Supervisor's Guide to Hiring
Before hiring a new employee, managers should follow these procedures for filling a vacant position:
Online Application Training Information
Meeting with your Talent Acquisition Specialist
Selecting Applicants for Interviewing
University of Richmond is dedicated to increasing diversity within the campus community. The University has launched a campaign to become known as an institution that is welcoming of individual differences, and, more importantly, that values the understanding of differences as being key to a dynamic, interactive, and transforming environment for work and education.
As a supervisor or manager, you will play an integral role in achieving this goal. It will be your responsibility to ensure a diverse work force in your unit or department.
As you begin your evaluation consider the following:
- Is the position still needed? Is there a need to upgrade, downgrade, or eliminate it?
- Think about the traits and skills of your current team and determine what will strengthen, complement, and challenge your department.
- Have duties or responsibilities changed?
- Are there special requirements needed to do the job, such as software requirements?
Online Application Training Information
There is a PowerPoint presentation and instruction manual available to assist first-time users. To obtain these materials, contact your Talent Acquisition Specialist
First-time users, contact URHR@richmond.edu to have your account activated.
Returning users may want to verify a username and password by doing a trial log in.
Meeting With Your Talent Acquisition Specialist
Schedule a meeting with your Talent Specialist to begin the process.
Items discussed may include:
- Creating a requisition
- Screening questions
- Advertising — all positions are advertised in the Richmond Times Dispatch,The Richmond Free Press, and The Employment Guide, unless requested otherwise.
- Interviewing
- Testing, if applicable. Any special testing must be approved by employment services before it is administered.
- Reference checking
- Job offers — may be made only by your employment services representative
- Any questions or concerns you may have
Contact your employment services representative if you have questions anytime during the process.
The following information will be needed to complete the requisition:
- Index, account code, and position number
- Name of employee who previously held the position, if applicable
- Job summary — one or two paragraphs that describe the position
- Qualifications and skills required to do the job
- Essential duties of the position
- Educational requirements
- Working hours
- Total hours per year; example:
40 x 52 = 2080
38.75 x 52 = 2015
- Suggested pay range or salary
- Pay period — bi-weekly or monthly
- Will there be a search committee to select candidates for this position?
- Supplemental questions for screening
"Create from Scratch" - use this process for the first-time posting of a position:
- Go to Create Requisition on the left menu and select "Create from Scratch."
- Using the instructions from the PowerPoint presentation create a new requisition.
- Be sure to save and confirm after each page if you are going to continue entering information at a later time. Otherwise, information could be lost.
"Create from Previous" — use if the position has previously been posted:
- Go to Create Requisition on the left menu and select "Create from Previous."
- Make appropriate changes to the previous requisition, such as:
- Job title, if it has changed
- Index or account number, if they have changed
- Name of individual who vacated the position
- Any changes to job summary, requirements, essential duties, education, work hours, and months
- Suggested pay range
- Opening and closing dates
- Questions are an excellent way to prescreen applicants.
- You can search for questions or create new ones; the choice is yours.
- Your employment services representative can provide you with an example of prescreening questions if desired.
- Note that all questions will be reviewed by your Employment Services representative for legality reasons before the question is posted.
If the questions could be answered with "yes," "no," or a multiple choice response, you can assign points to help you rank the applicants.
- Once the application has been completed, click on "VP Approval."
- Vice presidents: after approving, click on "Budget Approval."
All positions must be approved by the Budget Office, before being forwarded for employment approval.
Your employment services representative will review the requisition, make any appropriate changes, and forward to the associate vice president of Human Resource Services for final approval.
Once the associate vice president of Human Resources has approved the requisition, it will be posted in conjunction with the opening date.
Selecting Applicants for Interviewing
It is your responsibility as supervisor or manager to select the best qualified applicants and to ensure a diverse work force in your area/department. Be sure to:
- Review the job description and note minimum requirements.
- Screen out applicants who require a higher salary than is authorized for the position. Consider their current salaries when making this decision; often applicants will state a higher desired salary than they will accept. Call them if there are any doubts.
- It is often helpful to create a ranking chart to record information about each applicant.
- Ignore the applicant's name (numbering applications often helps to track who they are), address, or personal information to limit subconscious biases.
- Be sure to collect all applicable documents for a candidate, including a cover letter, resume, and any other required items.
- Check work experience for applicability to the position, length of time in each position, promotions or awards received, and reason for leaving each position.
- Note gaps in employment, but do not assume they were caused by negative reasons.
- Check special skills.
- Check educational backgrounds, if required.
- Evaluate the answers to the supplemental questions, if applicable.
- Make notes on a separate piece of paper with any pertinent questions that arise when reviewing the resume and application. Ask those questions during a telephone interview.
- Change the status on the system to:
All interview questions must be e-mailed to your Talent Specialist and approved before interviews are scheduled, including questions to be asked by panels or search committees.
It is critical to conduct lawful employment interviews. The guiding principle behind any question to an applicant is: Can the employer demonstrate a job-related necessity for asking the question?
It is the intent behind the question that is important, as well as how the information is used, that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission would examine to determine if any discrimination has occurred.
Ask only questions that are job-related and pre-approved by your Talent Specialist. Be sure the information is really needed in order to judge the applicant's qualifications, level of skills, and overall competence for the job in question.
Generally, problem areas are discriminatory questions that are posed on the basis of the applicant's gender, race, age, national origin, religion, or other non-job related basis.
Prohibited interview questions, for example, would be asking women applicants different questions than male applicants, or asking different questions of married female applicants than single female applicants.
Ask each applicant the same questions and document their answers. Asking all candidates the same core questions helps to ensure that you receive consistent and comparable information from which you can make a defensible hiring decision.
However, it is acceptable, even desirable, to ask follow-up questions that will vary by individual if you are seeking clarification of the candidate's responses or their specific work background. These will be useful later to complete the "Justification to Hire" form and may be used for documentation should an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission suit occur. This documentation needs to be retained for three years.
Telephone interviews may be conducted by calling the applicant directly (it may be beneficial to call and schedule a time mutually acceptable to both of you).
- Briefly describe the position, location, hours, and salary range (if appropriate) and ask if candidate is still interested in being considered. If so, proceed to asking pertinent questions; be sure to document all answers.
- If the applicants are to be scheduled for on campus interviews, change their status in the system to "Schedule for Interview" and notify your Talent Specialist.
Interviews will be scheduled. You will be contacted regarding your interview availability and if applicable travel arrangements for the applicants.
When a candidate comes for an interview, break the ice by being warm and welcoming. Offer coffee, offer to take their coat, ask if they had any trouble finding your office. A couple minutes of general talk will set a positive tone for the interview.
However, don't get off track; the limited time you have together is too valuable to waste on non-job-related small talk. Stay focused on the job and its requirements, not any preconceived assumptions about what the applicant can or cannot do. Remember, any oral statements that the interviewer makes during the interviewing process can lead to potential liability for the University.
Promote the job and the University while keeping your pitch realistic. Unrealistic representation of the job will generally lead to employee dissatisfaction and turnover.
Make sure you elicit questions or provide information that will help to clear up any unanswered questions or doubts that are lingering in your mind or the applicant's mind.
Verify educational credentials, if required for the position.
End the interview on a friendly note and, if possible, inform the candidate of the next step and time frame for a decision.
Upon completion of all interviews, do a comparative ranking of the applicants. Contact your Talent Specialist to discuss the ranking before you proceed. Remember that your Talent Specialist has met with all your candidates too, and may provide you with some helpful insight.
Conduct reference checks for final candidate(s). Use current and prior supervisors over personal references, as they are less biased and more aware of candidate's work performance. Verify that the applicant has given his or her permission on the application to contact their current supervisor. If not notify him or her that you will be contacting the supervisor. You may wish to refer to the Justification to Hire form for guidance on appropriate information to obtain.
Once the interviews have been completed, access the "Justification to Hire" form:
- Complete appropriate information for each candidate that received an on-campus interview.
- State the name of the first choice candidate.
- Provide recommended salary information; note that Human Resources will have the final decision on the salary offered.
- Explain, in detail, why a candidate was chosen over others interviewed.
- If applicable, provide the second-choice candidate's name.
- Provide the recommended salary information for the second-choice candidate; note that Human Resources will have the final decision on the salary.
- Explain, in detail, why this candidate is your second choice.
- Complete the reference information for the first-choice candidate only; if the offer is extended to the second choice-candidate, the reference information should be entered for that candidate at the time of the offer.
- Forward the requisition for vice president approval.
- Alert your Talent Specialist that the "Justification to Hire" form has been completed.
- Once the vice president has approved the decision, your Employment Services representative will review the "Justification to Hire" form and contact the vice president of Human Resource Services for approval.
- After final approval by the vice president of Human Resources, an offer of employment will be made by your Talent Specialist.
The offer of employment may only be made by your Talent Specialist, or another member of the HR team in their absence. The Talent Specialist will work with the new employee to finalize all remaining details for employment, including start date.
Internal applicants are required to give the standard two weeks notice to their immediate supervisors when transferring to a new position. However, in rare cases when their departure may cause a hardship for the department, the individual may be required to stay longer. The extended time will not exceed four weeks from the offer date.