Hiring process

Hiring at UVic is governed by various collective agreements. Hiring managers/hiring committees must seek the open position’s union approval before proceeding since usees of the policy restricts the pool of applicants, and thus are an exception to typical collective agreement hiring processes. All uses of the policy should also have approval from your unit lead(s) before proceeding.

The Human Resources Manager Support SharePoint or Faculty and Librarian Recruitment Guide offers resources and tools on overall equitable hiring practices. Below are some key core practices and considerations for a successful preferential or limited hiring process.

1. Establish and prepare committee

Have an open call within your area of work to invite diverse identity holders to participate in your search committee.
Ensure the committee represents diverse perspectives.
Review additional responsibilities to ensure that members from underrepresented groups are not overburdened with service work. Where possible, discuss how their workload can be adjusted and/or compensated for any additional work.
Create supports to enable full participation in the committee.
- Schedule meetings during regular working hours.
- Explore other supports—childcare, eldercare, bringing in meals.
- Consider facilitating virtual meetings as opposed to in-person meetings to recognize some committee members may not always available on campus.
- For more ideas, see Creating and Working Well with Diverse Committees.
Develop some strategies or reminders to help you—individually and as a committee—avoid having your bias influence your evaluations of candidates
- For faculty recruitment, the committee chair should ensure all members have completed the Increasing Equity in Decision Processes course.
- EQHR is available to facilitate the selection committee training on preferential and limited hiring and on equitable hiring practices upon request.

2. Identify criteria and assessment

Criteria

Draft the criteria first. Base these on the needs and priorities of your unit by drawing from:

representation data,
mission and vision statements,
professional standards and expectations and
university policies and plans.

To attract diverse applicants, it is important that the targeted field of work/expertise is broadly defined yet in alignment with the role’s competencies. 

For more support in drafting criteria, use this template.

Assessment

To avoid bias-based assessments/decisions, it is a good idea to pay attention to traditional and non-traditional accomplishments, which will help the committee to facilitate more holistic and accurate evaluations.

Non-traditional accomplishments include community-engagement activities, volunteer experiences, consulting work and presentations at a conference/community event.

3. Prepare the job posting

Use the criteria to write the job posting and design a search process to collect relevant data from candidates.

Ensure your language is inclusive, ungendered and unbiased. Write in plain language. For further support, review the resources on unconscious biases. 
Post only the qualifications and skills necessary for the job; avoid overstating requirements and avoid optional/preferred requirements.
Have a diversity of people review the posting.
Highlight collaborative aspects of the job as well as independent aspects.

The following items need to be included in the job posting in addition to the general job posting requirements:

The hiring statement about preferential or limited searches with an instruction on where to provide your self-identification information (e.g. cover letter "if you belong to the designated group(s), please self-identify in your cover letter")
Additional information that will identify the unit and UVic as good places to work for members of underrepresented groups (e.g. remote work arrangement options)
Required application documents and describe what you are looking for in the identified documents (e.g. "a cover letter that addresses the full scope of the job requirements”)

4. Outreach

Creating a diverse applicant pool requires conscious effort and deliberate approaches. Consider the following key outreach strategies: 

Actively reach out directly to professional associations and organizations that support under-represented groups (e.g., hold an information session with the Association for Women in Science).  
Reach out through your network (colleagues, programs, previous institutions, mentors, professional networking sites such as LinkedIn) to invite applications and to see if they can circulate the posting or suggest potential candidates. 
Reach out to programs and institutions across the region or country that have a diverse group of employees and/or program foci.

5. Evaluate and select candidates

The administrative support person must take the following few steps to before the applications are ready for the committee to review.

Reach out to applicants who did not self-identify in their application to verify. Use the sample paragraph and/or contact EQHR for further support.
Sort out all applications into two piles, eligible and not eligible. The eligible pile will be distributed to the committee to start the assessment process.

The committee is encouraged to review criteria again to ensure everyone has a shared understanding of what you are looking for in the applicants. Follow up with a discussion on the common biases with your committee. If assistance is needed, consult with EQHR to discuss how to address unconscious biases.

At the time of assessment, the committee must not make decisions based on applicants’ self-identification information. For example, avoid further selecting applicants based on their gender identities or racial backgrounds. The committee is required to make decisions based on applicants’ qualifications against the set criteria.

6. Plan and facilitate onboarding

It is the committee’s responsibility to meaningfully plan and facilitate onboarding activities so the new hire can establish a sense of belonging in a timely manner. Here are some recommended practices.

Assign an onboarding partner for the new hire – preferably not the new hire’s direct supervisor.
Think beyond an orientation day and schedule ample time (a month or more) for the new hire to become familiar with available support services.
Hold an informal check-in meeting every month or so to see if they have access to everything they need to do their job. In the meetings also make sure they feel they are connected to their unit.