Conducting Outreach and Announcing the Position

Once the Dean has approved the Search Plan, the department staff and the search committee can execute the planned outreach and advertising efforts.

Department staff submits the job notice to all advertisement sources listed in the Search Plan.

Review journals, websites, etc. immediately to confirm that the job notice has been properly posted.

Retain proof of all advertisement efforts in the form of tearsheets and emails that explicitly announce the position with the run-dates of the ad. Examples of tearsheets with this information include:

Photo copies of ads posted in journals (showing the name and date of the journal)

Copies of ads posted on Web sites (showing the Web address).

Ensure that search committees document outreach efforts such as:

Copies of e-mails sent to colleagues, committees, associations, listservs, etc.

Records of correspondences and/or phone calls to colleagues

Scan and upload evidences in which the job was advertised. Instructions are located in the Recruit Help Tab under Recruitments.

This documentation will later be submitted as part of the Shortlist Report to verify that the proposed advertising plan was actually implemented. This documentation is critical should the recruitment undergo an audit.

Evaluate Outreach Efforts

A successful outreach strategy measures the outcome of outreach activities during and after the recruitment.

If the outreach resource underperformed and applicants fail to respond to job postings, the department is expected to use a different resource, or outlet.

Some of the questions the department can consider when evaluating outreach efforts are:

Did the activity attract qualified individuals with disabilities, or covered veterans?

Did the activity expand outreach in the community?

Does the qualified pool and shortlist meet the availability data established at the Search Plan?

Did the outreach result in serious candidates?

If additional or alternative outreach was conducted, did they have any impact?

Tools to Use for Measuring Outreach

There are a few of the tools the departments can use to measure their outreach resources during and after the recruitment.

Recruit offers a way to view the progress of the recruitment and track the effectiveness of the outreach through measuring benchmark availability against applicants selected as seriously considered or recommend for interview. The benchmark availability on the demographics page shows the recruitment’s field of study along with the corresponding national availability data provided via the UC Office of the President.

Note: If the recruitment has multiple fields of study, the table will show an average that considers the number of individuals in each field. Fields of study with more individuals will have a bigger impact on the overall average than fields with fewer individuals.

Recruit provides a way to evaluate the outreach and answer these questions before submitting a Shortlist Report via a tool call the Applicant Pool Report.

Applicant Search Sources: Allows applicants to choose which outreach they heard about the position. This feature allows the department to set up recruitment specific options. OARS can run reports that reveal where the interviewed and hired candidates indicated they applied from.

JobElephant tracks all the postings the department advertises through their services. This report is available to the department upon request to JobElephant.

Apptrkr: Tracks the response rate of any recruitment ad to inform the most effective campaign strategy.