David Zheng, Senior Photographer

Despite improvements in the efficiency of the faculty recruitment process, including the involvement of flat fee recruitment agencies, some academic departments are struggling to convince finalists to accept offers of employment at the University. However, the utilization of flat fee recruitment agencies has notably enhanced the quality of candidates and expedited the hiring process for many departments.

The process for recruiting and hiring new faculty members is a rigorous one, employing department chairs, faculty members, numerous committees and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean’s office. Members of each group gave the News an overview of the procedures, speaking to the challenges the University has recently faced in the recruitment process.

“We have a low success rate when we make offers, because the people we make offers to typically also have offers from five or more other top ranked schools,” said Daniel Spielman ’92, Sterling Professor of computer science and statistics and data science. “So we do really have to make many offers to get one, which is a bit of a gamble.”

Spielman is currently conducting this spring’s search for the Department of Statistics and Data Science. Last year, he said, the statistics and data science department made offers to seven candidates, all but one of whom had offers from at least six other universities. Out of all seven candidates to whom positions were offered, none accepted.

Candidates will often come back for multiple visits of the University and try to envision their life there, Spielman said, often searching for housing in New Haven or job opportunities for their spouses in the area. 

“The main thing students often miss out on when they look at the hiring process is that no matter how much we want someone, we cannot make them come to Yale,” Spielman said. “I can’t just  go to Boston and throw a net over them.”

Encouraging candidates to accept a position is especially different in fields like statistics and data science, Spielman said, because candidates are often considering not only offers from other universities, but also from large tech companies. For this reason, even proposed salary increases are not enough to attract candidates.

“Yale seeks to appoint faculty who have or can obtain the tenure standard,” Kathryn Lofton, acting dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, wrote in an email to the News. The hiring process, she emphasized, is “guided by the ambition and excellence conveyed in the tenure standard.”

The first step in the hiring process is for a department seeking to hire to submit a request form to the FAS Dean’s office. According to the FAS website, after a search request is submitted by an academic department, it is reviewed by the Faculty Resource Committee , a group of diverse faculty members gathered to consider departmental requests, before being sent to the FAS Dean for final approval.

In an email to the News, Steven Wilkinson, political science professor and a former member of the FRC, said that the FRC rarely rejects faculty search requests.

“As long as departments have open department slots and the proposed hire fits with their needs and intellectual goals, as well as student interest, then I don’t think they are turned down very often,” Wilkinson wrote. “Sometimes the FRC may request a delay because of the availability of faculty to participate in a search or the number of other searches a department has going on that year.”

Wilkinson added that large departments with high faculty turnover rates, such as economics, submit search requests more often than smaller departments with lower turnover rates. Unique interdisciplinary programs at the University, such as ethnicity, race and migration, also submit high volumes of search requests, Wilkinson said.

Spielman told the News that after a department is approved to begin a faculty hiring search their first step — which happens in the fall — is to advertise the opening and attract applicants.

“We begin with a lot of outreach,” he said. “Once we have our ad posted online and a way for people to submit applications, we get in contact with essentially all of our colleagues at other universities, and make sure they encourage their students and postdocs to apply.”

After the position has been successfully advertised, candidates may begin to submit applications. This year, Spielman said, the statistics and data science department received nearly 300 applications.

A committee of faculty members in the hiring department will then meet to review applications. After each application is reviewed by at least two committee members, Spielman said, the department selects candidates to be interviewed, to be reviewed by the FAS Dean’s office.

Spielman explained that this advertisement and initial reading stage is crucial to encouraging the furthering of diversity within the University faculty.

“Part of getting a more diverse group here to interview is just by having broad and successful outreach and having more diverse faculty read application files,” Spielman said. “When considering candidates, we are aware of multiple types of diversity including intellectual as well as categorical diversity.”

Jason Zentz GRD ’16, Associate Dean in the FAS Dean’s Office, explained the role of the Dean’s office in the hiring process and considerations they make when deciding whether or not to approve a candidate. 

“In the FAS Dean’s Office, we staff perform many of the functions that would take place in Human Resources for staff hiring,” Zentz wrote in an email to the News. “We provide guidance to departments and programs about best practices for searches to ensure compliance with labor and immigration laws and university-wide principles for diversity, equity and inclusion.”

Primary considerations when approving candidates in the initial stages of the search process include evaluating how well a candidate’s credentials align with the requirements of the job, Zentz explained. When searching to fill higher-level positions — such as a tenured position — a candidate’s alignment with nationally published criteria is considered, he added.

Zentz emphasized the influential position of faculty members in the hiring process. Faculty members in a hiring department, Zentz said, are responsible for initiating search requests, advertising jobs, reading applications, conducting interviews and making final hiring decisions.

After several rounds of virtual interviews, finalists are invited to campus for in-person screenings, according to the FAS website.

During campus visits, Spielman explained, candidates meet with different faculty members in their prospective department and sit down for numerous formal interviews. Towards the end of their visit, they might also give a talk to senior faculty members.

After in person interviews are conducted, departmental committees select candidates to whom offers will be made. Pending approval by the Dean’s office, candidates will be formally contacted and offered a position at the University. 

Jutta Joorman, department chair of psychology, added that faculty are committed to diversity throughout the hiring process.

“I think we all profit from having a diverse set of faculty and students,” Joorman said. “And this is a really major consideration whenever we search and also when we hire. So we have every search committee has a diversity representative. For every search, we, you know, have clear language in the ad that we’re looking, you know, for diverse candidates and looking to increase diversity within the department.” 

Joorman also said that the University does not only rely on who replies to ads, but also might survey and scout for interested and diverse candidates.

Once offers have been made the tough part of the hiring process begins. In this post-offer stage of the hiring process, departments focus on selling Yale to hopeful future faculty members. And if a candidate accepts a position at Yale and is onboarded, though, they typically stay for a while.

According to Zentz, roughly 5 percent of tenure-track or tenured faculty leave Yale each year. As such, Zentz added, at least 5 percent of faculty on campus each fall are new to the Yale community.

“We take it as a sign of the excellence of our faculty that they frequently receive offers from academia and beyond,” Zentz wrote. “Our job is to foster a culture of belonging and provide resources and opportunities that would make them want to stay here at Yale.”

Yale University currently employs 5,118 faculty members.