Phase 2: Recruitment

Recruiting candidates is a crucial step in the hiring process and all faculty positions require a robust national search.

Recruitment Overview

Step 3: Advertisements and Building Diverse Applicant Pools

Active Recruiting is Everyone's Responsibility

Remember that "to search" is a verb so make sure your search is active. In an effort to reach the broadest possible audience, it is the responsibility of all search committee members to assist in the recruitment of a diverse applicant pool. Searches are more successful when each search committee member actively participates in contacting and encouraging applicants to apply to the position.

Networking

Networking is an important tool in recruiting candidates. All committee members should reach out to diverse networks they have developed over the years to find professionals that may not be actively looking for a job and/or to gather referrals. Hopefully, these networks are broad and diverse, and include colleagues, other Universities, and student and professional associations. This outreach will take some time, but remember that a quick hire is not the goal. The goal is to hire a highly qualified candidate who will bring distinction to your department and the University.

• Sample Recruitment Letter

Faculty Hiring Initiative Advertising

Recognizing the need to recruit top candidates following the announcement of Michigan Tech's faculty hiring initiative, the Provost's Office is financially supporting an advertisement of all positions that will be submitted to multiple venues. Here is the Fall 2023 list of Journals where ads will be placed.

• Faculty Advertising Fall 2024
• Faculty Group Ad

The advertisement will contain a list of faculty openings and direct applicants to the provost's hiring initiatives website; this page will provide the same list of faculty openings and link to the specific position description on HR's website. The provost's office is also creating a one-page flyer, and once complete, a smaller number will be shared with each hiring unit to be used for conferences and other places faculty or staff may attend.

Advertisement Placement Summary Form II-B

Form II-B: Advertisement Placement Summary documents your recruitment plan and summarizes all measures that take place to recruit applicants, including women and minorities. This plan should include networking and advertising your position in a variety of places to reach the broadest audience. It also includes issuing a call for nominations. It is important not to rush this step.

• Equal Opportunity Employer compliance requires Michigan Tech to make a good faith effort to recruit a diverse pool of applicants. Executive Order 11246, VEVRAA and 503 regulations prohibit discrimination in employment decisions on the basis of protected characteristic status and requires affirmative action to recruit and advance protected veterans, individuals with disabilities, women, and minority applicants.
• Advertise positions widely through journals, publications, newspapers, online sites, affinity groups, and professional organizations. Carefully review the advertising specifications, as they vary from service to service and site to site.
• All advertising must follow the Michigan Tech Brand Guide for visual identifiers, such as how to use the logo, the color templates, and department identifiers.
• See National and Online Advertising Resource Page for many suggested publications and websites to advertise your position.
• As part of the recruitment process, Form II-B needs to be completed as stated above. Appropriate signatures are needed on the form and the form needs to be returned to Human Resources with a copy advertisement. By signing this form, the department chair and college dean are approving the diverse networking and advertising plan.
• All positions are automatically posted to the following:
  • MTU Employment website and Tech Today
  • Michigan Works/Pure Michigan Talend Bank
  • The National Labor Exchange
  • Indeed

All Applicants Must Apply through the Michigan Tech Employment Website

All applicants must submit their application materials through the Michigan Tech employment website. Some external advertising websites allow application materials to be submitted via that website’s employment job board, but this functionality may not be used.If search committees receive application materials through any source or database other than the Michigan Tech employment system they must not be reviewed. If this happens, you may contact the applicants to let them know that their materials will not be reviewed unless submitted via the Michigan Tech employment website and provide information on how to do so. If you choose to contact the applicants, you must contact all of the applicants. 

If you post advertisements to external websites that do permit this application submission to their own databases, please include this wording in your advertisement, “To apply for this position, please submit your application materials directly to Michigan Tech’s employment website using the following URL: [Insert the full URL for your position]. If materials are not submitted directly to our employment website, materials will not be reviewed.”

All Advertisements Must Be Approved

All advertisements, paid and free, must be sent to and approved by both Human Resources and Equal Opportunity Compliance before you advertise.

Paying for the Advertisement

After approval of Form II-B you may begin to advertise. It is preferred that the departmental purchasing card (pcard) be used whenever possible, especially when invoices are under $5,000. Otherwise, a purchase requisition (when order is to be placed by Purchasing), or Check Request (after-the-fact when an invoice is already in your possession). For more information on purchasing procedures please contact Purchasing at purchasing@mtu.edu.

Standard Advertising Language

This standard advertising language that must be used for faculty recruitment.

Beginning Advertisement Language

"Michigan Technological University, Department of <insert department name> invites applications for the position of <insert position title>. Applicants for the position are required to have <insert info here – e.g., degree, experience, disciplinary focus>.

Michigan Tech attracts world-class faculty who enrich the educational experience of smart, motivated, and adventurous students. Applicants who are committed to promoting a sense of belonging and contributing to an equitable and inclusive learning environment for all are strongly encouraged to apply (www.mtu.edu/diversity/). <add info here – e.g., points of pride such as rankings, current initiatives, notable achievements, etc.>.

Successful candidates will be expected to <insert info here – e.g., expectations for research/scholarship (including external funding, graduate advising, and publishing as appropriate), teaching (undergraduate and/or graduate as appropriate), and service (within the University and/or to the scholarly community as appropriate)>.

For full consideration, complete application packages should be received by <insert date>. Application packages must include a cover letter and curriculum vitae. We strongly encourage applicants to address the required and desired qualifications in their cover letter along with an explanation of how they will contribute to the Vision and Mission of Michigan Tech."

Ending Advertisement Language

"Located in Houghton, in the heart of Upper Michigan's scenic Keweenaw Peninsula, the university is just a few miles from Lake Superior. The surrounding area is perfect for enjoying outdoor activities throughout the year. (All ads must include geographic location to meet federal requirements)

Michigan Tech recognizes the importance of supporting faculty members' partners; candidates selected for on-campus interviews will be invited to bring a guest. Additional details on our Partner Engagement Program can be found at www.mtu.edu/provost/programs/partner-engagement/.

Michigan Tech is proud to be an ADVANCE Institution that has thrice received National Science Foundation support to increase diversity, inclusion, and the participation and advancement of women and underrepresented individuals in STEM.

Michigan Technological University is an Equal Opportunity Educational Institution/Equal Opportunity Employer that provides equal opportunity for all, including protected veterans and individuals with disabilities. (This statement is required due to federal EEO requirements)

For more information <insert info here – e.g., contact information for search committee chair>. To apply: See jobs.mtu.edu/postings/ and <insert unique address>."

If you plan to include a statement regarding a full consideration date in your job posting, applications submitted after said date should not be reviewed by the committee until those submitted on or before that date are fully considered and moved appropriately in the workflow (i.e. Turndown or Withdrawn). As there are varying options for "full consideration" language, please contact your HR employment rep for further clarification and guidance.

Step 4: Review Diversity of the Applicant Pool

During this step, the search committee will review the applicant pool to determine if benchmarking goals are being met in regard to the diversity of applicants.

The EEO Report

The Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) Report is a tool to assist a search committee in evaluating the diversity of the applicant pool. The EEO report provides information on how applicants have self-identified and is a voluntary part of the application process due to compliance regulations. If the applicant pool does not appear to be diverse, such as all applicants are the same gender or race/ethnicity, or there are no veterans or individuals with disabilities, then the committee should consider expanding their recruitment efforts to increase the diversity of the applicant pool.

Before interviews begin, the search chair/admin can request the EEO report to determine if additional recruitment, networking, and/or advertising is needed to try to increase the diversity of the applicant pool. There must be a minimum number of 5 applicants in order to run the EEO report. If the report is run more than once, there must be at least 5 more applicants each time the report is processed. In order to protect the confidential self-identification of the applicants the EEO report cannot be run once interviewing begins.

It is recommended that the committee use regional area current demographic data for similar positions as a comparison to determine if the applicant pool is adequately diverse. This may be available from professional organizations or other sources. A resource that may be helpful is the article How Diverse are College Staff Members? While the article lists generalized national data rather than regional data, it can be used as a guideline or reference point.

If you are completing a union staff position search, this EEO report would only be run if and when the search becomes open for external applicant review.

Protected Characteristic

For our federal reporting purposes, Michigan Tech follows the definitions of the diversity categories on the Protected Characteristics webpage. These definitions come from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and are the standards that must be used by federal agencies such as EEOC and OFCCP for reporting purposes. Michigan Tech has no control over the definitions. Remember, all applicants must be evaluated based on required and/or desired qualifications listed in the job description. No employment decisions can be based on protected characteristics as this is a violation of EEO law.

EEO Report Diversity Check Form III-A

As a part of this step, the committee will complete and submit Form III-A. This form requires the search committee to provide data that indicates what the current demographics are for the position, field, and/or the regionally availability. This will provide the committee a benchmark in which to compare available diverse candidates. One option to find this data is the National Science Foundation's Survey of Earned Doctorates (SED); a good place to start is by using Table 3-2 and Table 3-3. A resource specifically for engineering disciplines from the American Society for Engineering Education is the Engineering and Engineering Technology by the Numbers 2021 report. For engineering doctoral data see Section 3 starting on page 36 (page 46 of the web index.)  For engineering faculty data see Section 4 starting on page 52 (page 64 in the web index). Other options are listed on the form. The provost will review the EEO Report and Form III-A, after the search committee chair, department chair and college dean have reviewed and signed.

To obtain a copy of the EEO report and Form III-A contact your Academic Employment Service Representative.

Resources

• Strengthening your networks to expand diverse candidate pools - LinkedIn Learning Chapter 2 Section 4 and Authentically connect with underrepresented candidates Chapter 4 Section 2 by Christie Lindor
• Survey of Earned Doctorates-NSF
• Yale University's Strategies for Generating Diverse and Inclusive Candidate Pools SED User Guide.
• Practical Tips- Deepening The Pool
• Diversifying The Faculty