The Well-Tempered Search: Hiring Faculty and Administrators for Mission

By Patricia T. van der Vorm

You find yourself called, once again, to serve on a search committee. It’s a regular duty these days, often considered part of your "community service." But if it feels like a chore, it is also one of the most important responsibilities you assume in professional life. An institution is its people, so whether you’re hiring a faculty member, administrator, or president, that person makes a difference.

There are several important questions every good search committee tries to answer in filling a position: What is the nature of the job? Can the candidate do it? Does the candidate want to do it? Is the person a good fit for the organization? The last question is sometimes the most difficult to determine; it is usually assessed by whether an individual’s values seem consistent with those of the campus. In higher education, your institutional mission statement defines the school’s shared values. If you are going to succeed in identifying the candidate who will fulfill your hiring priorities and, in turn, find fulfillment at your institution, you must revisit that mission statement regularly and often throughout the search process.

The search process is also a key to successful hiring. It encompasses a good committee, clear instructions to the committee about its work, and a method of keeping all interested parties informed. The committee should expect to identify selection criteria, provide a clear description of the position, recruit a robust pool of candidates, evaluate its applicants, then help attract the best to campus. Last, but not least, committee members should do everything possible to help the chosen candidate succeed upon arrival in the new job. At each of these stages, it’s good practice to revisit the mission.

The Mission

Mission statements can exist on at least three levels within an institution: that of the department, the school or college, and the institution. The institutional mission should be taken into consideration in every search, but a review of the mission statements at the unit and divisional levels may be necessary when hiring for a faculty position. For example, certain credentials and excellent teaching in a particular discipline may be called for by the department’s mission; service learning and adult education may be emphasized in the school or college mission; women’s education may be the defining factor in the institution’s mission. Candidates should understand, be comfortable with, and be able to contribute to each of these missions.

The Committee

A committee reflecting all constituencies touched by a position is highly desirable. Most committees should include staff and student representation and should embrace the diversity of the institution in regard to race, religion, ethnicity, gender, and sexual preference. Committee members should also be comfortable with the institution’s values.

Charge to the Committee

A written statement to the committee, outlining the expectations of the hiring officer, serves as an important reference throughout the search. As a search progresses, it is essential to be clear about who will make the final decision on the person hired, how many candidates (ranked or unranked) are to be sent forward by the committee, and how the committee should communicate with the hiring officer and the rest of the campus along the way. The importance of confidentiality should be emphasized in the charge, and can never be mentioned too often.

The Community

With every search, there is a group of constituents with a vested interest in the outcome. For faculty searches, the department is in that group, as are academic administrators, such as deans and provosts. For presidential searches, the constituency is the entire institutional community. The committee should take a moment at the beginning of the search to define the community that will most want to know about its progress, and discuss how that community will be kept informed.

Selection Criteria

Often, one of the first charges to the committee is the development of a list of qualifications by which candidates will be judged. Creating such a list provides an opportune moment to get feedback from the community. Asking others to help identify the qualities they most want to see in their next faculty colleague or dean will help the committee to prioritize its own thinking and provide a more thorough description of the open position. This list should always include qualifications that relate to the mission (for example, demonstrated understanding of liberal arts education at a residential institution, success in obtaining significant scientific research funding, or commitment to excellence in teaching at the undergraduate and graduate level).

Position Description

To recruit outstanding candidates well suited to your institution, it is important to give them a good, thorough overview of the post. A written prospectus should be developed, including an institutional overview, a description of the position to be filled, and a description of the preferred qualifications. Don’t forget the mission statement. It is not unusual for candidates to be attracted to a position because of components of the school’s mission. "I applied because of your emphasis on community service for students and faculty," or "I’m not a Quaker, but your endorsement of management by consensus is a personal priority for me," are examples of personal values that resonate with institutional missions.

Candidate Evaluation

This part of the search process is what most of us think of when assuming a position on a search committee. But if all of the preceding steps have been followed, this responsibility is greatly facilitated. First, the committee will do a paper review of candidate credentials, assessing written descriptions of the candidates’ knowledge and experience against clearly agreed upon criteria. Next comes careful checking of references to determine if the candidates’ statements seem accurate and meet the requisite qualifications. Finally, the committee will interview selected candidates face to face to confirm that they want the job and appear to fit the institution. Throughout the evaluation process, pay attention to whether candidates talk about their values or use language that relates to your mission. Ask references directly about their knowledge of candidates’ values.

The Appointment

Finally the moment comes when the new hire has been identified, accepts your offer, and arrives on campus to begin the new job. If the process described above has been followed, the community should already be prepared to embrace the candidate and share in his or her success. But the search committee plays an important role in the transition, too. As a member of the search committee, you’ve worked hard to identify the one person who comes closest to everyone’s priorities; you know the most about this new person. Be sure to provide a warm welcome and support the individual within the community to help ensure that person’s success.

Key to Success

Search committee members are entrusted by peers with the responsibility to identify and recommend those candidates who (a) bring the requisite knowledge and abilities, (b) want to do the job, and (c) will be successful. These are actually the same goals candidates have in seeking a position. They want to find an appropriate match for their own skills, interests, and values. The closer the match, the more likely they will be successful (and will want to stay in the position).

Candidates should be expected to assess their own skills, interests, and values and convey them clearly and accurately to the search committee. For the search committee, assessment of such factors is achieved through "evaluating the candidates," as described above. In a review of paper credentials, the committee gets a sense of the candidates’ knowledge, experience, skills (Can the person do the job?). The credentials may also provide some indication of the candidates’ level of interest in the position. Reference checking can confirm or diminish the committee’s impressions of these skills and interests. During the interview, the committee can further assess a candidate’s desire to do the job through his or her ability to convey personal interests with sincerity and conviction (Will the person do the job?).

Once a candidate’s skills and interests have been confirmed, however, there remains the most elusive factor. What are the candidate’s values, and do they resonate with those of the institution (Does the person fit)? A search committee must be diligent in seeking that information—in the credentials submitted, in conversations with references, and in face-to-face conversations with candidates. If candidates fail to recognize the importance of conveying their personal values, their candidacy should be questioned. Likewise, if the search committee fails to clearly define the institutional mission, or fails to ask questions of candidates and their references about the candidates’ values, the odds are greatly increased for an unsuccessful search. Hiring for mission can make a difference in getting the right person.

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