Hiring Hub
The search process at SLCC contains eight steps, starting with writing an engaging position description and ending with welcoming your new employee to our organization. Clicking each step of the search will reveal recommendations and best practices to help you implement inclusive hiring strategies that help minimize bias and bring more talent to our organization. This process varies slightly between part and full-time employees as well as staff and faculty. This guide is meant to exist as a quick reference and does not supersede the applicable policy to these areas.
Mission: Attract, welcome and connect new employees to Salt Lake Community College.
Vision: Engage and inspire a thriving people-centered workplace.
Purpose: Integrate and retain talent by creating a meaningful employee experience through collaborating with supervisors to engage employees.
The position description is our opportunity to outline the work, grab potential candidates' attention, and show SLCC's commitment to our students, EDI values and our workplace culture. Here are a few recommendations to create a successful position description:
- Describe the job being performed, not the individual performing the job.
- Use plain, straightforward language.
- Specifically describe the goal of the position.
- Describe what work is to be completed, the methods used, and the equipment/tools that are necessary to help the job get done.
- Detail responsibilities, supervision requirements and how this position relates to the others in the area.
The job summary is also where candidates are introduced to Salt Lake Community College and how this position contributes to our mission and vision. It's your chance to sell it! Working at SLCC provides so much more than a paycheck; SLCC operates by our values, we offer an amazing benefits package, and we are focused on creating a positive employee experience. Start with why you work at SLCC and use that as a launching point to illustrate SLCC as a destination workplace.
Ask Yourself
- How would a person different from me read this position description?
- Am I using any idioms or sayings that could be written more plainly?
- Have I asked for the perspective of the team this position will work with?
FAQ
Can I use the previous position description if I don't have time to update it?
The position description is your opportunity to ensure that your team's needs are being met by your department. Take time to speak to your team and seek feedback and input from other teams or supervisors. It may be time-consuming, but this is an opportunity to revolutionize your office and update its dynamic.
Who can I ask for help writing an effective job description?
You can look for similar position descriptions in PARS and on the internet from other industries. Ask for feedback from your team and other supervisors. Other campus resources like our EDI Coordinator, Recruitment Coordinator, or the Writing Center may be available. The position description will be evaluated prior to approval and posting, connect with our Compensation team in People and Workplace once you have a drafted position description.
Screening criteria are developed collaboratively from the posting. Focus on inclusivity standards, and prevent structural bias.
Our goal is to include as many applicants as possible in our evaluations. When creating the criteria for a position, it is important to remember that skills and abilities are just as important as degrees, accolades or years of experience. Here are some recommendations for criteria to meet our goal of getting the largest pool of diverse and skilled candidates possible.
Additional Support
In the minimum requirements section, list the qualification “needs” of the candidate. List the types of licenses and/or certificates that the incumbent must hold to perform the duties of the position and any other mandatory requirements. This could be a CDL for truck driving, a nursing license, or a specific degree that prepares the candidate for the responsibilities of the position.
In the preferred qualifications section, list the accolades that would help the department on a larger basis. Keep in mind that the candidates will be focusing on this list to stand out from the rest, so it is best to list skillsets that would lend themselves to the collegewide goals.
Ask Yourself
- Instead of holding firm to classic ideals of a degree and “X” years of experience, think: what does a candidate need to achieve the goal of the position? Are there trade-offs for education or experience that would offer more flexibility?
- In our evaluative criteria, how can we actively include those without a degree or a specific number of years of experience?
- What experiences would make a candidate effective in this position that may be otherwise excluded by my current criteria?
FAQ
Who can I ask for help in establishing the criteria?
When establishing the criteria from the posting, you can work with your EDI Coordinator, departmental colleagues, and HR Employment Coordinator to establish the criteria or write your interview questions.
Why am I writing my interview questions at this stage?
Establishing the criteria for a position helps us outline how we'll conduct interviews and what questions will be asked. Supervisors should have their interview questions written and approved by the Employment Coordinator assigned to your area before the job opening goes live on our website as a best practice.
We take a systematic approach to writing interview questions because we want to eliminate as much personal bias as possible. Asking every candidate the same questions ensures that every candidate gets a similar interview. Although it is not possible to eliminate all biases, we want to create a system where we can mitigate their impact, and writing interview questions ahead of time helps immeasurably with that.
Recruiting is an exciting time. It's an opportunity to evaluate our work and search for talent to help us achieve our institutional goals.
To find such talent, we must actively search out and invite people to join our team. We want every job to have a broad, qualified and diverse candidate pool. Given that we're a community college, we may find many of these candidates in the Wasatch Fronte, but during some searches you may need to consider expanding your reach. In addition, encourage growth from within and don't overlook our greatest candidate pool: existing employees!
As an emerging Hispanic Serving Institution, we are always looking for employees that reflect the community we serve. We acknowledge that equitable hiring and recruiting processes are paramount to authentically serving Hispanic students and providing an educational experience that affirms the identities of our underrepresented students.
National research suggests that student success increases when students see their racial, ethnic and/or gender identity reflected in faculty and staff. Each department and hiring committee must be intentional about broadening our searches and seeking candidates who are committed to inclusion and diversity by creating a recruitment and advertising plan. This guideline documents advertising and recruiting strategies the hiring committee will use to attract a wide range of diverse and qualified applicants. Recruiting and Advertising Plan
Posting Overview
Positions are manually posted to (if applicable):
Positions are scraped from our site and shared to:
Advertising the Position
Everyone is a recruiter at SLCC. Speak to your department's Budget Center Manager about funding your area may have for additional marketing and advertising efforts. Reach out to the Recruitment and Outreach Coordinator or your area's Employment Coordinator to post or advertise your position.
Think about professional networks, yours or those in your area, which can broaden your reach to qualified candidates. In addition, you can find helpful recruitment websites in our Diversity Hiring Resources Guide that you can pay for on pages 10 and 11. We highly recommend using local job boards like SLUG (Salt Lake Under Ground Magazine), KSL.com, and your local Chamber of Commerce.
Priority Level Positions or Hard-to-Fill Positions
LinkedIn: LinkedIn is a social media platform for working professionals to connect and share the progress they are making in their careers. Here you can find job opportunities, leaders in your field, and groups of people that engage in the same type of work as you do. We recommend posting the job application to your personal LinkedIn page and encouraging your employees and supervisors to do the same, if they feel comfortable doing so. This helps us extend our reach to well-qualified people who may never have heard of SLCC or never considered working at SLCC before. Many of our qualified candidates hear about our job postings on LinkedIn from a friend or colleague.
Handshake: Handshake is the hub for all things career-related at SLCC and it is a great recruitment tool for your entry-level roles and required for posting on-campus opportunities, including positions in the Campus Internship Program! Handshake is free and easy to use – simply make a "company/employer" account in Handshake and name your company "Salt Lake Community College – [department name]". Once your account is approved, you're free to post your opportunities for students to see and apply to! By using the "apply externally" link feature within the job posting on Handshake, you can include the link to your posting in PARS so that students can submit applications directly into PARS. Handshake then becomes another marketing tool for you to get your job or internship seen by more students and increase your pool of qualified applicants. Contact Career Services at SLCC with any questions or concerns regarding Handshake.
Job Elephant: Job Elephant is a recruitment and advertising one stop shop. To learn more, visit their website at jobelephant.com
Additional Support
For senior leadership, Recruitment and Employee Experience can create a Hiring Prospectus. A Hiring Prospectus is a document that advertises a position by giving an overview of the workplace culture, community, and position itself. Here is an example of a prospectus that was made for our Chief Diversity Officer position. For details, please reach out to Lauren Erlacher, Manager of Recruitment and Employee Experience at Lauren.Erlacher@slcc.edu.
You can create a post with the link to our application at any time (and we highly recommend you do), but SLCC also owns 10 job slots on LinkedIn that you can request to use by contacting Jacob Ericksen at jake.ericksen@slcc.edu.
Ask Yourself
- What circles would an ideal candidate move in and how can I get the word out to those people?
- How might I actively recruit for diversity?
- How have I found out about past jobs of mine and how could I use that information to my benefit in finding candidates?
Applications are screened according to the screening criteria without interference from cognitive or unconscious bias.
Once the application priority deadline has been reached, it's time to screen the applications for the minimum qualifications from your job posting. A minimum of two members of your search committee must look at each application and, using candidates' credentials, determine if an applicant meets the minimum qualifications. Remember, we are trying to include as many people as possible — if you have a Search Advocate on your search, they should be utilized for this function; they can be an invaluable resource in screening applications.
Additional Support
Speak with the Employment and Justice Coordinator for further assistance in our flexibility with screening criteria. Cultural competency is an important part of SLCC's value of Inclusivity and Trust. Take this LinkedIn Learning course to learn more about how to use cultural competency in the screening process.
Ask Yourself
- Are my screening criteria making it so people with non-traditional experience do not qualify?
- What type of candidate is my screening benefiting? Who is not passing through my screening for the position?
- Who am I excluding and how could I actively try to include them?
- Am I meeting regularly with my Search Advocate to help me in my screening?
FAQ
How do I set up the Excel spreadsheet for screening?
Here is a link to HR's recommended screening spreadsheet.
The hiring committee uses the posting to develop interview questions, we recommend consistent behavioral-based questions to interview the candidates.
One you have a short list (typically more than three) of qualified candidates from the screening step, try to find a natural break in the pool of candidates. Discuss this with your search committee.
Interview questions recieve approval by your HR Coordinator. Once the first round of interviews have been completed, meet with the search committee and get their feedback on the candidates. Make another short list of 2-4 candidates for the hiring manager to interview. Second interviews should be much less formal and more conversational in nature; the committee has selected these candidates for the hiring manager to choose from, so there is no need to re-ask questions that the committee has already put forth.
The structure of the interview helps reduce bias by making sure all candidates are assessed using the same criteria in a similar manner.
Interview Questions
As your hiring committee creates interview questions, consider how they reflect SLCC’s Mission, Vision, and Values statements. There are numerous sites that offer useful behavioral-based interview questions for hiring committees. Share your favorite interview questions at talent@slcc.edu and we will build our own SLCC Interview Questions bank.
Interview Question Links
Ask Yourself
- How would I answer these questions? Am I looking for someone to give me the answer I would give, or am I open to other answers?
- Am I giving preference to candidates in whom I see myself?
- How am I treating each candidate? Am I more warm toward certain candidates? In what ways could I be giving preferential treatment to certain candidates?
- I am told we all have personal biases; how is my personal bias playing into my interview style?
Candidate Experience
If you hold your final interviews in person, we recommend giving each candidate a packet of information about working at Salt Lake Community College. These packets include campus maps, information about our benefits, and work to highlight SLCC as a potential employer. We recommend adding the candidate’s interview agenda and other helpful information as well.
Candidate packets can be picked up from the Talent Acquisition team located at the Taylorsville Redwood Campus People & Workplace Culture Suite, AAB 201. You may also have them intercampus mailed to you by emailing talent@slcc.edu.
If you are inviting your candidates to our campus for their final interviews, we recommend assigning a host to take them to the locations of their interviews. Hosts can use this Talking Points document to help them talk about SLCC and create conversation.
FAQ
How do I conduct myself in interviews?
We advise being warm and welcoming to every candidate while maintaining deference and respect. Our goal is for candidates to choose SLCC. Remember, the way you conduct yourself and the questions you ask show what we value and how our workplace operates. Stay focused on their answers, there is no need to look away from the candidate (especially on Zoom) — stay engaged with them as they answer, they are interviewing us just as much as we are interviewing them.
I want to get interviews done in one day, how can I make the best use of my time?
No matter how rushed your search might feel, try to schedule only 2-3 interviews per day. This gives each candidate the chance to speak with a committee that is ready and excited to hear what they have to say. Block off time for your interviews. Consider each candidate as a potential employee and thoughtfully assess what they can give to your area.
The candidate(s) is/are selected through an analytical and inclusive discussion of priorities and evidence (screening criteria and interview scoring).
Once your final candidate has been chosen, it is time to contact your HR Employment Coordinator to generate the offer letter, salary and start date. Once the background check comes back, your HR representative can walk you through the appropriate way to contact your final candidate and make your offer. Be prepared for a counteroffer and have that discussion with your HR representative. However, there is one more step to complete before making the call to your final candidate: the reference check.
At this point, all your candidates are qualified and your search approves of them. Now, it is your task to review your departmental and institutional goals and use these as a reference point in your final decision.
Ask Yourself
- Am I taking my team's and department's opinions into consideration?
- Whose opinion contradicts my own? Am I working to actively ignore or disprove their stance?
- Will my team feel listened to and supported by my decision?
FAQ
My committee wants me to hire someone I don't think is prepared. What should I do?
Bring this concern to your supervisor and foster a thoughtful conversation with your committee. At SLCC, we are committed to developing our employees, so hiring someone that needs to learn parts of their job is expected. We have many staff/faculty development resources to teach them the parts of their job, the systems we use, or the departments they will collaborate with to be successful.
References are contacted systematically and without structural, cognitive, or personal bias.
Once your final candidate has been selected, it is time to call your candidate's references. Your HR representative can talk you through how to carry this conversation of reference, especially if one of their references is their current employer (refer to page 14 of the Hiring Handbook for reference check guidelines).
Checking references helps you make better hiring decisions and gives a general understanding of how the candidate performed in past jobs. Past behavior is an indicator of future performance. Understand that person giving the reference may give limited feedback.
Regardless of whether the final candidate is an external candidate or internal employee, checking references is important and necessary to verify that the information provided is accurate. Request information that is relevant to the candidate's skills and qualifications in relation to the position.
FAQ
Do I need to contact every reference on their list?
It is not necessary, but we recommend at least three to get as many viewpoints as possible.
I got troubling information, is it too late to change my decision?
HR will run a background check on your candidate. Your Employment Coordinator can help advise you on how to proceed. In addition, our Employee Relations team can give recommendations on how to move forward with your specific circumstance. There are many laws regarding hiring that we must follow, so our Employee Relations team is a great place to start.
Do we need transcripts?
We need a set of official or unofficial transcripts if a degree is required for the position or if their degree is being used for a higher starting salary.
Congratulations! You've successfully hired a candidate for your position. Your role as supervisor is to make a great first impression and set your new employee up for success! Prepare new employee essentials for them and establish what they will need before they arrive for their first day.
System Access
Once you have notified your Employment Coordinator that the offer has been accepted, the first step is to submit a New, Rehire, or Internal Hire Personnel Action Form (PAF). Next, submit a computer access request for your new employee. This way, when your employee starts, they have computer and email access and can start their required training and onboarding on day one.
Your employee's new hire paperwork is completed in the Employee Records Onboarding System. The forms found here can be completed and submitted electronically.
As a part of the hiring process, all employees must verify their employment eligibility I-9 form no later than the employee's hire date. Accompany your employee to the Taylorsville campus Technology Building on the second floor in the Professional Development Center to complete this in-person verification process.
Visit this site with your new hire or invite them on their first day to explore SLCC's Onboarding website. Our Onboarding team will meet with your employee and give them a welcome gift as a thank-you for completing their onboarding forms. It is the hiring manager's responsibility to create a positive and welcoming environment for their new employees; the Onboarding team can assist you in creating a successful outline for their first day, week, month and year.
Additional Support
- Supervisor Toolkit: Onboarding
- Check out our Supervisor's Tool-Kit for hiring with checklists and ideas for onboarding your new employee.
- New Employee Onboarding: Getting Started at SLCC
- Share this with your new employee to guide them through before they arrive, first day, week, month and year.
- New, Rehire, or Internal Hire PAF
- The first, and arguably the most important, step is to submit a ...
- Computer Access Request
- Submit a computer access request for your new employee immediately. It typically takes 3-6 days to complete. Here is the information given in the HR New Hire email for supervisors: (link)
SLCC believes diversity enhances the richness of the educational experience and leads to the understanding of and appreciation for the differences and commonalities in each of us.
Salt Lake Community College is committed to "the creation of opportunities for historically underrepresented populations to have equal access to and participate in educational programs that are capable of closing the achievement gaps in student success and completion."