At Lehigh University, we recruit faculty by searching for talent with inclusive approaches aligned with the expectations of the faculty position and the university's mission, values, and the Principles of Our Equitable Community.
Each year we offer Recruitment Education Workshops to complement the information in the Toolkit and support the Faculty Hiring Forms and Instructions from the Provost
Best Practices for Faculty Recruitment: Toolkit & Education
Best Practices Toolkit
Faculty Education for Inclusive Best Practices is Available:
Best Practices Recruitment Workshops
- AY 2026-2027 Dates will be announced soon and posted to the calendar of events.
Recruitment Conversations
- AY 2026-2027 Dates will be announced soon and posted to the calendar of events.
About the Recruitment Best Practices Program
Sometimes, new research or new internal data helps us update, streamline or do a better job preparing and conducting the search and hiring of new faculty. Sometimes, it has been a few years since a department was hiring, and other times we have search committee members who are new to recruitment.
It is important to remain up to date and operate with the same information, and have shared expectations for the work ahead.
ADVANCE Best Practices workshop participation is required for members of search committees, unless they attended last year (if the last time you attended was AY2024-2025 or earlier, please sign up). Any member of a search committee is definitely welcome to join, as are the staff members supporting faculty search, members of departments who are going to hire a new faculty, department chairs, and associate deans.
"Recruitment Conversations" are office hours, typically with a particular theme. They are ideal for groups or individuals. Recruitment Conversations are less formal and can be useful for someone to brush up on the latest information and ask specific questions no matter the last time they completed a full Best Practices Workshop.
- Deputy Provost for Faculty Affairs & the Faculty Affairs Team (documentation & approval, electronic applicant system, etc.)
- Search Committee Chairs- instructions and internal resource drive
- Best Practices Workshops (valid for two years)
- Recruitment Conversations & Consultations
- ADVANCE Faculty Recruitment Toolkit
- College-specific "kick off meetings' and hiring guidelines
Phases of Recruitment
Deciding what type of positions are needed is related to current and emerging needs of the department, college and university. Some scholarship shows this decision, which is in essence the first piece of the recruitment structure, has a lot to do with successful broadening of the applicant pool and socialization of a future position for successful hiring. Are you recruiting to replace or clone a recent retiree? Are you planning for future excellence in an emergent subject area?
Outreach focuses on long term efforts to build pools of candidates for available faculty positions. This should happen all year long, regardless of the specific position in order to develop relationships with other campuses, programs and even with future potential candidates in systematic ways, introducing them to our institution and potential opportunities. However, once a specific position exists, outreach shifts into the hiring arena for the specific role.
Hiring addresses all efforts related to cultivating an applicant pool and candidate selection for a specific open position. This includes attending to the construction of the position announcements, advertising, and the behaviors of search committees which influence who applies, is invited to campus, and ultimately is offered a faculty position. Intentional cultivation of diverse pools of applicants and finalists and a commitment to hiring processes where inclusion is valued and bias is addressed are needed to increase the rate at which individuals from underrepresented groups are in the applicant pool.
Yield reminds us that while a campus can make strides in making offers to candidates, it is not guaranteed that those offers will be accepted. Our campus colleagues invest a lot on planning and enacting the search, so a lot is invested by the time a candidate has to decide to accept or decline our offer. We have forms to document the reaons for declines and this is important to understand patterns in the types of reasons.
Once a successful candidate has been hired, there may be several months before the person actually begins their new faculty position. We refer to this time period as the “transition or onboarding phase,” and see it as an opportunity to build connections, begin socializing the person into the campus culture and community, and begin the process of professional development.