Recruitment and Hiring Guidelines: Search Documentation

The Office of Federal Contract and Compliance Programs (OFCCP) requires NIU to collect and store certain information about job searches. Some of the information is captured by NIU's applicant tracking system (ATS), which is hosted by PeopleAdmin. Departments must collect the rest of the information and store it for at least two years from the date the record was made or the personnel action was taken, whichever is greater.

Departments should use the AAEO SharePoint channel to store working drafts of required documents. This provides departments a secure space for all hiring and recruitment information, and for them to easily collaborate internally and with AAEO on affirmative action and equal opportunity documents. Departments must also store final copies of documents on the SharePoint channel. In the future, departments will be able to upload final copies to the ATS instead.

If you have any questions about search documentation, email AffirmativeAction@niu.edu.

Required Documents/Information

The ATS gathers the following:

• Position qualifications
• Expressions of interest
• Demographic data

Departments are responsible for collecting and storing the following:

• Advertisement announcement: copies of advertisements to be posted or shared to external locations such as websites or listservs.
• Advertisement screenshots: copies of the postings of the official advertisement announcement on external locations.
• Evaluative criteria: assessment tools developed and used for any stage of a search, including evaluation forms (e.g. phone/screening, finalist/campus). Search committees should use the evaluative criteria in the PeopleAdmin ATS for the initial evaluation of applicants.
• Good faith efforts/diversity plan information:
  • Documentation that outlines good faith efforts followed related to diversity and affirmative action compliance procedures.
  • Affirmative Action Plan (AAP) data.
  • Departmental EEO reports.
• Phone/screening interview questions.
• Finalist/campus interview questions.
• Finalist itineraries and interview schedules.
• Reference check questions.
• Summary narrative: detailed description of the entire search process, including:
  • An outline of the search timeline and process.
  • An analysis of the finalists' interviews, including detailed descriptions of each finalist's strengths and weaknesses according to the position qualifications.
  • The rationale for the final decision (e.g. rationale for proposed hire and what happens next), including a description of the subsequent proposed hires should previous recommendations decline.

Folder Organization

We created a set of folders for each division in the AAEOE SharePoint channel:

• Division folders contain folders for colleges and departments.
• College and department folders contain folders for faculty and staff searches.
• Faculty, staff, student, extra help folders should contain job search folders organized by fiscal year (FY21, FY22, etc.)
• Job search folders are named for the position title and number (example: Assistant Professor, Finance - 5757) and contain subfolders for required documents.

Departments can create additional subfolders in the job search folders and upload and download documents as needed.