A strong faculty can help create a more robust curriculum, expand the research landscape, and bring broader perspectives and experiences to students and colleagues, but building a strong faculty begins long before candidates submit their applications. It starts with the people and processes responsible for conducting the search.
That’s why the Search Committee is the first focus of HERC’s Faculty Search Committee Toolkit. This resource introduces your hiring committees to inclusive, equitable recruitment practices and includes best practices to help you identify and adopt actions that support and supplement your current hiring activities.
Setting the Foundation for a Successful Search
A search committee has an important responsibility: guiding a process that identifies and evaluates candidates while helping ensure the best qualified individuals are not overlooked because of unconscious or structural biases.
A well-prepared committee can set the tone for the entire search. The toolkit outlines essential steps, including establishing a formal committee charge, clarifying the position and scope of the search, defining responsibilities, and setting expectations for confidentiality and decision-making.
It also highlights the value of beginning each search with a shared understanding of institutional procedures, affirmative action considerations, and the committee’s collective responsibilities.
Asking the Right Questions Before the Search Begins
An equitable search requires more than good intentions. It requires committees to examine how their own perspectives, assumptions, and processes may influence the search.
Before launching a search, committee members can benefit from asking questions such as:
- Does our committee understand and support the need for a broad candidate pool?
- Does our committee understand how unconscious biases (positive and negative) impact assumptions individuals make about candidates based on race, gender, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, family/marital status, etc.?
- What are our conscious biases (positive and negative) about academic pedigree, publication, funding, research focus, and “fit” in our department, discipline, and institution?
- What resources and individuals can we engage at our institution to assist with the stages of the search and hiring process?
- What resources can we engage in our community/discipline regionally, locally, and nationally?
These conversations can help committees recognize potential blind spots and establish a stronger foundation for recruiting and evaluating candidates.
Clear Processes Help Create Better Outcomes
The committee stage is also the time to establish how decisions will be made and documented. Questions about voting, consensus, confidentiality, participation, and record-keeping may seem procedural, but clarifying them early can help reduce confusion and potential errors later in the search.
The Committee section of HERC’s Faculty Search Committee Toolkit provides guidance, training materials, and practical questions to help institutions prepare search committees for this important work.
Explore the Full Faculty Search Committee Toolkit
An effective faculty search is a journey, and every stage presents opportunities to strengthen the process. HERC’s complete Faculty Search Committee Toolkit, available to all HERC members, is organized into four key parts:
- The Committee: Build a well-equipped committee and establish the foundation for an equitable search.
- The Recruitment Plan: Develop a thoughtful strategy for reaching a broad and qualified candidate pool.
- Reviewing the Applicants: Create consistent, equitable approaches to evaluating applications.
- Campus Visits and In-Person Interviewing: Prepare for meaningful candidate interactions and a fair, welcoming interview experience.
A thoughtful search committee combined with deliberate, inclusive procedures establishes a solid basis for hiring a strong faculty member.
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