Faculty Recruiting Guidelines

1. Members of the department should be  asked to contact colleagues at other universities or organizations to see if they know of qualified candidates. Word of mouth and professional networks are often the most effective way to attract candidates, particularly for more senior positions. Highly qualified candidates may come from a variety of universities and so a broad and inclusive contact strategy should be employed in order to develop a large pool of candidates.
2. To attract a large pool of candidates, the position description should be written as broadly as possible within the bounds of the needs of the department and the position. Narrowly tailoring or creating overly prescriptive position descriptions has the effect of discouraging applications. Being expansive in the description as well as allowing for open or multiple ranks will encourage applications and result in a larger pool of applicants.  
   
3. Engage professional networks, local networks of people in related fields, area colleges, corporations, and businesses.
4. Discuss recruiting strategies with the search committee and/or with a Talent Acquisition recruiter.

Recruitment Strategies: Before the role is posted, there is ample opportunity for the hiring manager, search committee chair, and HR representative to discuss effective recruitment strategies. These efforts should be documented on the Job Card for the role. If additional sourcing efforts are necessary besides the initial sites where Virginia Tech posts jobs, the hiring manager may choose a few additional places to post the job such as industry-specific organizations. 

Search Committee Requirements: The hiring manager should choose their search committee during the recruitment phase. Search committees should be comprised of a cross section of faculty from the department and possibly members from outside departments. The committee should be chaired by a senior faculty member with knowledge of the field and the search process.

Members are not automatically notified by the applicant tracking system when they are assigned to a search committee. It is the department’s responsibility to communicate to each member their respective role in the search. The chair should set up time on the committee members’ calendars to review the candidates (one to two days after the review date), if this has not already been done by the hiring manager. Additionally, each search committee member, including the chair, is expected to score every candidate in the applicant tracking system prior to beginning interviews. The first round of interviews should be set up within a week of the candidate review.

Per Section 2.4 of the Faculty Handbook, prior to selecting candidates for interview, the chair of the search committee reviews the candidate pool with the dean, vice president, or designee, who makes a judgment as to whether additional recruitment efforts should be made. Documentation of the approval of the candidate pool should be noted in the university’s recruitment and onboarding system. The committee reviews applications once a representative pool is established or recruitment strategies are exhausted. A limited number of candidates are usually invited for on-campus interviews. Prior to making an offer, the department head, chair, school director, or supervisor reviews the search and interview process with the dean, vice president, or designee.

Communication with candidates is key for a successful recruitment process. When in doubt, more communication is better. The assigned disposition delegate should be kept up to date with the interview process and candidates not moving forward. Best practices for dispositioning candidates are as follows:

1. Candidate pools should be reviewed weekly during the sourcing process. A bulk communication should be sent by the dispositioning delegate to all candidates letting them know the committee is beginning to review candidates and if there is any delay in the review from the review date.
2. Once initial candidates are selected for the first round of interviews, the other candidates should be notified they have not been selected and dispositioned accordingly. Have the dispositioning delegate use the disposition guide to select a reason; the system will then send a bulk email those candidates. Use the email template provided in PageUp to let candidates know they are not moving forward. Additionally, candidates selected for the first round of interviews should also be dispositioned as interviewing.
3. When the first round of interviews are complete and the next set of finalists are selected, notify the candidates previously interviewed that they did not make the cut and disposition them accordingly in PageUp. Candidates selected for the second or third round of interviews should be dispositioned as such.
4. Conduct reference checks. Questions must be job related. Disregard information that is clearly unrelated to the position requirements. Information obtained in a reference check is completely confidential, but may be subjected to a court order. The applicant tracking system has the capability to run automated reference checks for each candidate. This process will ask references basic questions about the applicant and give the reference the ability to upload a reference letter. To learn about this feature, view the PageUp LMS training.  
5. Once a final candidate is chosen and they have accepted the verbal offer, disposition the remaining candidates from the final interview stage. If the offer is rejected, go back to the interview finalists to select another candidate for an offer. 
6. Once the offer has been formally/electronically accepted, be sure that all candidates have been dispositioned and the candidate that accepted has their new hire form complete. The HR representative should close out the job and un-source it from the careers website. 

The hiring manager will make a verbal offer, a written offer will be made by the HR representative, and a background check will be started on the candidate. Note the following start date guidelines:

• New employees can start on any day. To ensure timely payment, the new employee must complete their PageUp New Hire form a minimum of three working days prior to the start date. The conviction check also needs to have successfully completed. Job entry should be completed before the salary overtime, retroactive entry, and payroll end dates as listed on the Controlle's Office payroll schedule. New hire transactions received after the established deadline will be processed retroactively. 
• Start dates for existing employees moving to a new job within the university should coincide with the beginning of a pay period, which start on the 10th and 25th of each month. To ensure timely payment, the employee must complete the abbreviated PageUp New Hire form a minimum of five working days prior to the start date. HR will process the new job entry transaction for existing employees on the start date to prevent interruption of system access. New job entries for existing employees cannot be completed between the salary overtime, retroactive entry, and payroll end dates as listed on the Controller's Office payroll schedule.

If the candidate accepts, they will complete the new hire form and move forward into the onboarding portal. The disposition delegate will disposition the remaining candidates and the HR practitioner will close out the role.

If the candidate does not accept, the hiring manager should notify the search committee chair to repeat the process with the next final candidate. If there is not another finalist or the search committee is not interested in proceeding with any of the remaining candidates in the pool, the search committee chair should communicate with the hiring manager and HR representative. The hiring manager can decide if the pool is dry; a change in the position description may be needed. If so, they should work with the HR representative to close the current posting and re-open a new one with an updated job description. The recruiting and sourcing process would start again.