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

Recruitment and Advertisement Plan

It is important not to rush this recruitment step. Equal Opportunity Employer and Federal contractor compliance require Michigan Tech to make good faith efforts to recruit a diverse pool of applicants; per Executive Order 11246, VEVRAA and 503 regulations. These 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.

It is a best practice to develop a recruitment plan that documents your efforts 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 wide variety of places to reach the broadest audience. If you choose to not advertise in a traditional sense, you should still plan to recruit qualified candidates in a way that provides opportunities and removes barriers to underrepresented individuals. An example would be to issue a call for nominations using the committee members' diverse networks. 

Advertisements can be placed online and/or print. 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. Such resources may include printed journals, local or regional newspapers, professional organization websites, university placement offices that offer the degree required for the position you are advertising, and using social media options. Carefully review the specifications of your advertisements as they vary from service to service, and site to site. 

 Job advertisements should be tailored to the position and posted appropriately. For example:

• hourly positions should be advertised at least locally,
• mid-level administrative/managerial/coordinator positions should require at least a regional search, and
• upper-level administrative positions should require a national search.

All positions are automatically posted to the following:

• MTU Employment website and Tech Today
• Michigan Works/Pure Michigan Talent Bank
• The National Labor Exchange
• Indeed

See National and Online Advertising Resource page for many suggested publications and websites to advertise your position.

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, in print, online, and/or social media, must be sent to and approved by both Human Resources and Equal Opportunity Compliance before you advertise. Please do this by sending an email to eocompliance@mtu.edu and to your HR Employment Representative.

Paying for the Advertisement

After approval of the advertising text 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, use 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.

Advertising Language

Staff position advertisements need to include:

• The EEO tagline is required in ALL advertisements: "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."
• The short version should only be used when word count is under consideration for pricing of ads: "Michigan Tech is an EOE that provides equal opportunity for all, including protected veterans and individuals with disabilities."
• Title of Position
• A brief list of duties to be performed by the candidate 
• Requirements for degree(s), years of experience and any other qualification requirements
• "Apply at <INSERT UNIQUE ADDRESS> directly to your department's position on the HR website>

Below is the advertising language that is suggested. This language is required for Dean and Department chair searches.

"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 and staff 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 brief info here>. 

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 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 contact Human Resources at (906) 487-2280. To apply: See jobs.mtu.edu/postings/ and <insert unique address>."

If you include a statement regarding a full consideration date in your job posting/description, applications submitted after said date will not be released to the committee for review 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 to "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 recruiting efforts to increase the diversity of the applicant pool.

Before interviews begin, the search chair/admin can run 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. An additional resource is The Chronicle of Higher Education's data points and in articles such as How Diverse Are College Staff Members?

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 Characteristics

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.

Please contact either your Human Resources Employment Services Representative or Equal Opportunity Compliance, eocompliance@mtu.edu, if you have any questions. 

Resources

• • Strengthening your networks to expand diverse candidate pools - LinkedIn Learning