Academic recruitment guidance

Promoting Dundee

One key aid to recruit high calibre academic staff is ensuring that the individuals visit and see what the University of Dundee and local area can offer. One mechanism that can be particularly effective is to use seminar series to invite early career researchers to present their work. This way it is possible to have a look at people and have discussions on what their future aspirations are, and to determine if they are a good fit to the University and future strategies (School and more broadly). Current academic staff connections can be used (through collaborations, seeing/hearing conference presentations), and identifying early career prize winners or existing ECR fellowship holders (Henry Dale, URFs, FLFs) may also provide a pool or route for selecting individuals to invite.

Another mechanism that can be used to promote Dundee, is to ask academic staff to include a slide about jobs and opportunities at the end of any presentations they give (research talks). A tailorable PowerPoint slide can be adapted as required e.g. the School of Life Sciences make use of slides that are research or teaching focused.

Targeting potential applicants

When advertising a job it is important that the job comes to the attention of a diverse pool of applicants of the highest possible calibre. Consideration should be given to how diversity and quality in the applicant pool can be achieved.

One key strategy is to directly target individuals:

• previous seminar speakers
• individuals seen/heard at conference presentations
• early career prize winners or existing ECR fellowship holders (URFs or FLFs)
• individuals suggested by external collaborators and colleagues
• individuals suggested by advisory boards or quinquennial reviews

Some potential portals to consider dissemination in include:

• School web site
• Stonewall Diversity Champions portal
• Chronicle for Higher Education (North American)
• social media platforms (Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook)
• professional networks and societies
• international research networks
• THES jobs and The Guardian (both education and culture sections)
• e-flux (excellent international platform to share job (and study) opportunities, under its education section)

Some discipline specific journals can be effective places to increase reach: 

Advertising the position

The advertisement should provide key information about the role and should also indicate competitive benefits of joining the University. For example:

• collegiate atmosphere
• academic strengths in the discipline
• high quality academic support
• research facilities
• mentoring scheme
• access to doctoral training programmes
• high quality of life in Dundee

The University’s Work for us page is a resource for potential applicants and offer holders. We encourage all staff to familiarise themselves with these pages.  Recruiting managers will, we hope, find it to be a particularly useful resource.

Interviews

It is essential that candidates invited to Dundee (whether informally or formally) are provided with a good experience. They should leave with a positive experience of not only the University but also the city itself. They should have the opportunity to meet with a range of staff members and be shown and/or shared information about living and working in Dundee.

Presentations

It is expected that all shortlisted candidates will make a presentation on some aspect of their work or intended work. The exact format of this should be tailored to suit both the job role and any discipline specific requirements.

Remote Interviews

Schools will have flexibility in determining whether interviews will take place remotely or in person however to ensure fairness and consistency, the same approach for all candidates should be taken where possible.