“The toolkit has given us the resources we need to conduct more inclusive searches for faculty. The ideas are simple, easy to incorporate, and they work. In our first year using the toolkit, we increased the number of women and underrepresented minority candidates interviewed for positions.”
Dr. Shelley Payne
Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs
College of Natural Sciences, and
Professor, Department of Molecular Biosciences
Download the toolkit now (PDF).
The Inclusive Search and Recruitment Toolkit for Faculty, Graduate Students, and Postdoctoral Fellows is a comprehensive toolkit compiled by the Office for Inclusion and Equity (OIE) in the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement at The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin). The toolkit provides strategies and ideas drawn from best practices for inclusive searches and recruitment from across UT Austin, comparable institutions with NSF ADVANCE grants, and relevant research literature. Suggestions and practical examples are provided for the distinct stages of the search process including before recruitment begins, planning the search and recruitment process, during recruitment, and evaluating the recruitment process. In addition, references and additional resources used to compile the toolkit are included.
“We found that the recruitment toolkit was a goldmine of ideas for ways to enhance diversity recruiting in our department.”
Martita Lopez
Clinical Psychology Fellow
Department of Psychology, College of Liberal Arts
In this toolkit, diversity is defined as demonstrating respect for all individuals and valuing each perspective and experience. Diversity includes but is not limited to dimensions of dis/ability, gender, gender identity and expression, international/national origin, race/ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and veteran status. A more diverse campus community comprised of students, faculty, and staff contributes to a richer and more welcoming teaching, learning, research, and work environment (see for example Chang, Milem, and Antonio, 2010; Hurtado, Alvarez, Guillermo-Wann, Cuellar, and Arellano, 2012; Reddick and Saenz, 2012).
“The toolkit provides excellent guidance about how to disseminate the job posting to a diverse pool, and strategies to enhance mentoring and preparation for promotion and tenure for our finalists. It is especially effective for candidates from historically underrepresented populations in academia.”
Dr. Richard Reddick
Associate Professor, Department of Educational Administration,
College of Education, and Assistant Vice President for Research and Policy
See highlights of suggestions from the toolkit below:
- Examine and implement best practices that address psychosocial and organizational barriers, myths, assumptions, and cognitive errors and biases that result in unfair evaluations
- Develop a communications plan that will comprehensively articulate the department’s commitment to diversity throughout the recruitment process, including but not limited to, writing inclusive position and program descriptions, developing marketing and advertising strategies, and identifying approaches for broadening the applicant pool
- Develop a list of resources for identifying potential candidates, such as universities awarded National Science Foundation ADVANCE grants for the advancement of women in science and engineering, organizations or special interest groups within professional societies, and directories of prestigious fellowship programs that support diverse individuals
- Utilize active recruiting strategies on an ongoing basis to establish pathways for potential new graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and faculty members
- Encourage department members to make personal connections and generate potential candidate pools at professional meetings and conferences (even when the department is not actively recruiting)
- Identify departments or colleges in other universities that have been successful in generating robust and diverse applicant pools in order to examine potential models and expand best practices
- Consider new and emerging fields of research, including interdisciplinary initiatives
