Office for Faculty Excellence

Faculty Hiring Best Practices

Faculty Hiring Best Practices

The Faculty Hiring Best Practices mini-course supports faculty involved in recruitment and search processes by providing a distillation of best practices in faculty recruiting. The course is an expansion of an earlier resource that was hosted on these pages prior to the development of the Canvas course. Within this Canvas mini-course is a resources section that contains templates and samples that community members are encouraged to adopt or adapt for their own use.

In keeping with Strategic Plan 2025, the University’s strategic plan, this mini-course emphasizes strategies for conducting faculty searches that will enable us to reach our goals.

We begin this course with a review of the recently revised Montclair Vision:

By 2025 Montclair State University will be nationally recognized as a premier public university, serving 25,000 students with programs from bachelor’s to PhD. It will provide students with a welcoming, supportive and responsive student experience that enables post-graduate success. It will continue to be affordable and accessible, acclaimed for its research contributions, locally valued for its community and business partnerships, fiscally sound and nimble in its business practices, and diverse in its students and employees.

The faculty we hire today are the faculty who will ensure we achieve the Montclair Vision.

The information and resources provided in this mini-course supplement the direct support for faculty hiring that is provided by deans and their staff, and by the Human Resources team. The HR multi-step process is outlined on the HR website at Hiring a Faculty Member.

  • Faculty who are serving on a faculty search must have completed this course, the Faculty Hiring Best Practices course, within the last three years. Faculty receive a certificate, but if you are unclear of when your certificate expires, contact Dalilah Smith-Santos in OFE.
  • The course includes reference to a number of tools (sample job ads, interview questions, strategies, rubrics) that are useful for faculty searches; they can be accessed through the course or directly through the Open Access File Folder for Faculty Hiring Searches (netID required)
  • Each summer OFE updates Montclair State University Student and Faculty Demographic Data to provide search committees with up-to-date analyses of their department, college/school, and university.
  • Note that this course is different from the HR’s Equity and Compliance Search Committee Training course that members of any university search committee must have completed within one year.

For more information on the course, review the table of contents below, and if you are interested in enrolling in the course, contact Emily Isaacs directly.

Part 1: Introduction
This section introduces the Provost’s priorities and Montclair faculty’s demographic characteristics in comparison to national faculty data and Montclair student populations.

Part 1: Overview
Montclair State’s Hiring Priorities Strategy
Montclair State’s Diversity Profile
National Context on Faculty Diversity
Equity Barriers in Standard Recruitment Practices

Part 2: Understanding Implicit Bias
This section will provide a primer on implicit bias research and its relevance and implications for hiring, making the case for many of the hiring procedures and strategies recommended in this section and the rest of the mini-course. Includes optional 30-minute “learn more” videos.

Part 2: Overview
Implicit Bias
Learning More About Implicit Bias
Mitigating Bias

Part 3: Before a Search Begins
This section is focused on soft recruiting well in advance of posting your job, proposing a line that will fit the University’s priorities, and writing an effective and inclusive job ad.

Part 3: Overview
Always Recruit
Proposing a Line
Recruitment Planning

Part 4: Running an Equity-Forward Search
This section provides best practices for conducting a search, addressing search committee formation, screening tools, interview questions, and strategies and information useful to recruitment.

Part 4: Overview
Putting Together a Successful Team
Working with HR: Legal and Ethical Responsibilities
Establish Responsibilities and Rules for the Team
Rubrics and Strategies for Evaluation
Preparing for Candidate Interactions
Ending the Search

Updated 05.29.24 EJI