broadly and proactively. Advertise not just in popular but also special-interest focused venues. This makes a statement to under-contacted faculty, even if they would have seen your ad in another venue. Review the list of advertising venues posted by Yale’s https://secretary.yale.edu/equity-and-accessibility. As of April 11, 2025, no Yale school, department, or unit may require diversity statements as part of faculty hiring applications. Discuss the importance of heterogeneity at the beginning of—and throughout—the search process. Attend a workshop on running an expansive search.
Evaluating applications	Initial review of applications Develop a plan for the initial review of all applications. Examples of successful and inclusive practices include: As a committee, define your priorities for evaluating candidates before you begin the review Assign more than one reviewer to all applications, with random assignments of review groups (avoid having a committee or one or two who do all the initial work and do the true steering); Have all committee members read a subset of application materials from all candidates; Create an evaluation rubric or scoresheet to standardize the priorities for evaluation; Have each reviewer identify a “top ten” group and require all committee members to read (some portion of) the applications of anyone placed on a top-ten list; Talk to colleagues who have served on other search committees that have prioritized similar objectives and share their techniques with your committee
Equal Opportunity practices: measuring excellence	How do you measure excellence? What you consider excellent, and how you measure it, should be discussed early in the committee’s meetings. Are the measures of excellence different in various disciplines within the search’s broader field? It helps to have agreement on elements of excellence, especially when differing evaluations emerge, of candidates and of various sub-fields. Some appropriate and inappropriate measures of excellence Strong indicators of excellence Expertise Innovation, originality, independence Impact of research Publications: quantity, quality Publications with multiple authors: candidate’s role Publication venues: prestige and impact H-index Grant funding Pace of productivity Quality of teaching and presenting: vibrant engagement, responsiveness to questions, professionalism Ability to make a positive contribution to the climate in the School Not measures of excellence “Fit” with the department or school - this euphemism can function to exclude those whose backgrounds or areas of study differ from those doing the hiring “Pedigree” - apparent social class, elite characteristics, and the degree-granting institution do not predict excellence Charisma Self-promotion
Overcoming Blind Spots	Inadvertent Partiality Inadvertent partiality may hinder you from recognizing promise in candidates. Learn about your potential blind spots so you may manage them. An enormous body of literature exists. Where to start? Former Yale colleague Mahzarin Banaji, et al., Blind Spot: Hidden Biases of Good People (Delacorte Press, 2013) and Banaji’s Implicit Associate Test: implicit.harvard.edu Examples of conscious and unconscious preferences in faculty searches Overemphasis on grant funding as a measure of excellence Candidates may sometimes be seen as not excellent when they study emerging, niche, or controversial topics. Why does the area of study or the candidate seem peripheral, and to whom? Emerging and controversial areas often move incrementally into the center of scholarly discussion. Discuss whether such work is moving the field forward in ways likely to be recognized for its significance in the near-enough future. Uncovering less visible productivity Productivity can often go unrecognized for a variety of reasons that do not reflect the importance or contributive nature of the work. Relying on publication numbers alone will leave you with a deficient view of many candidates’ true productivity. Make the effort to uncover hidden productivity in candidates’ work. Learn about common reasons why productivity goes unnoticed. Publication selection process reflects gender bias Citation rates reflect gender bias Men promote their research more positively than women Women cite themselves less frequently than men Women appear as first author more frequently than men but not in the most prestigious journals, and not as senior/last authors Limitations in letters of recommendation Letters of recommendation reflect the personality and writing style of the author, not just the value of the candidate. They may also reflect the authors’ preconceived notions about certain demographics, despite overall endorsements of candidates. Take these factors into account when evaluating a letter. Letters for men are commonly longer than letters for women “Female applicants are only half as likely to receive excellent letters versus good letters compared to male applicants” Letters written by women and men express these biases Men are described in terms of agency and actions (pioneer, trailblazer), women are described in terms of social interaction (kind, collegial, helpful) Letters for men emphasize the research; letters for women emphasize teaching and mentoring Citations: 10.1038/ngeo2819, https://doi.apa.org/doi/10.1037/a0016539 Preference for the status quo Seeking out candidates that replicate previous faculty, or that fit a certain mold for the current or planned culture may result in limited opportunities for those from certain backgrounds. It will also hinder the creation of a heterogeity of thought and innovation. Be mindful to avoid having preconceived expectations of candidates based on their background and be open to alterity. Double standards Avoid assuming competence based on stereotypes or past experiences. For example, don’t equate 5 years of experience of a candidate to 8 years of another simply due to preconceived notions about their backgrounds. High potential vs. not ready Avoid emphasizing potential as a measure for candidates of one background, while emphasizing past accomplishments as a measure for candidates from other backgrounds. Ensure you apply the same criteria to all candidates, regardless of background, to avoid giving any group an advantage over another. Horns vs. halos Horns: one weakness is generalized into an overall negative rating Halos: one strength is generalized into an overall positive rating Perceptions as obstacles Proactive outreach is important to overcome misconceptions candidates may have about Yale. “No one gets tenure at Yale” “Yale is not welcoming” “Yale is old-school. [Institution] is where the new work happens.”
Selecting candidates	Selecting the long list The long list typically includes 8 - 10 candidates. All committee members should read the full file of anyone who might be placed on the long list. Approval of the long-listed nominees may be required by the Dean’s Office. Ensure your longlist is developed in the interest of heterogeneous excellence. There is a status quo effect that is influenced by the level of representation of any homogenous group that will impact the likelihood of a candidate being hired beyond what would be expected based on probability. You can read more about this effect in this article by the Harvard Business Review. How will you review the long-listed candidates? Will you hold short audio/visual (Zoom, Skype, etc.) interviews with each? Will you meet them at a professional association meeting? Selecting the short list The short list must include at least three candidates, and ideally at least four. All short-listed candidates should receive full interviews on campus.
Interviewing candidates	The interview Treat candidates with professionalism: you’re recruiting them. Treat them like future colleagues who will be stars in the field: if you’re interviewing them, you’ve already decided they’re among the best. Common interview behaviors that hurt recruitment: Asking inappropriate or potentially discriminatory questions. Interrupting the candidate or your colleagues. Putting the candidate on trial with hostile questions. Making inappropriate comments, including race- and gender-focused asides. Over-using interest-specific metaphors. Lack of decorum by interviewers: avoid your cell phone, avoid insider conversations with colleagues that render the candidate invisible. Questions not to ask during an interview Discrimination in hiring is illegal on the bases of these categories, so don’t ask about them: Race, color Religion Sex National origin Age Disability Veteran status Genetic information (including family medical history) Candidates know this, so will be offended if asked. Students who participate in interviews usually don’t know this: tell them.