When Kiesa Kelly, PhD, chair of the psychology department at Tennessee State University, hires new faculty, she typically doesn't look for graduates of the most prestigious schools or applicants with the longest publication records. Instead, she aims to hire candidates who are passionate about teaching, mentorship and cultural competence—qualities key for success at her institution.
"The goal is to find a strong match, rather than focusing on a generic definition of what the ‘best' candidate looks like," she says.
Every institution has its own priorities—teaching, research and various types of service are differentially emphasized—and the hiring process should aim to find candidates who hold similar values.
Those in charge of hiring should be clear about what makes their institution unique, which will help them stand out in a hiring environment that's become increasingly competitive. "The process is sort of like dating," says Eric Stone, PhD, chair of the department of psychology at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. "You're trying to figure out whether you really are a good match for each other, which means you're simultaneously recruiting and evaluating each applicant."
Here's advice from psychology department chairs on how to hire great faculty members.
1. Be as specific as possible in your hiring plan
Start by setting clear parameters for the hiring process, including timeline, desired specialty area and other must-haves. At Indiana University (IU) Bloomington, the entire department votes annually on which specialties should make new hires. "Voting at the department level creates tremendous unity in our desire to be successful and to ultimately see the candidate succeed," says William Hetrick, PhD, chair of IU's department of psychological and brain sciences.
Margaret Fong Bloom, PhD, emeritus professor at Marquette University in Milwaukee, who has more than 20 years of experience hiring faculty as department chair, vice provost and dean of education at several institutions, recommends forming a search committee diverse in gender, race and age. She says it's not necessary to include subject-matter experts (a department hiring a developmental psychologist need not place one on the search committee). "You don't want only subject-matter experts—you want searching, hiring and recruiting experts," she says. "When possible, I also like to include a student or postdoctoral researcher on the committee to offer an even broader range of perspectives."
2. Write a clear job description
A job ad that's too broad may leave the search committee swamped with applications. An overly narrow description discourages qualified candidates from applying. "Narrow ads are much more likely to fail, and they are often a reflection of what we think we need rather than the skill set that is actually available and being produced by PhD programs," says Michael Young, PhD, head of the department of psychological sciences at Kansas State University.
Include any essential requirements and a handful of desired qualifications but focus on what's important to your department. This could be as simple as a commitment to excellence in research, teaching or a specific type of service; committees may also wish to describe focus areas, such as a departmentwide commitment to well-being research or diversity, says Stone.
Peter J. Marshall, PhD, chair of the department of psychology at Temple University in Philadelphia, notes that chairs should actively promote their institutions in the job ad. "Tell applicants what the opportunities are and why your department is a good place to be, in terms of collaborations, resources and the advantages of your geographic location," he says.
3. Advertise as widely as possible
Most departments still rely heavily on flagship publications such as psycCareers in the APA Monitor (see page 86), the Association for Psychological Science's Observer and the Chronicle of Higher Education to promote job openings. Just as important are the newer communication outlets. "Social media and new mechanisms for communication have opened up quite a few additional channels," says Hetrick. Well-connected faculty members often share job postings on Twitter. LinkedIn and Facebook alumni groups can help reach even more potential candidates.
Chairs also recommend promoting open positions through listservs: The Council of Graduate Departments of Psychologyopens in new window has a free service for member departments; Kelly suggests the listserv for APA's Div. 2 (Society for the Teaching of Psychology) for departments hoping to hire someone passionate about teaching.
Other resources include diversity professional associations, such as the Association of Black Psychologistsopens in new window and the National Latina/o Psychological Associationopens in new window; traditional job websites such as Insidehighered.comopens in new window, Indeed.comopens in new window and HERCjobs.orgopens in new window; and Psychology Jobs Wikiopens in new window, a free resource open to editing by the public. Many departments also rely on personal recommendations from faculty at other institutions and engage in informal recruitment at conferences.
4. Go through applications systematically
Each committee has its own process for sorting through applications and narrowing the search, but most involve ranking applicants and discussing as a group.
At Marquette University, Bloom and her colleagues began with a general read, with the goal of keeping the pool as large as possible. After removing applicants who did not meet basic requirements, the committee divided the remaining candidates into two groups: definitely interested and maybe interested. They reviewed the "definitely interested" stack, rating each candidate on preferred qualifications and discussing as a group. Typically, a consensus emerged around the top five to 10 applicants. The committee only reviewed the maybes if top candidates did not emerge from the interested group.
During this stage, an institution's priorities will dictate how candidates are ranked. "Given that we are a research university, we first look at quality and quantity of publications. If someone is not already engaging in the behaviors that are critical to getting tenure here at Kansas State, then frankly we're not going to interview them," says Young, regarding hiring for tenure-track positions.
5. Conduct preliminary interviews
Next, departments schedule phone or video interviews with their top five to 10 applicants to decide whom to invite to campus. During these conversations, many chairs hope to determine whether candidates possess the desired "soft skills," or personal attributes that are less concrete than more technical "hard skills," which are evident from their vitae. A 2016 LinkedIn surveyopens in new window reviewed over 2 million U.S. job searches and found "good communicator," "well-organized" and "team player" to be the most sought-after soft skills—all of which are important qualities for psychology department faculty, say Stone and Marshall.
But Stone warns that these skills can be tough to assess in interviews, especially those conducted remotely. "Soft skills are useful and important; they're also very difficult to gauge," he says, citing research on the poor predictive accuracy of unstructured interviews (
Judgment and Decision Making
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Vol. 8, No. 5, 2013). "My best advice is not to base too much on subjective impressions from interviews, because they're just not predictive."
To minimize bias, Stone recommends making interviews as objective and structured as possible by preparing questions in advance and aiming for consistency across applicants.
Other chairs ask a broader range of questions during phone, video or in-person interviews. Most start by asking about candidates' research programs and teaching styles, while several ask more behavioral questions. Ronald H. Rozensky, PhD, emeritus professor and former chair of the department of clinical and health psychology at the University of Florida Health Science Center, often requested that interviewees tell him about a mistake they made and how they managed it. "You always want to understand how someone recovers from a problem," he says.
Some committees use the interview to evaluate whether candidates have done their homework, both on the institution "What attracted you to this position?" and on the applicant's own research program. Young asks when and where candidates expect to apply for funding and looks for answers that cite specific grant mechanisms. "We want to feel that this person is not just blowing smoke, but they've actually thought carefully about how they would go about getting funding," he says. "That's where a candidate can really rise above the rest."
6. Shift to recruitment mode during the campus visit
The candidates who come to campus are a department's top choices, and their visit provides the opportunity to sell both the institution and the surrounding area. "When people come in, we make a huge effort to welcome them. We show that we want them to be our colleague and that if they accept a position here, we will support and guide them to success," says Marshall.
Pick up candidates at the airport, host them at a hotel in a walkable area and treat them to dinner with a lively group of faculty, says Bloom.
She also recommends asking candidates whether there are specific accommodations they may want during their visit, for instance scheduling a meeting with a diversity officer or a conversation with a faculty member who has young children.
The campus stay is also a good time to ask candidates about the teaching and research resources they believe they would need to be successful at the institution—details that can later be incorporated into a job offer, if one is made.
7. Onboard new hires to ensure their success
Hetrick says the onboarding and recruitment processes are "highly fluid and somewhat interconnected," and it's important to follow up on details discussed during interviews. If the new faculty member has young children, connect him or her with someone in your department who knows neighborhoods and school systems; if the new hire is setting up an eye-tracking lab, look for other faculty who can provide advice about equipment.
Virtually every psychology department connects new hires with faculty mentors, but the pairings look different across institutions. Some pair based on seniority, others by research specialty and still others attempt to match personalities. At IU Bloomington, each new hire is assigned a support committee consisting of three faculty members. At Roosevelt University in Chicago, Cami McBride, PhD, chair of the psychology department, notes that her college connects new faculty with someone outside her department to give them a broader view of university culture.
Young suggests providing mentors with guidance that delineates how often to schedule meetings and what to cover. "A lot of departments assume that if you assign a more senior faculty member as a mentor, that person knows what to do," he says. "The truth is, they don't—and this creates highly variable mentoring experiences." He recommends that mentors provide guidance on building a lab website, creating and scoring exams, obtaining Institutional Review Board approval and more.
8. Avoid this common pitfall
Chairs warn against hiring a candidate who looks impressive on paper but isn't a good fit for the institution. "It's a mistake to hire the person with the most impressive credentials who is not best equipped to thrive in your unique department," and it can result in the new hire and current faculty being dissatisfied, Kelly says. Rozensky says this may require resisting pressure from upper administration to hire someone who looks prestigious. Chairs who avoid bending to this pressure will likely hire faculty whose interpersonal skills and research interests are a better match for the department, he says.
