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Academic Personnel Services APS
  1. Academic Personnel Services
  2. Recruitment
  3. Search Plan
  4. Developing Recruitment Advertisements

Developing Recruitment Advertisements

An effective job description attracts a qualified applicant pool while also maintaining compliance standards. The comprehensive descriptions below will help departments craft a job advertisement that will interest top candidates in their field.

Combined Ad Text

Combining recruitments on a single ad will save departments on cost as they prepare their recruiting budgets. Some examples of a combined ad can be:

  • All the similar title code positions in a division
  • The tenured and tenured-track position
  • All the lab or program positions for the department

Each position of the combined ad must have:

  • Recruitment Title
  • Link to apply to the recruitment
  • Brief overview of the position
  • Qualifications of the position

Position Description Components

The position description is where the department describes the duties and responsibilities for the position.

The position description components will be:

Statement of the department’s commitment to excellence
  • Example: “The Department of (name) within the Division of (or, School of) [name] at UC San Diego is committed to academic excellence and equal employment opportunity within the faculty, staff, and student body.”
What the position will be doing
  • Example: “The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry (http://www-chem.ucsd.edu) within the Division of Physical Sciences at UC San Diego invites applications for a tenure-track faculty position in XXXXX for research in the field of XXXXX, teaching graduate students, and mentoring PhD students.”
Job duties
  • An effective way to communicate the job duties is to:
    • Keep them current and accurate
    • Use action verbs
    • Keep the number of duties to just the main key duties of the position (5-7)
    • Use bullet points or a numbering system for easy reading for the applicant
  • APM links to the title code being recruited
Qualifications
  • An explicit, non-comparative, and verifiable statement of the “Required Qualifications” and/or “Preferred Qualifications” with descriptions of the knowledge, skills, and abilities for the position.
    • Example: “Applicants must have a Ph.D. in Mathematics, 2-5 years of academic teaching, research and mentoring experience.” 
    • Example: “Ph.D. in Mathematics or expect to complete Ph.D. prior to start of the appointment is required.”
Salary statement
  • Example: “Salary is commensurate with qualifications and based on University of California pay scales.”
Application materials
  • Tip: Use the appointment file as an indication on what the applicant would need to have to apply for the position.
Reference requirements

Qualifications, application materials, and reference requirements will all be populated in separate pages in Recruit. Recruit will auto populate the apply link on the apply page.