The documents below are part checklist, part toolkit, part practical wisdom on academic searches in the BSD. This resource is not intended to be comprehensive; it is not a rulebook, although it does contain the "authorized practices" that exist. Additional resources include the BSD Office of Diversity and Inclusion and the University's Office of Equal Opportunity Programs and the various programs/training they offer.
Comprehensive Guidance for Search, Outreach, and Selection Committees
Concise Guidance for Search, Outreach, and Selection Committees (1 page version of the above)
Interfolio Protocol for Search Committee Managers
Most of all, please bear in mind:
ASK FOR HELP when you need it, and immediately if you break a rule.
If you ask, we can try to help with your search, outreach, and/or selection process; avoid or overcome difficulties; deal with exceptional circumstances;and rescue searches in jeopardy if they can be rescued (and help begin again quickly if they can't).
Outreach expectations in Biological Sciences Division
By law and policy, searching units are expected to undertake genuine outreach beyond advertising to members of "protected classes" [i.e., women, African American or Black, Asian or Pacific Islander, Hispanic or Latino, and American Indian or Alaska Native, those whom identify with multiple races, individuals with disabilities, and covered veterans]. Please check with the Office of Academic Affairs for the specific definition of each class.
Furthermore, it is our obligation to assess the efficacy of our "genuine outreach beyond advertising" and to modify our practices so as better to create applicant pools in which the protected classes are not underrepresented.
Our assessment is that the sending of announcements and invitations to apply either electronically or by mail often is insufficient to convince outreach targets to apply, and often is either not noticed or discarded immediately. For this reason BSD expects the following in academic searches:
•By the end of academic searches, the searchers will provide the names of outreach targets (i.e., those whom the search has tried to convince to apply for the position, not those who suggest names), how the search tried to convince them to apply, and the outcome of this effort.
•"Convincing to apply" needs to escalate appropriately. For some outreach targets, publication of the position description will convince them to apply spontaneously, which is sufficient. For other outreach targets, contact via email or mail will convince them them to apply, which is sufficient. Importantly, for outreach targets who do not apply spontaneously or respond to mail/email, it is expected that the search will escalate to voice (e.g., telephone, face-to-face) or its equivalent in the hearing-impaired.
Please be certain these expectations are met. Otherwise a search may be delayed until the expectations are met, or voided entirely.