Equal Opportunity

Search and Selection Guide

Conducting the Search
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When the President or Vice President signs the Request to Fill, signifying final approval of the search, the Office of Equal Opportunity (OEO) notifies the initiating department. Now comes the hard work: recruiting, screening, and selecting the most highly qualified candidate. In addition to the following guidelines, you may want to check OEO’s folder on FirstClass: Campus Connection>University Organization>Equal Opportunity>Search Materials. Since each search is unique, unexpected questions may arise. Call or email Bonita Grindle, Associate Director.

Recruiting
Obtaining a large, diverse, qualified pool of applicants takes a great deal of effort. The Recruitment Strategy Form, completed as part of the search approval process, guides this phase of the search. As soon as the search is approved, the initiating department may place the approved job announcement (ad) in the professional journals, newspapers, listservs, and other venues specified in the Recruitment Strategy. Display ads must use the UM seal, available in camera ready form from Public Affairs (1-3743). The Bangor Daily News, Portland Press Herald, Maine Sunday Telegram, and Chronicle of Higher Education have the camera ready UM seal on hand.

OEO will list the opening on the UM web page. OEO also mails the announcement to campus bulletin boards as well as external organizations and individuals specified in the University’s Affirmative Action Plan.

What do you do if you are unable to place the job ad in all the sites specified in your recruitment strategy? Delays in getting the search approved may result in missed deadlines for professional journals. Occasionally, a recommended listserv is no longer functioning. Consult the Associate Director about these changes. It may be important to make substitutions in advertising venues. You must also consult OEO if you wish to change the ad in any way, including a change in the date applicant screening begins.

Remember--recruiting means more than advertising. Search committees are encouraged to make telephone calls to potential applicants or to those having contact with individuals who possess the required qualifications. The only proviso is that search committee members are merely soliciting interest. No potential applicant should get the impression that his or her application will be handled in any different or priority manner.

As applications are received, they should be date stamped and maintained in a secure location. Applications and the names of applicants are confidential until the finalist stage. This is particularly important if there are any internal applicants--current employees in the department, for example--who must not have access to the files of other candidates.

Acknowledgment letters should be sent promptly upon receipt of applications. This is a good opportunity to request any information--reference letters, transcripts, work samples--missing from the application.

In addition, federal guidelines now require The University of Maine to inform potential employees of the availability of an annual report on crime statistics for the campus and surrounding community. Since it is costly to include this notice in your ad, you should use an insert with your acknowledgement letter to inform applicants of this information. The Office of Equal Opportunity will provide you with this insert upon position approval. Please call OEO if you need the information in an email format.

Also, feel free to email this information to applicants with a hyperlink. The Applicant Survey Form is used to gather descriptive information on applicants for professional and faculty positions. The form is optional and personal information will not be shared with search committees or hiring authorities. However, aggregate information on each search will be useful in determining the success of affirmative action and more general recruitment strategies.

Sample Text
Federal guidelines require The University of Maine to inform you that our Annual Security Report includes statistics on reported crimes that have occurred on or near campus, as well as University policies concerning campus security. Copies of the Report are available on request from the Director of Public Safety, The University of Maine, 5794 Public Safety, Orono, Maine 04469-5794, by calling (207) 581-4048, or at www.umaine.edu/security.

The Office of Equal Opportunity at The University of Maine is responsible for monitoring the success of affirmative action recruitment strategies used by search committees. Equal Opportunity has posted a brief, web-based, Applicant Survey to collect this information. Although completion of the form is voluntary, I urge you to do so within the next ten days. The personal information on this form will not be shared with any member of the search committee or hiring department. The Applicant Survey is available at: www.umaine.edu/eo/aasurvey.htm. Please indicate that you are applying for (Position #), (Job Title), and (Department Code). Thank you for your assistance.

Screening

Before applicant screening begins, the search committee chair must arrange for an OEO briefing for the search committee. Bonita Grindle, Associate Director, will meet with search committees for all faculty and professional searches. It is helpful if the search chair has a draft Comparative Applicant Rating Sheet for review and discussion at the briefing. A sample of this form is included in this material, as is an explanation on the back. The rating sheet should include criteria that match the qualifications specified in the job announcement. A numerical scale need not be used (for example, it is acceptable to use “excellent, acceptable, poor” or “v, v+, v-”).

Suggestion: Invite the Department’s Administrative Assistant or Secretary to the search briefing. This is often the individual who will keep the process moving, maintain the files, and handles the correspondence with applicants. Keep this person informed!

At the conclusion of the search, the search chair will submit a “consensus” Comparative Applicant Rating Sheet from the committee. In other words, individual committee members’ rating sheets (which are kept by the chair as part of the official file) are not submitted. Rather, the chair summarizes the ratings of the group on one form. The gender and minority status of each applicant (where known) is also indicated on the consensus form that is submitted at the end of the process. This information is used to determine the success of affirmative action recruitment strategies and to answer any questions about the criteria used to evaluate candidates.

Since the Comparative Applicant Rating Sheet is used at the first stage of screening, it does not reveal how decisions were made at later stages. Search committees may either develop a separate rating sheet for the interview stage, or the chair may summarize the process in a brief narrative submitted with the paperwork at the end of the search, see Concluding the Search, available from OEO.

On or after the review date specified in the ad, the search committee may begin screening applications. Committee members must rate the relative strengths and weaknesses of at least the top 50 candidates (who meet required qualifications for the position) on each of the job related criteria. A subcommittee may do a preliminary screening to reduce the number of applications for the full committee. After individual search committee members rate applications, the committee meets to narrow the pool of applicants who will move on to the next stage of the search.

Often, the next stage consists of telephone interviews, although this is optional. Some committees go directly to campus interviews. All applicants must be treated consistently through each phase of the search. For example, it is NOT appropriate to telephone interview one candidate, while skipping that stage and inviting another candidate for a campus interview. Search committee should consider the gender and racial representation at each stage of the process, as part of The University’s affirmative action recruitment strategies. If applicant pools are small or homogeneous, consideration should be given to extending the recruitment phase. Equal Opportunity can provide financial help in meeting interviewing expenses for an additional, highly ranked candidate from an underrepresented group. Consult the Director of Equal Opportunity for more details.

The interview is a particularly crucial stage of the search. Interview questions should be prepared in advance, see Communication Guidelines and Pre-Employment Inquiries. The Department of Labor requires The University of Maine (and all recipients of federal funds) to retain interview notes from all searches. Interview notes must be kept with the other search material in a secure location within the department. All search material must be maintained for three years.

When can we check references? The timing of reference checking is up to the committee, but it must be consistent for all candidates who remain under consideration at that stage. Permission to call references (other than those listed by the applicant in the application) must be obtained before any contacts are made. Reference checking is extremely important--open ended questions should be framed in advance. It is not advisable to rely solely upon written letters of recommendation. Reference checks will be kept confidential to the extent possible unless the person is the finalist for a position.

May we see past evaluations of internal applicants? Search committees may not have direct access to personnel files. However, the committee may ask to see prior evaluative material on applicants who are current or former University employees. The personnel file custodian from the department where the applicant is currently employed (or Human Resources if the applicant is a former UM employee) will pull the relevant material from the file for viewing by a committee representative. Relevant material includes performance evaluations, peer committee evaluations, student evaluations, as well as any responses to these evaluations from the employee/applicant. Disciplinary letters in the personnel file may also be reviewed. Contact Bonita Grindle if you wish to view evaluation materials or have any questions concerning these matters. Search committees should request this information about internal applicants at the same time that references are being checked for all applicants still under consideration.

Does the University accommodate the spouses/partners of new employees? Increasingly, applicants ask this question at some point during the screening process. While the University cannot guarantee a position for a spouse or partner, we do have policies and procedures that are helpful. The University encourages the employment of spouses or partners as long as they are not in a supervisory relationship. All existing vacancies are posted on our web site. A search committee chair may call other search chairs (names are available from OEO) to alert them of the interest of a spouse/partner. Through the Opportunity Hire Policy, a search may be waived for a spouse or partner (consult Equal Opportunity for more information on the Opportunity Hire search waiver process). Remember, however, that an applicant should not be promised that a position for her/his spouse or partner will be created. If applicants require such a promise in order to remain candidates, they should be asked pointedly whether they wish to withdraw from consideration.

Selecting
After the interviews are over and the reference checking is done, the search committee prepares its recommendation for the hiring administrator. For professional and administrator searches, this recommendation usually includes the names of several, unranked finalists, with a memo outlining the strengths and weaknesses of each. For faculty searches, the search committee and the Department Chair may forward one or more names, ranked or unranked. Usually, the committee prepares a written summary of the strengths and weaknesses of the finalists interviewed on campus.

The Director of Equal Opportunity must be consulted before a tentative offer is made to an administrator or tenure eligible faculty member. The purpose of this consultation is twofold: to determine that University search policies and practices were followed, and to review the compensation package for equity considerations. The AFUM contract includes language requiring Equal Opportunity to review and make recommendations concerning salary equity before the tentative offer is extended. Usually this can be accomplished with a telephone call to the Director of Equal Opportunity from the Dean, department chair or search chair. Salary offers for all new appointments should fall within the salary range specified on the Request to Fill. Occasionally, salary can be negotiated above the range if the salary was not specified in the job announcement AND the salary does not create unlawful inequities for other University employees.

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