Highline College Recruitment Handbook

This document is meant to serve as a concise handbook that offers best practices for hiring at Highline College. This handbook outlines policies and practices intended to support the college in meeting its goals of promoting equal opportunity and of enhancing excellence through equity, inclusion, and belonging. 

Planning

The key to any successful hiring process is effective planning and organization. This includes putting time and effort into recruiting a diverse pool of candidates, and taking time to understand your unit’s culture and climate as you seek to successfully identify and onboard a new hire.

Hiring Managers’ Responsibilities

Review the job description 

Look at each component of the job description with fresh eyes to ensure that the essential functions of the job are accurately described in the job description. Narrowly defined searches may tend to exclude women, BIPOC, veterans, and individuals with disabilities.

• Are the responsibilities current and accurate? 
• Do the requirements align with the responsibilities? Is there language in the ad that is unnecessarily limiting and discouraging applicants from certain groups? 
  • If you require specific degrees, ask yourself if a BA or masters is really necessary to be successful in that position.
  • If you require management experience, make sure the number of years aligns with the scope of responsibility in this position. For a position that only has one direct report, management experience does not necessarily have to be a requirement.  
  • Research shows that men apply for positions if they meet 60% of the qualifications, whereas women only apply if they meet 100% of them.
• Include information about your department or program and paint a picture about what makes your program special.

Human Resources will review the draft job description to ensure that it is properly classified and compensated. Human Resources will also review the job description for potential barriers that could inadvertently impact certain groups.

Create a timeline 

Set a target date for when the new hire will begin and work backward from that date. This will let you know what benchmarks you must hit every week to meet the deadline. Recruitments can take between 2-4 months to complete.

Here is an example of a timeline:

• Posting the position – 3-6 weeks (positions must be posted for at least 10 days). This includes sending the job description and Staffing Request to HR for approval, posting to Highline’s recruitment sources, and committee/department conducting outreach to potential candidates.
• Screening – 2 weeks. HR will need 1 week to screen the candidate pool. HR then provides the qualified candidates to the screening committee for review. Depending on the size of the candidate pool, the committee may need at least 1-2 weeks to conduct their review. This includes individual members’ review and meeting as a committee to agree upon a short list of candidates.
• Interviews – 2-4 weeks. The interview stage could take as long as one month depending on the number of candidates and rounds of interviews. Availability is also a factor at this stage. 
• Recommendation – 1-2 weeks. The committee will need to meet to discuss the candidates and make a recommendation to the hiring manager and/or unit hiring authority (i.e. vice president or executive director). The hiring authority may want to meet with the finalist as well. HR will begin reference checks at the hiring manager’s direction. 
• Offer/Acceptance – 3 weeks. HR will make the offer once a finalist is identified. Most finalists will start 2-3 weeks after acceptance.
• Build in time for contingencies – your timeline could be delayed by things like breaks or campus closures, time for a finalist to become vaccinated, coordinating schedules, and medical emergencies.  

Appoint a screening committee chair

In most cases, the hiring manager will serve in this role themselves. The primary responsibility of the screening committee chair is to organize the recruitment and screening process from start to finish. They are required to oversee and maintain a consistent and efficient search as well as ensure the most qualified candidates receive consideration for the position. 

Responsibilities of the screening committee chair include:

• Work closely with the hiring manager throughout the recruitment and selection process. Provide regular status reports to the hiring manager on screening committee activities as well as committee recommendations.
• Consult with HR to review the search process and seek guidance as appropriate.
• Maintain all records associated with the search process and provide those to HR after the search concludes.
• Schedule and lead all search committee meetings. 
• Guide the committee in developing, implementing, and adhering to a search plan. The search plan needs to include details about which constituents candidates will meet with at what stages in the interview process. 
• Oversee the professional and timely operation of the committee.
• Maintain the confidentiality of the committee proceedings, identity of the candidates, and all communications with the candidates.
• Ensure all screening committee members complete HR’s confidentiality agreement form and bias training.
• Ensure the integrity of the recruitment process and call out biases as they occur.
• Determine how to collect feedback from the screening committee, interview panels, and community members as appropriate.
• Communicate the screening committee’s recommendation to the hiring manager. 

Appoint a screening committee 

Hiring managers will work with their unit’s hiring authority (i.e. vice president or executive director) to appoint a screening committee. In most cases, the hiring manager will serve as the screening committee chair. The hiring manager will work with the screening committee chair and committee to discuss and establish the timeline, commitment, roles and responsibilities for the recruitment. The screening committee will collaboratively create an assessment rubric for reviewing application documents, develop interview questions, participate in the interviews, and make a recommendation for candidate(s) to move to the next stage of the recruitment. The committee should spend time discussing how the rubric aligns with the job description and how the interview will assist them in evaluating for the most important elements of position. 

Discrimination

HR will provide committees with Fair and Unfair Pre-Employment Inquiries. It is critical that the committee understand the legalities of what can and cannot be asked of potential job candidates. The consequences of discrimination in hiring practices are serious. 

Unconscious Bias 

Understanding unconscious bias is an important part of building capacity and competency in working in the Highline community. Every person holds biases to some degree or another. The goal is to build awareness and uncover the biases we may not even be aware we are holding as these may shape the way we conduct business in the workforce. HR will provide unconscious bias training to all screening committee members. 

Harvard implicit bias test is a helpful tool to measure your personal biases. Recognizing biases not related to the quality of candidates can help reduce their impact on your search and review of candidates. 

Types of hiring bias include:

• Confirmation bias – the tendency to select information that supports our views, ignoring contrary information. 
• Affect heuristic – the tendency to judge someone’s suitability for a position based on superficial factors that are not really relevant to how they would carry out the required responsibilities of the job.
• Halo effect – focusing too heavily on one positive attribute of a candidate and allowing that to positively influence other unrelated attributes. 
• Horn effect – when something bad about the candidate grabs your attention and you become unable to see any positive attributes.
• Affinity bias – the tendency to favor a candidate because we have something in common with them.
• Conformity bias – when our decision-making is altered because of peer pressure or because we do not want to go against the rest of the group.

Advice for minimizing the influence of bias:

• Learn about and discuss research on bias and assumptions, and intentionally strive to minimize their influence on your evaluation. Building a greater awareness of our impartiality and consciously acting to respond without prejudice effectively reduces biased behavior.
• Develop and prioritize evaluation criteria before the committee begins evaluating candidates. Apply the same criteria throughout the review process.
• Spend sufficient time (at least 20 minutes) evaluating each candidate. Evaluate the candidate’s entire application without giving additional “weight” to only one element of their materials.
• Be able to defend every decision for eliminating or advancing a candidate. Research shows that holding committee members to high standards of accountability for the fairness of their evaluation reduces the influence of bias. 
• Keep good notes about the evaluation and decision-making process, using consistent criteria along the way. Your notes will be kept as a record in HR. 

Recruitment

When it comes to building the most diverse applicant pool possible, it is essential to recruit in a multi-channel format. In order to create a diverse applicant pool, hiring managers and/or search committee chairs must communicate their jobs openings in the right markets.

Screening committee chairs and hiring managers should consider the following when devising a recruitment strategy: 

• Who is in your outreach network? Who can help you reach your target audience? 
• How long will we post the position? All positions must be posted for a minimum of ten (10) days.

Below are a few of the mechanisms that HR relies on to help committees reach their recruitment objectives.

Social and professional networks

When you have limited time and a limited budget, one of the best ways you can reach your target audience is by leveraging your own personal network. If you are well networked within diverse communities, send postings to listservs, affinity groups, and your personal LinkedIn page. Promoting the position within your commission, or other professional networks, is a great way to market the position. 

Job sites and advertising

Utilizing professional job sites, trade journals, other local recruitment websites, etc., could promote career opportunities to minority communities. In addition, there are popular recruitment websites where employers can post positions at no charge and reach a large group of job seekers. Human Resource post all positions to the following sites-

• InsiderHigherEd (InsideHigherEd shares listings with their diversity network of 20 different sites)
• Higher Education Recruitment Consortium
• Highline website
• SBCTC website

If there are other journals or recruitment websites you want to utilize for your search, it will require funding from your department program. See appendix for a list of sites and pricing.

Candidate Review & Selection

Screening committees will use a well-defined and consistent plan to assess candidates and make selections during this process. A candidate review that is thoughtful and consistent will allow for an effective and successful candidate hire.

Applicant Review

One of the most effective methods for maintaining a consistent and balanced review process is to use an assessment tool (i.e. rubric). The rubric organizes the stated position requirements and priorities in a manner that allows for clear evaluation criteria. The purpose of an assessment tool is to apply the same evaluation and criteria to all candidates.

Starting 2022, HR will implement blind screening for all applicants. This means that NeoGov will redact all personally identifiable information from an applicant’s attachments (resume, cover letter and transcripts). 

Equity and inclusion statements 

Highline requires an equity and inclusion statement for all positions. Equity and inclusion statements allow applicants the opportunity to articulate how they work, engage and interact with a broad range of students, faculty and staff in their current roles as well as envision equity and inclusion in their prospective role at Highline. Human Resources has developed questions that committees can use. The questions range in complexity and it is the search committee’s responsibility to select a question that is commensurate with the position. It is also advisable to develop an assessment tool that allows the screening committee to assess the equity statements using consistent criteria.

If an equity statement does not meet the needs of the unit, it is best practice to include at least one question in the interview that is related to equity and inclusion.

Interviews

This stage in the hiring process allows you to get to know applicants better and follow up on items in the resume, cover letter and equity statement (if collected). As with the previous phases of the process, consistency is key. Develop an interview protocol that is within the scope of the position and stick to it. 

Beginning in 2023, HR requires that every search begins with a first round video interview. The first round interview is a time to ask general questions that bring insight into a candidate’s background and interest in the position.

The next round of interviews are more formal and lengthier in nature – these will take place in-person or over Zoom. Planning for in-person interviews may be more complex, particularly when working with a large search committee. It is important to take the time to align on questions – based on your criteria – in advance. It is Highline’s business practice to send the in-person interview questions to the candidates two business days before the interview. 

Consider the following for every candidate’s interview:

• Incorporate behavioral questions to gain insight into the job candidates’ past experiences;
• Interview questions that involve personality or personal stories, such as “What is your communication style?” or “Can you tell me about a time you overcame a challenge at work?” bring insight to the candidate’s working and/or communication style;
• Be consistent and use the same set of questions for each candidate;
• Ask candidate questions about their experiences related to equity, and inclusion; and 
• Be sure to use the fair and unfair inquiries as a guideline.

Ideally, all interviewers are familiar with your rubric by now and can formally rate the applicants based on the written materials and interview responses.

Reference checks

Some hiring managers prefer to conduct reference checks between the semi-final and final stage and some prefer to conduct the checks following the final interview. Committees must be consistent in the process. A general guide is to conduct three reference checks for the successful candidate before extending an offer to hire. Please consult with the HR guidance and regulations.

The candidate should provide you with a minimum of three professional references, including name, phone number, email address and a description of the working relationship to the candidate.

At least two reference checks should be completed prior to extending an offer of employment.

References should be current and previous supervisors or managers who are familiar with the candidate’s work performance. For those new to the workforce or with limited work experience, references from former professors, teachers, or volunteer work supervisors are acceptable.

Decision Making & Hiring 

The final hiring decision is dependent upon carefully reviewing all data and making a recommendation to the position’s hiring manager. When a search committee recommends a top candidate, the deliberation process will include:

• Avoiding prematurely identifying a “top candidate” until all candidates are interviewed; 
• Debriefing as a committee or interview panel to compare notes and identify strengths and weaknesses for all candidates;
• Use identified strengths and weaknesses to inform an individualized onboarding plan for the final candidate; and 
• Focus on each candidate’s record of achievements and qualifications to meet the requirements of the positions.

Finally, the hiring manager will inform HR of their final decision. HR will make the offer to the final candidate and notify the other candidates that they were not selected.

The First 30 Days

It is helpful to develop a clear plan for bringing a new employee into the office. It is the hiring manager’s responsibility to make sure the new hire has access to resources that will promote success. Think about how to prioritize information and distribute an orientation to your office, as well as to the college as a whole, during the new employee’s first 30-60 days.

Supplemental Guidelines For Full-Time Faculty Recruitments

Requesting a Faculty Position

The college is in a position to improve equity and inclusion in the disciplines we teach, and the professoriate, by encouraging students to enter our fields.  This will require a faculty that more closely represents our students as well as the disciplines so that students can ‘see themselves’ in the role.  To increase understanding and awareness of representation, departments and divisions can improve their knowledge of the level of representation within their fields and here at Highline. To that end:

• The ethnic and racial composition of the field (professional community, grad students, degrees granted) should be researched and known (one source of such information is the NSF)
• All departments (or disciplines if department has multiple disciplines) should know and keep current information on the racial and ethnic composition of its faculty and of the students who are taking courses w/in the department
• For departments with course offerings that serve different categories of students (e.g pre-college courses, ‘majors’ courses) break down student and faculty demographics by course category
• Position requests should include the demographics for faculty and students, so it can be a consideration in decision-making on positions, along with other rationale 

Following approval of the position:

Determine when the position should ideally be posted. In some fields, fall posting for the next academic year is critical to ensure a strong applicant pool in a competitive arena, for other fields posting the position in winter is reasonable. Using the posting date and working backward, the following timeline for tasks allows for the process to run smoothly and also match the HR identified timeline for the general recruiting process (from posting to offer).

 Committee

Minimum 6-8 weeks prior to posting position: select/appoint committee

Composition

• Administrator and/or division chair must have training on inclusive hiring and bias to monitor equity lens throughout the process to
  • Provide guidance about position and equity statement criteria
  • Use knowledge of appropriate and inappropriate questions to guide committee

 Committee training

• Mandatory Bias Literacy training for all screening committee members
• Training to screen equity statement and apply equity statement rubric to responses

Committee tasks/responsibilities

• Complete training(s)
• Develop position announcement (committee participation optional)
• Recruitment outreach strategies and activities
• Develop recruitment plan that outlines how many round of interviews will be conducted and with whom
• Develop screening rubrics for resumes and equity statement review
• Develop interview questions
• Screen candidate materials, select top candidates
• Conduct interviews, check references, make recommendation

Position announcement/description

4-5 weeks prior to advertising – in coordination with HR, position announcement is developed and submitted to VP for approval

1-2 weeks – VP submits to President for approval

1 week – VP submits staffing request to HR

General info in announcement

• Including department values in the announcement as well as institutional values conveys desirable characteristics to potential candidates

Position criteria

• At a minimum, candidates should have degrees that align with the discipline they are to teach. Considerations:
  • For minimum qualifications, indicating broad ‘generalist’ degrees (e.g. Master’s in Geography) in the field plus a wide range of acceptable subfields or related disciplines may draw a larger pool of applicants
  •  If a particular subfield (e.g. Master’s in Cultural Geography) has greater representation across diverse groups, it may be advisable to target the position to that subfield, increasing the likelihood of a more diverse pool
• Think flexibly about ‘teaching experience’, use as desired qualification rather than a minimum qualification 

Recruitment

3-6 week duration, including conveying advertising information to HR, research on graduate programs, and committee/department outreach activities

Advertising

• Identify desired outlets for advertising.  HR is willing to work with Academic Affairs to maintain a default list of advertising media
• Whenever possible, provide the dates and deadlines and memberships necessary for other outlets to better support HR in advertising

Committee outreach

Professional organizations and graduate program contacts

• Professional associations, listservs, etc. can and should be used by committee members and department members to disseminate the position announcement
• Committee and/or department members should actively do personal outreach to graduate program directors
  • Reference librarians can/will research programs to identify those with significant numbers of grads from underrepresented groups
  • Best practice: Committee members should make phone contact with graduate program directors to promote the position (with email follow-up so that copies of the posting are delivered directly for forwarding to grad students and alums
  • Phone script and email templates should be developed committee members
  • Larger departments could do the outreach themselves – probably ideal for connections to colleagues in the field
• Committee members should know outreach expectations prior to agreeing to serve
• Timeline to execute outreach should be specified to committee/department members
• Maintain records on contacts (who, when)

Screening

1 week for HR screening

• HR screens for min quals only based on specific degrees identified by the committee
• Committee should provide clear lists of degrees that are acceptable and degrees which are not
• HR will double check with SME/chair on degrees which are not on either list

The race/ethnicity/sex composition of the pool may be reviewed by VP at every stage: prior to  HR screening, after HR screen, after initial committee screen, after first round interviews, at recommendation

 Screening by committee

2 weeks for screening materials +

2 weeks for interviews

 Rubric criteria for general materials

• Committee and/or chair creates the rubric
• Best practices:
  •  Avoid double counting criteria that may exclude viable candidates (e.g. counting teaching experience twice by asking about teaching experience plus community college teaching)
  • Consolidate basic faculty-wide criteria into one item
  • Include specific item for demonstrated active cultural responsiveness and commitment to equity in multicultural/diverse environments (provide examples of such for committee to illustrate)
  • Include item for special attributes that are value-added (e.g. McNair Scholar, leadership, mentorship)

Equity and inclusion statement evaluation

• Use rubric that is revised to exclude evaluation of awareness of self and instead focus on clear curricular and pedagogical approaches to anti-racist, inclusive curriculum

 First round interviews

• Specify the goal for first round interviews (e.g. establish candidates interest in CTC teaching, or interest in particular skill or task unique to the position)
• Select two or three questions, ensure that they are clearly tied to the position and the goal for the first round
• Allow enough time (15-20 minutes for 3 questions is advised by HR), and allow a few minutes before and after each appointment for potential tech issues
• Offer times across two days and/or morning as well as afternoon, consider time zone differences
• SparkHire, phone, Skype, Zoom all are options. Be consistent with all candidates.

Second round interviews

• Typical structure: 1 hour for interview, 15 minutes for teaching demo to committee
• Best practices for interviews:
  • Be warm, provide materials (copy of questions, pen, paper, water)
  • Be sympathetic to glitches like late flights or traffic
  • Spend time chatting and doing introductions at the start – put candidates at ease
  • Consider providing questions to the candidate prior to interview – aim of the interview is not a ‘gotcha’
• Interview questions – committee develops
  • Ensure that all questions relate to or tie back to the position
  • Be careful about ‘values’ questions that are back door routes to prohibited questions
  • Include one question that specifically goes toward candidate’s understanding of culturally responsive pedagogy and inclusion, and shows what they have done that actively demonstrates cultural competence or cultural humility
• Be intentional about how questions are asked.  The committee should discuss who will ask which question and why, discuss and understand when follow-up questions can or should be asked

Recommendation

1 week

• Reference checks – to be completed prior to recommendation decision 
  • Reference checks should include a question that directly asks about candidates’ knowledge of equity and inclusion, and actions that demonstrate cultural competence
• Determine how many and which candidates to put forward (if any)
  • Provide as much information about the committee thought processes and decision as possible in the recommendation
• Cabinet recommends that the VPI provide a template or model for the structure and content of recommendations

 Equity Questions

The college requires an equity response as part of its application materials, which is a response to the following statement. Please respond (up to one page in length) in the text box area below. Please tell us about the education, training and experience(s) that have prepared you to incorporate culturally responsive pedagogy and inclusive curricula in your teaching. Include examples of implementation in your discipline/subject area.

Screening Committees and Conflicts of Interest

Before screening committees begin the work of reviewing application files, they should have an open conversation about all aspects of the review process, including a discussion about what  might constitute a potential conflict of interest and how the committee will handle any conflicts that arise.

Most of our fields, and the CTC system, are relatively small, so we expect to know many of our applicants through their local work, involvement in conferences, and professional organizations. These types of relationships do not constitute conflicts of interest. Moreover, team teaching,  co-leading workshops with applicants, or presenting on panels with them, do not usually constitute conflicts of interest.

We typically define conflicts of interest as occurring when the search committee member will in some way benefit from the applicant’s success, either materially or in terms of status or prestige. The most obvious cases of conflicts of interest, therefore, include having a close personal relationship with an applicant (i.e., spouse or partner, sibling, parent or child); having been a co-author with an applicant, especially on a major project like a book or peer-reviewed journal article, or co-developed a major project.

The best practice in these cases is simple: When in doubt, disclose up front. Committees will need to decide how to handle actual cases of conflict of interest should they arise. For instance, will the committee member be required to recuse themselves from evaluating a particular applicant, or will they be required to explicitly frame their review comments in terms of the potential conflict? As an example, a committee member might say something like: “Although I co-authored a short article with this applicant 10 years ago, we do not have any ongoing projects together, and I feel confident I can assess his more recent work objectively . . .”

Perhaps the most important aspects of this issue are making sure all applicants are treated the same way by all committee members — including external applicants who are already well- known to committee members personally or by reputation, as well as any internal candidates — and making sure that committee members consistently maintain confidentiality.

When they have access to additional sources of information about a particular applicant, committee members may be tempted to base their evaluation on prior personal knowledge or hearsay, rather than on a thorough review of the submitted application materials. For internal candidates, committee members may be tempted to simply skip parts of the review and  evaluation process altogether. As much as possible, all applicants should be assessed based on the same kinds of evidence and using the same processes and criteria. Finally, committee members may be tempted to share confidential information about the hiring process with applicants or the colleagues of applicants whom they know well. Any sharing of information outside official communications from the search committee or from unit leadership constitutes a breach of confidentiality.

The best practice in these cases is simple: Always err on the side of being scrupulously fair and equitable. When in doubt, consult with the search committee or department chair, or Human Resources.