Equity-Minded Hiring
The resources on this page are intended to help search committees recruit more diverse faculty and staff who are reflective of the diverse students and communities served by SDSU.
- For faculty, please note that the Faculty Hiring Handbook provided by Faculty Advancement has lots of great advice and resources as well (see last section of the Handbook in particular). There is also a Canvas homeroom with many additional resources.
- For staff, see the recruitment resources from the Center for Human Resources.
- SDSU is the lead institution for the Southern California Higher Education Recruitment Consortium (SoCal HERC) and all SDSU employees have access to HERC's many resources. If you have not yet claimed an account, you can register here.
Strategies and Practices
- Participate in implicit bias training: At a minimum, any member of a search committee should have a basic understanding
of implicit bias, in order to then thoughtfully consider the ways bias can manifest
in the hiring process. The CIE offers an online, self-paced workshop that introduces these concepts. You can enroll at any point during the semester and
it should take approximately 2-2.5 hours to complete.
- The Chronicle article, Why Your ‘Objective’ Screening Rubric Produced Biased Results, highlights some common biases that can influence our assessment of candidates.
- Request an Inclusion Representative (faculty): Inclusion Representatives (IRs) are appropriately-trained faculty or administrators
who support the overall mission of the search committee, by ensuring and supporting
the use of equitable and inclusive hiring practices. Most colleges have included in
their diversity plans that departments will request an IR. See this handout for more details on this program.
- NOTE: We are working on developing a program to train Inclusion Representatives for staff.
- Plan ahead to prepare for an equity-minded discussion and consistent evaluation: An important step of the search process is for the search committee to discuss not only what criteria they are looking for, but also what evidence should be used to objectively determine whether those criteria are met, and how different criteria should be weighted. This step is often over-looked but having this discussion before beginning review of candidate files is crucial for ensuring that all committee members are consistent and equitable in their review. UNC's Resources for Search Committees includes several examples of rubrics that may be helpful. The handbooks in the handout Equity-Minded Hiring - Resources (see below) also have many examples.
- Learn more about other inclusive hiring strategies:
- Equity-Minded Hiring Practices, handout provides 40 suggestions, organized by the 10-step sequence of hiring.
- Equity-Minded Hiring - Resources, handout includes links to handbooks on faculty hiring; resources on implicit and other cognitive biases, and microaggressions; and resources around specific aspects of hiring such as diversity statements, recommendation letters, and candidate dinners.
- Recruiting Diverse and Excellent New Faculty, Inside Higher Ed article providing recommendations for how deans, department chairs and their search committees can optimize their searches (Abigail J. Stewart and Virginia Valian, 2018).
- The Center for Inclusive Excellence also offer workshops on Equity-Minded Hiring where participants can learn more about specific strategies. See the Professional Learning section below, and look for specific registration information in the CIE newsletter.
Recruitment and Outreach
- Craft your ad to attract a diverse pool:
- 4 elements of an inclusive job ad (EAB)
- Writing the Job Advertisement to Attract Diverse Applicants (U Washington)
- Faculty Job Advertisement Guidelines (examples of best and worst practices) (U Washington)
- Diverse Recruitment Resources: Links to sites and organizations that support diverse and underrepresented populations in higher education. Search committees can use these resources to expand their recruitment pool.
- Disciplinary organizations / associations for underrepresented groups (for faculty): Database of professional organizations (or sub-committees within larger organizations) specifically for/to support members from underrepresented populatations. These are excellent places to advertise and recruit.
- FACULTY: Senate policy now requires that all faculty hires must satisfy at least two (in some colleges, three) or more of the eight Building on Inclusive Excellence criteria. This criteria must therefore be included in all job ads; see the Hiring Handbook for suggested language. Staff searches are also strongly encouraged to adapt the BIE criteria, to the extent possible within classification standards.
Pool Proportionality (Faculty searches)
- Assess your pool: Comparing the applicant pool to the available pool of potential candidates can help committees assess whether they have succeeded in building a pool at least as diverse as pool of doctorate holders in the field. See the Hiring Handbook for current forms to complete with your search.
Professional Learning
The CIE offers recurring sessions of workshops to support equity-minded hiring. Specific dates will be announced in the CIE newsletter.
In this workshop, participants will have the opportunity to learn about equity-minded hiring practices for faculty positions. The session will cover how to define “merit” and “fit” from an equity-minded perspective, how to write a job announcement, how to screen and interview candidates, how to organize a campus visit, and how to conclude the search process.
The workshop is set up as an interactive presentation focusing on concrete tools and examples. Participants will have the opportunity to tailor these tools to searches in their department/unit.. There is an asynchronous version of this workshop as well as synchronous virtual sessions offered periodically through the fall.
Prior to signing-up for this seminar, participants should complete the foundational implicit bias workshop, Creating an Equity-Minded Campus Community.
