Faculty Recruitment

WEB works with each of the departments to help improve diversity in hiring and recruitment. Since practices and norms vary across departments we cater our assistance to each departments' needs. Below are some suggestions that we recommend departments consider adopting in their faculty recruitment process.

Suggestions for Search & Hiring Committees:

The most important step you can take is to collect data at every step of the recruitment process. With data in hand, the department can conduct an ex ante analysis of the search process. As with any research endeavor, more granular data leads to a more detailed and constructive analysis.  A comparison across years is a great way to check for improvement in bias reduction after implementation of new policies. If data from past years does not exist, the department can leverage institutional knowledge to construct retroactive data for past years' searches.

RUle of 30
Approximately 30% of Economics graduate students are women (CSWEP 2014 annual report). A given step in your search process may be biased if it results in fewer than 30% women candidates remaining.

I. Applicant Recruitment

It is not enough to post a job opening. Reach out to women candidates whose research relates to your search and invite them to apply to your program directly. Conduct an extensive search of job market candidate pages in universities a tier below where your department normally hires [1]. Depending on the field, consider potential applicants currently conducting research outside of academia (e.g. industry for Industrial Organization, non-profit for Development, and government for Macroeconomics).

II. Interview Selection

Assess all job applicant packets in the same way regardless of gender, institution, or advisor. To further eliminate bias, conduct a blind review of job applicant packets. In particular, before reading job market papers remove the applicant's name and institution.

III. Interviews

Interviews are important but highly subjective. Be cognizant of implicit bias and double standards when interviewing applicants. Circulate information on implicit bias and the means to combat it to all interviewers. Reach out to external faculty or consultants to design a workshop on bias literacy that fits your departments' needs [2]. Consult with your university's HR department and do not ask discriminatory questions during interviews.

IV. Flyout Selection & Job offer

Be sure to clarify the criteria for applicant selection in advance of reviewing candidates. 

V. Review the process ex post

Regardless of the outcome of your search, use the data that you collected to review faculty recruitment process. Identify areas of improvement and make changes to the recruitment process for the following year. Present the results and your plans for improvement to the department.
[1] Conley, John P., and Ali Sina Önder. 2014. "The research productivity of new PhDs in economics: the surprisingly high non-success of the successful." The Journal of Economic Perspectives 28 (3): 205-215. - Link to article
[2] Carnes, Molly, Patricia G. Devine, Carol Isaac, Linda Baier Manwell, Cecelia E. Ford, Angela Byars-Winston, Eve Fine, and Jennifer Sheridan. 2012. "Promoting institutional change through bias literacy." Journal of diversity in higher education 5 (2): 63. - Link to article