What

Why / Research Rationale

1. You are interested in the candidate’s scholarly credentials & work.
2. URI is an intellectually thriving community.
3. URI has flexible and family-friendly policies that aid inbalancing work and life.

Focus on the candidate’s ability to perform the essential functions of the job.

Introduce all candidates to all departmental faculty, preferably in a variety of venues (i.e. job-talk, lunch, informal Q&A, etc.).

Create opportunities for the candidate to meet with departmental and external faculty or community members (such as ADVANCE , theMulticultural Center, the Women’s Center, the Affirmative Action office, etc.)

Avoid leaving underrepresented candidates with faculty who may be hostile to them

Be consistent and schedule equal interview & event times for all faculty.

Refrain from asking inappropriate or illegal interview questions.

To judge a book by its contents not its cover:

• Research indicates that recruiters and interviewers may inaccurately rely on impressionistic (physical appearance, hand-gestures, etc.) rather than concrete information (such as academic achievement or past experience) in making hiring recommendations, often to the detriment of underrepresented candidates (Goldberg & Cohen, 2004; Kinicki & Lockwood, 1985; Murphy, Hall, & LeBeau, 2001).
• As innocuous as impressionistic non-verbal skills may seem, having them bodes better for men than for women (Goldberg & Cohen, 2004). Males with high ratings on non-verbal skills (such as manner of dress and appearance of seeming confident, professional, and pleasant) received higher overall interview assessments than did women with similarly high ratings on the same skills, regardless of ratings on concrete skills.

Regardless of gender, workers from younger generations are becoming increasingly more dual-centric (i.e. weighing family & work equally) or family-centric. Dual-centric employees tend to advance farther in their careers than others, so there may be benefits to having more than one focus in life (Bond, Thompson, Galinsky, & Prottas, 2003).