Ensuring Fit in Faculty Hiring

Abstract

One of the most difficult decisions facing anyfaculty is selecting the job applicant to fill a facultyvacancy. Faculty hope that new hires will stay for manyyears and become productive faculty members. In thisera of modest academic budgets, universities often can-not afford to replace departing faculty ; when funds areavailable, faculties must not fumble their limited hiringopportunities.The turnover costs associated with faculty mis-hiring are substantial. The list of well-known costsassociated with faculty turnover includes such directcosts, as the increased salaries paid to new faculty whenmarket rates exceed current pay levels and such indirectcosts, as the loss of institutional memory and alumniloyalty . The indirect costs associated with faculty mis-hiring are difficult and sometimes impossible to quan-tify. Each faculty ' s goal is to hire applicants who will belong-term assets to their university, thereby reducing theprobability of repeatedly incurring such turnover costs.