Membership FAQs

Member benefits include:

• Greater exposure of their jobs through unlimited job postings on the HERC website.
• Automatic cross postings of their jobs to external sites.  Learn more here. 
• Ability to reach jobseekers directly with automated e-mail job alerts based on users’ profiles.
• Access to a pool of highly educated jobseekers that is far more diverse than the national average.
• Free access to a searchable resume database of candidates interested in working in higher education.
• An institutional identity on the HERC website including logo, institutional profile, and links to your home page.
• Institutional exposure via regional and national marketing and advertising including in disciplinary publications and websites and in major diversity recruitment publications and websites.  Learn more here.
• Access to vendor discounts available only to HERC members, including job posting discounts on other job boards and other higher education recruitment and retention products and services.
• Access to free webinars (HCRI and SHRM credits) on issues relevant to higher education recruitment and retention presented by experts in their fields.
• Affiliation to a regional community
• Regional membership meetings that foster networking opportunities and that feature guest speakers on cutting edge recruitment and retention practices.
• A network of colleagues at other member institutions who share best practices in recruitment and retention and collaborate on solving difficult recruitment issues including partner placement.
• Co-branding that demonstrates your institutions commitment to excellence, diversity, work/life balance.
• Support of dual career couples by providing a dual career search tool, network and other resources.

Joining is easy, complete the Prospective Member form and our support team will put you in contact with a regional director.  

HERC is a non-profit organization and strives to maintain the lowest membership fees possible to make it affordable for every institution of higher education and related organization in the region to participate. Each regional HERC sets its own annual membership fees which are based on a tiered fee structure tied to student enrollment figures. Dues cover the regional HERC’s core budget and share of the Central HERC office budget, enabling HERC to invest in mission-driven activities.

HERC keeps it simple and membership is all inclusive. Your dues payment covers every membership benefit available through HERC, including unlimited postings on the jobs websites, and entitles institutional representatives to attend member conferences, toolkits and unlimited participants to take advantage of HERC webinars and discounts.

In a tiered structure, dues typically fall within the $2,000 - $10,000+ per year range depending on the number and type of campuses participating in your regional HERC, however some regions set dues above and below this range.

One way your membership can provide savings is through employee recruitment efforts.  Member institutions often split the cost between the Human Resources and Faculty Affairs offices. The annual investment in HERC is modest considering the cost of unsuccessful recruitments.  The average cost of hiring a new faculty member is $96,000 (Source: Harvard University’s Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education, (COACHE)). The average cost of hiring a new employee of any type during the 2018 recruiting season was $6,110 (Source: National Association of College and University Employers (NACE)).

Yes. Yes. And, yes. When you belong to HERC your institution is able to post an unlimited number of jobs on your regional HERC website and the national HERC job board.  Your jobs cross-post to multiple sites, check out our OFCCP page to learn more.  You also have free access to HERC’s CV/resume database. Membership is for your entire institution and entitles several institutional representatives to attend member conferences and unlimited participants to take advantage of HERC webinars and discounts. Learn more about what roles at your institutions will benefit from HERC.  HERC keeps it simple and membership is all inclusive.

Any accredited institution of higher education may join an existing HERC in their region. HERC’s members include accredited higher education institutions including community colleges, public and private four-year colleges and master’s and doctorate granting universities, medical schools and teaching hospitals, research institutes and laboratories, and non-profit institutions such as museums and other scientific and cultural organizations that have a stake in higher education. Some regional HERCs allow P-12, and corporate associate members to be part of the HERC community.  

When an institution joins HERC, all employees of that institution are considered HERC members and can take advantage of all that HERC offers. 

Review the list of Regional HERCs  to find which HERC covers your region.

When an organization joins HERC, all employees of that institution are considered HERC members and can take advantage of all that HERC offers.  

Your organization's HERC membership can benefit Chief HR Officers, Diversity Officers, Vice Provosts, Faculty Affairs, Search Committee Chairs, Search Committee Members, Department Chairs, Deans, Dual Career Directors and accompanying staff to access all HERC resources. 

HERC is a non-profit organization and is motivated by mission not money. HERC leverages member fees to provide the highest return on investment and has the only higher education job board with both regional and national sites and a dual-career and diversity focus. Because HERC provides members an affordable platform to post all open positions, the National HERC website, is among the largest higher education jobs websites in the world with an average of over 45,000 jobs posted at any given time.

The most current research shows that the majority of faculty members have employed partners. Providing employment opportunities to spouses and partners of employees or prospective employees that are within a commutable distance removes a significant barrier to employment and retention. Campuses aren’t recruiting individuals anymore, we are recruiting families.

HERC's dual-career tools include comprehensive job boards searchable within and across regions, online resources for dual-career couples, and regional campus networks to assist with partner employment. Proactively addressing dual-career concerns is a significant indicator of an institution’s commitment to being a family-friendly employer.

Recent research has shown that 72% of faculty members have employed partners. (Michelle R. Clayman Institute for Gender Research, L. Schiebinger, A. Henderson, S. Gilmartin, Dual-career Academic Couples: What Universities Need to Know Stanford: 2008).

Other key findings of the study include:

• Faculty members' career decisions are strongly influenced by partner employment status.
• As a strategy to enhance competitive excellence, dual-career couple hiring is on the rise in U.S. universities.
• Dual-career couple hiring can help build a more diverse, equitable, and competitive workforce, especially with regard to gender. For example, women are more likely than men to have academic partners (40% of female faculty in the study sample versus 34% of male faculty). And rates of dual hiring are higher among women respondents than among men respondents (13% versus 7%). This means that couple hiring becomes a particularly relevant strategy for the recruitment and retention of women faculty.
• Women in academic couples report that their partners' employment statuses and opportunities are important to their own career decisions. Not only do women more often than men perceive a loss in professional mobility as a result of their academic partnerships (54% for women versus 41% for men), but they actively refuse job offers if their partner cannot find a satisfactory position.
• Universities are in danger of losing prized candidates if suitable employment cannot be found for a partner. When couples have choices, they prefer to live together and take jobs where each partner can flourish professionally. A full 88% of faculty who successfully negotiated a dual hire indicated that the first hire would have refused the position had her or his partner not found employment.
• Helping dual-career couples is a central part of HERC's mission.

HERC invests significantly in outreach through advertising, conference attendance, and partnerships with publications, societies, and organizations that reach a broad range of constituents. The result is that HERC attracts a robust and engaged candidate pool.