Search Committee Member Guidelines

The committee member performs a variety of tasks under the direction of the committee chair. The list provided below includes some of the typical responsibilities, tasks, activities and involvement related to committee service.

  • All search committee members (internal, external, faculty, staff and students) must attend Faculty Search Committee training at least once every three years. (After search approval, OAE will email login instructions to all faculty search committee members, non-faculty search committee members are permitted to attend the training but are not required.)
  • Review the Search Process Checklist
  • Participate in the charge to the search committee.
  • Maintain confidentiality before, during, and after the search of all candidate information and deliberations.
  • Attend all committee meetings.
  • Perform additional duties requested by chair.
  • Be aware of and follow all equal opportunity/affirmative action procedures.
  • Review position description, advertisement and other pertinent documents.
  • Suggest publications, websites, listserves, institutions, and other sources for the advertisement/announcement, to include outreach sources to attract underrepresented groups (women, minorities, veterans, persons with disabilities, veterans).
  • Discuss and agree upon procedures the committee will follow including: how to screen and evaluate candidates, how you will vote, how screening decisions will be documented, etc.
    • This should be done in advance of the initial review of applications to ensure all candidates are evaluated fairly
  • Tips for Committee:
    • Agree upon ground rules for evaluating candidates for the search committee and stick to them.
    • Be aware of the possibility of your own unconscious bias.
    • Agree on evaluation criteria.
    • Agree on rules of discussion and how to handle disagreement.
    • Avoid comments (either orally or in notes) that are not job related.
    • Agree on a method for determining who will be invited to interview.
    • Consider alternatives to rank ordering, such as summaries of each semi-finalist.
  • Develop specific job-related questions to ask each candidate. All candidates should be asked the same questions, allowing for individualized follow-up questions as needed.
  • Provide your professional opinion of interviewees based upon objective interview evaluation document.

Additional information can be found at: https://oae.uic.edu/ah/academic-hiring-process/search-resources/