Tricia S. Smith
I’ll be more specific, because I think sometimes you can say like, search processes are grueling. Yeah, they don’t have to be. I think, one way we need to think about humaneness is that people bring being whole people when they are interacting with us. And as the search university whose has the posting as the organization, we get pretty myopic. And we’re like, Well, this is the job. It’s not untrue that that is a job. But once you get to my organization, I expect you to live as a whole person.

Keith Edwards
Hello, and welcome to Student Affairs NOW, I’m your host, Keith Edwards. We need a new hiring paradigm for Student Affairs. I talked with so many candidates and so many hiring authorities who all share that the traditional approaches are no longer working and the issues they’ve always elicited, are worse than ever. Today, I’m joined by three folks who are all recommended as folks who do hiring radically different. Thank you for joining me today. I’m so excited to learn from you. Student Affairs NOW is the premier podcast and online learning community for 1000s of us who work in alongside or adjacent to the field of higher education and student affairs. We release new episodes every week. On Wednesdays find details about this episode or browser archives and studentaffairsnow.com. Today’s episode is sponsored by Symplicity. A true partner Symplicity supports all aspects of student life with technology platforms that empower institutions to make data driven decisions. This episode is also sponsored by Vector Solutions formerly ever phi, the trusted partner for more than 2000 colleges and universities Vector Solutions is the standard of care for student safety, wellbeing, and inclusion. As I mentioned, I’m your host, Keith Edwards, my pronouns are he him his. I’m a speaker, consultant, and coach and you can find out more about me at Keithedwards.com. I’m broadcasting from Minneapolis, Minnesota at the intersections of the ancestral homelands of both the Dakota in the Ojibwe peoples. Let’s get to the conversation. I’m so grateful for all of you for joining us here today. Let’s begin by learning a little bit about you. And I want to frame this as what sort of the seat of this this was a Twitter rant that I did that also turned into a LinkedIn that got a lot of response and 85 different comments and 85 different shares. And it was so clear that candidates were frustrated with not hearing back with overburdened some process, having to submit things to three different places and hiring authorities were frustrated with the whole process and the cumbersome nature of it. And so this really is there, responded and said, Trisha Smith is doing this right, you should definitely include Tricia. So Tricia, tell us a little bit more about you. As we kick off here.

Tricia S. Smith
Thanks Keith. Hi, everybody, Tricia Smith, I use she and her pronouns. coming to you today from the unseeded territories of the Tupelo and Monacan nations in Radford, Virginia. So I serve as Associate Vice President for Student Life at Radford University down in the southwest corner there. And I’m really excited to be a part of this conversation and to be in this community with you all because you’re all rockstars. And I’m very excited about the conversation. Also, what a topic, I have led and been on and been hiring manager for all kinds of different searches and been in the business for a minute. And so for those who not from the south, that means a long time, by the way, that cultural context. So excited to share some space with you all. Thanks for having me, Keith.

Keith Edwards
Yeah, wonderful. And Chad recommended Tricia and Tricia said, you know we should have is Donald Walker. He is now he was in higher ed. He’s outside of higher ed. And now he can speak truth to power. Donald, tell us a little bit more about you.

Donald Walker
Yes, thank Thanks, Keith. And thanks for mentioning my name. That’s very, very nice to have both of you. I’m Donald Walker. I currently serve as the chief operating officer for DC Green Bank. And so shameless plug we do clean energy financing for to make sustainable projects happen in DC, specifically focusing on financing gaps in generational gaps where black and brown communities just have been left out of the conversation of infrastructure building, wealth building, etc. So when we talk about sustainability and climate change, what’s happening to black and brown communities is that they’re not involved. So we were created by DC government to be able to make that happen. And it’s a big deal because the the inflation Reduction Act is going to be signed probably today. And so that’s going to throw billions of dollars at climate change specifically for in the whole justice 40 initiative. You can look that up. I think it’s a cool thing to look up. But in my role at DC Green Bank, I’ve been here for a little over two years. I’ve been outside of the higher education field officially for a little about five years now. In higher ed, I worked at the University of Delaware, Virginia Tech, and also at Towson University, where I was primarily responsible or I was in Housing and Residence Life. And that’s where I met Tricia at Virginia Tech where I’ve been on the search team and running searches. Since then, I got out of higher ed and started doing some staffing and HR consulting, specifically looking at best practices and how to run your organization effectively because we can talk about staffing and recruiting. But you’d have to talk about what the experiences while people are there as well. And now as CEO at DC Greenbank human resources and a whole bunch of other stuff fall in my realm of responsibility. So really excited to be here and share some some different insights and knowing both sides of the fence pretty well.

Keith Edwards
Yeah, it was we were talking before we hit record, it was pointed out that this might be Donald’s most favorite thing to talk about. This, so glad you’re here. And Shelby, we’ve known each other through several past previous iterations. And you mentioned about doing different ways that you have seen and learned from others and done searches differently. And you’ve just rather recently been a candidate as well. So excited to hear all your thoughts. Tell us a little bit more about you.

Shelby J. Wieners
Thank you, I appreciate it. So my name is Shelby Wieners. My pronouns are she, her and hers. And I am on week three of my new role, which is serving as the Senior Associate Director for University Park residents life at Penn State University. So I’m back at my alma mater, it’s very exciting. And over the course of my career, now, I’ve worked coast to coast and in the Midwest at large state institutions, and have worked my way up through through residence life and have spent a significant amount of time running searches as a search chair, search committee member, a hiring manager, and doing some search, advocacy training as well. And so spending a lot of time in searches and seeing it done really well, seeing it done not so well, and experiencing both ends of the spectrum. And so really pushing for some radical change, because I think that candidates deserve better. And I think institutions deserve the best talent. And so how do we make that happen? And I think that that’s the core question. And I’m really excited to chat about it with with folks in this space today.

Keith Edwards
Awesome. Well, let’s get into it. We’re going to kind of frame this. What’s the challenge? What’s the problem? What are new ways of thinking about it? And some suggestions? So let’s start with what are the challenges in to hiring in student affairs right now we’re talking about COVID. We’re talking about the great resignation, we’re talking about people leaving the field. As Michel Pope reminds us often on our host conversations, people have always been leaving the field, but it’s different now. And, you know, we see pieces in the Chronicle and Inside Higher Ed about how the pool is not very good right now. I prefer to think about that as well. Why is the pool not great? Did you not pay enough? Or you’re not recruiting people? Are you just throwing up barriers? I think one of the things that got some response in that LinkedIn post was me referring to can’t just run people through the obstacle course. Right? And I see so many hiring processes that are just like, yeah, we’ll just make you jump through all of these hoops. And on the other side, we’ll choose which one we want. And that’s not. That’s not how you bring people in. So Tricia, what are some of the challenges we’re facing that you’re seeing that we can begin to move away from?

Tricia S. Smith
Yeah, I so echo what you were saying, Keith, about the the hoops. I feel like for me, one of the things when I think about search season, forget about the humanness, is that a word? I don’t know if that’s where, humaneness of the entire thing. So we say people are the most important. I don’t disagree with that at all. But then we don’t actually treat folks as as humans as they engage with us. And I’ll be more specific, because I think sometimes you can say like, search processes are grueling. Yeah, they don’t have to be. I think, one way we need to think about humaneness is that people bring being whole people when they are interacting with us. And as the search university whose has the posting as the organization, we get pretty myopic. And we’re like, Well, this is the job. It’s not untrue that that is a job. But once you get to my organization, I expect you to live as a whole person and I know, let’s say someone has kiddos I know there are of course legal ramifications of asking those kinds of things during the search process, but if you have kiddos when you come work for me, we’re going to make accommodations. For that we’re going to think about all the friction points. But we’re not doing that in search processes from as much as I can see. I also think this humaneness comes in the form of attribution error, right? Like, it’s kind of like you were talking about the pool, like, hey, there’s something wrong with them. Enough of them, they’re not fitting with, well, that’s human right for us to say, if there’s something wrong, it must be the other person. And so, you know, I think it’s fair to say, like, especially during the pandemic, but I think it’s my opinion, predated that we’re all under crunch at all times. But some of that is the crunch we created. And so why would we let that bleed over into one of our very most important processes that we do? In order to serve students? You want good people, then get clear about what that means? And then the the other part about humaneness, I think, for me is we’re not I don’t think by having a public presentation, three or four or five times in a row, that for some a position, you may or may not fill on that pool, and you got 30, that is a ton of time on your current staff. The load of certain processes on the current team is just, it’s just not fair. And it’s not realistic. And I think some of that might come from, you know, our need to, I want to see everything, and I want to see every aspect and experience these people isn’t really needed. Is it? I’m not sure I argue that it’s not. Yeah.

Keith Edwards
Well, I just go ahead down.

Donald Walker
Oh, I was just gonna jump in in that reminds me of something that I was thinking about when the other day is the humaneness of it, right. And we go through all this, and you’re not thinking about your team, and you’re not thinking about the tax that it takes on the candidate. And the decision maker ultimately has to decide who’s going to be hired, right? And it can’t be. And so what’s the benefit on having someone meet every single person that they may ever come in, into contact with? When we’ve all been on the search committee side to nobody’s reading all of those notes? And then taking it into consideration when when a hiring decision is being made? Because number one, it’s impossible to do. And I think that we have to talk about what’s possible and impossible. But then, on the other hand, are we utilizing, like, you have to think one of the things my CFO says this all the time, and I believe it to be true. Having a business background now is that you have to think about the time clock that’s over top of someone’s head, and that that’s money that’s being spent, right. And so if I have my whole team coming in to do this interview process, and I’m not going to value their opinion, and that’s a waste of time, and money and resources and everything else, and it’s not an it’s not helpful. And so just really thinking about the humaneness of both sides of that, but then also, not necessarily. The other thing that came to mind, too, was, how are you designing a process that really focuses on skills that you need that person to be able to perform? And I don’t think that processes are being designed in that way. It’s, you should know everything about this job. But know that we’re hiring people who have prepared, we’re seeking for propensity to be able to do it, and I can train you on what to do. And so those are just two things that that popped in my head. As you were talking, Trisha, that, when I think about the humaneness of it, it’s all of us have gotten into jobs where we had no idea what we’re doing, I think about my job now, specifically, when they’re like, Hey, you want to do this deal? I was like, Oh, my God, that sounds great. But where in the world do I start? And how do I do that, and that there’s resources and support and everything else out there for you. So don’t expect someone to be able to have everything down through an interview process where you’re just getting to know them.

Keith Edwards
Right, and we have these jobs, and then we’re trying to match a person perfectly to that. But then really, in reality, we should have these jobs as an idea, bring the people in and then and then find where their talents and their skills are and realign things to sort of match that. You’re reminding me what I hear from a lot of employees, not candidates is I don’t want to be treated like an employee or a worker. I want to be treated like a person like and you’re sort of front loading this even earlier in that process. You’re also reminding me I think one of the things that we fall into a lot in student affairs. Gallop strengths talks about includer as a strength and it is but include her in the basement is we need to involve everybody before we do that. anything. And I think sometimes that’s what happens is, you know, we’ve got to invite the entire division to see this. And sometimes it becomes even overly burdensome, where, you know, the three people who work in multicultural affairs are in every single search process, because we want to diversify that hearing. And then that becomes a disproportionate burden on them. How do we do some of that? Shelby what are some of the challenges that you see?

Shelby J. Wieners
I, for me, it comes down to the people. And so I really appreciated us using the word humaneness. I think that’s super important. And something that I’ve seen and I’ve experienced is, is the communication of pieces of what we’re saying we’re doing but our actions are not matching it, or as as a university or what we’re telling a candidate and then again, not not meeting it, whether it is timeline, whether it is you got the job or didn’t get the job. I mean, technically, I’m still waiting for a reply to a job that I applied to back in 2010. Technically, I don’t think I got it. But I think that keeping that sense of Person Centered searches at the forefront is incredibly critical. I think the other part of it is money. Like we were talking about money, we’re living in an economy that is incredibly inflated right now. And even before that student affairs was vastly underfunded. And so I, you know, I think we’ve all experienced and have heard the do more with less, and that includes staffing. And eventually it gets to the point where folks are saying, I don’t want to. And so that’s where I think we get some of that great resignation. And so when I think of like the top challenges, I think of what are the things that are stopping our folks from thriving in a search, sometimes that we want our folks to thrive when they’re employees. And so sometimes that’s money. Sometimes it’s communication. Sometimes it’s the overworking of an interview schedule. Most jobs don’t need an eight hour interview. And if they do, we need to ask better questions. And then I would say, what’s the other part that was I was really thinking about, it’s completely slipped my mind, I’m sure to come to me later. But if we want folks to thrive here, we need to make sure that we’re setting that culture up and the expectation up from the beginning. And so Trisha, something I really appreciate it was you talking about for someone that does have kids like, how are we accommodating that in the search? And then how do we carry that on as an employee? So lots of lots of pieces,

Keith Edwards
one of the things I often telling folks who I coach who oftentimes are considering or thinking about another job or promotion or moving on to something or changing careers entirely, is, don’t just think about the better job. Think about a better life, right? And sometimes I see people get suckered into, oh, that’s a better title. And that’s more pay. And then they realize, like, I have to go live there. And I have to move my family and I leaving my community and friends and people who I enjoy spending time with out of work. And this is a better job with a better title. But it’s not a better life for me as a whole person. And I’m hearing you all sort of say, how do we help people from the very beginning, figure out is this a better life for you would this be a better situation so that you can thrive because if you’re, if it’s a great job, and you’re miserable, other than that, you’re gonna be miserable at work do. But if there’s a fulfilling life around you, or you can create that that’s a very different thing. So I love that we’re centering people and humaneness in this. I keep hearing from folks that we can do this differently. And I remember maybe 10 years ago, saying to a trusted colleague, I said, you know, this search I’m going to do is really important, really get on and get it right. How do you structure your search committee? And my colleagues said, Oh, I don’t do those. I was like, What do you mean, you have a search committee? Why have that everyone in the department gets to meet all of these candidates, they all provide feedback, they all come and talk to me in my office, like, why do I need to have a search committee who also does that? And I was just like, Oh, my goodness, like, Why? Why did Why have I decided we must have a search committee, not that search committees are bad, but like, do they serve you? And I had a great conversation with a group of colleagues who this was about student staff selection, but one colleague said, you know, we did away with the application and represent what oh, yeah, we just found out we weren’t using it. So we just did away with it. We just we have all their information anyway. Someone else said, Well, we did away with the individual interview. What do you mean, you did? Well, we just did a group interview and someone else, we got rid of the group interview. It was such a great reminder that there’s so many things that we feel like have to be part of the process that we don’t rethink and how do we You think everything? What are some of the ways we need to start rethinking some of this? Donald, I know you, you’ve You bragged about doing searches differently in higher ed. And now outside higher ed, what are some of the new paradigms approaches or practices, you would really recommend for higher ed folks that maybe we’re not able to rethink or see, because they’re just so much a part of how we, we’ve learned and been socialized?

Donald Walker
Sure there’s a couple thoughts that come into mind that I thought were in, I’ll talk a little bit about some of the things that I’ve seen since being out. One of the things that we that I think the corporate world has done pretty well, and I’m universally using that some, there’s a lot of places outside of higher ed, they don’t do well, too. And I think that that’s important to note. But one of the things that, that I’ve seen as a really good practice, and something that I’ve really, you know, focused in on is starting your recruitment process, thinking about retention and promotion, is that if this person is going to be here with us for the long haul, because one of the things that I think higher ed doesn’t do well at university is keeping your people and promoting your people that are doing well. Because a lot of times people don’t want to uproot their lives to be able to do more work or to be rewarded for the work that they’re doing already, right. And I’ve read all this stuff online, and I see so many people are getting so many additional responsibilities and everything else like that without the promotion and pay. And I’m like that’s, that’s just wrong, you should not do that. If you’re asking people to do more, you should do your part and say thank you for doing more. And here’s the reward that comes along with that. And so I think that from a recruitment standpoint, you’ve really got to start thinking about retention and promotion. And what are we doing too, because if we get this really good person, I want to keep them, because they are going to do really great work for us, whether they’re here for one year, 10 years, 15 years. And the reason why I think the business world really thinks about it is because a lot of times the business world is about that bottom line. And so it’s cheaper to retain an employee, especially a good one than it is to turn people over, it costs about three times the amount to turn someone over. So thinking about it from that perspective, I think it’s just good practice. And here’s my here’s the unpopular opinion, I might get some tweets or something about this later. Higher education is a business that has to financially succeed to pay you, the people, right. And so in order for that to happen, you have to start thinking about business practices in order for that to do to go really well. The other thing that in backup, just a good example. I have an employee here, we brought him in at a certain level, he did really, really good work. And we created this retention and promotion culture. He came to me when he was ready to be promoted, and said, This is what I’m ready to do. This is what this looks like. I was like, That’s it pretty damn good argument. So yeah, here’s a promotion. And it went really well. And so how do you create that culture is one of the things to think about. The other thing that I was going to say, too, and it goes back to what you were talking about earlier, Keith is this whole obstacle course, godly approach to interviewing, number one that’s not recruiting. And I think that you have to play a role in making people want to be there. And I’m going to shout Tricia out here, way back in when I was going through the process at Virginia Tech, fresh out of grad school, it may be Tricia and see, maybe you want to be there. And I think that’s one of the really big things is that you have to think about what am I doing to make this person want to be here. And then the other part is, not once since I’ve left higher education have I had an interview that lasted more than two to three hours combined. The whole process. And I’m talking about phone screening, interview with whoever I needed to interview with final interview, I just that has never happened ever again, in my whole entire being. And so I’m a senior level executive

Donald Walker
of a company and it took two and a half hours for them to make a decision that that’s what I should be doing. And and I think that there’s merit in that because you have to be decisive, and you have to create it and it was not ever overly cumbersome for me in that process. So I think those are just some of the new paradigms just as I think about it on what works really well. That higher ed should really consider

Keith Edwards
awesome, Shelby, what are some of the things you know, you were just a candidate? I’ve been doing a lot of searches, what are the what are the revolutionary ways we can think differently about this?

Shelby J. Wieners
I mean, I’m a big why person and so I like asking why. Why do we do this? Who does it benefit? actually who doesn’t benefit? And so my something that I always keep in the back of my mind is, is this because we’ve always done it this way? Is it because it is actually effective? Most of the time, it’s not. And so asking those questions, I think is really critical. And so even just having the idea of a person centered search is a paradigm shift, because it’s no longer about perhaps the institution, or the department or whatnot, finding the quote, unquote, best fit, which in and of itself, is can be problematic. But finding someone who can do the job who’s trainable and we are trusting and relying on each other as a department or a unit to make a decision, keep it moving, and fill fill our vacancies in a way that we can now create the culture that we’re looking to create. And so I, I mean, one of the best searches that I was ever a part of as a candidate, lasted a total of four hours. So it was for interviews four 45 minute interviews over the course of one day, throughout the day, so that it was all virtual, so that I could have breaks. Granted it part of it was because of COVID. But it is a practice that I think can continue in a lot of ways. Something that I said earlier, if we aren’t able to make a decision about someone based upon an eight hour day, we’re not asking the right questions, and that’s on us, or we don’t have the right job description, and that’s on us. Or we’re not trusting our colleagues. And that’s a bigger conversation that we need to have. And so I think asking those questions and shifting from from that gauntlet that we’ve all experienced, and all have talked about, I had it in my notes, we’ve used obstacles so many times, and it’s so pervasive, or the create this for us presentation, which is essentially unpaid labor, or, you know, present on this arbitrary topic, or what is your favorite salad topping, whatever it may be, I think that all of these are, they’re not getting the best candidate. It is I think, I think it plays to dominant identities. And I think it plays to specific personality types that thrive in pressure or thrive in a light centered environment and thrive in a extroverted environment. And so if we want the strongest teams, and if we want the best teams, we have to create an environment where candidates can be their best and they can thrive. Because that’s when we’re going to see the best of someone at their what, how they’re possibly going to show up at work. We want that whole person to show up at work. And so I’ve just resonated with a lot of what everyone has said, I’m like, yeah, yeah, taking notes myself, it’s fantastic. But then something else that I would say that is, is having search advocates, I think can be really helpful. So I you know, checking our own biases is necessary and hard. But having someone there to keep us accountable is really important. And I think the Keith to a point that you were making about small search committees or no search committees, the best search that I’ve ever run, there were three of us, I was the chair, we had two folks. And so while we had to have a search committee by policy, pushing on it and getting as small as possible, because people were going to meet the candidates other ways. And not everyone needs to be at. So just a lot of what we’ve echoed or resonated with already, but really challenging what HR might have to say or asking the why. And I think for me, that is really, really important.

Tricia S. Smith
Question about you used search advocate. And I think that each of us might have a different definition of that, like, what, what exactly would that person do or has done in a way that was helpful for you?

Tricia S. Smith
Yeah, that’s a great question. Thank you. So the way that I’ve seen a search advocate, incredibly helpful, has been someone who has been in all the conversations with the search committee, and so they have not necessarily participated in screening. They have not necessarily participated in review of materials or interview days, but they come to all the search committee meetings. And if someone says, like, you know, I just don’t think that person is the right fit. They throw up the proverbial flag and say, I need you to think about what you just said. And let’s, let’s unpack that. And it’s in the moment. Essentially, person who’s willing to challenge its white dominant culture to be quite honest. And someone who also is advocating for the candidate, so anything that’s coded language or in or biases, like there was a training that we went through that had the 10 most common biases that show up in in searches and whether it’s the halo effect, or the similar similar effect, or first candidate, last candidate, all of those pieces, and really willing to sit with with the committee, and go through feedback and flagged things as with us, and then also as we’re processing.

Tricia S. Smith
Yeah, thank you for that. I really appreciate.

Keith Edwards
Yeah. And and thank you for the question, Trisha. It’s reminding me though, that how important having this growth mindset is, because if I don’t have a growth mindset, that search advocate can be scary, and threatening. Like, they might point out that we’re not doing it, right. Whereas we have a growth mindset. Now it’s exciting, this person can help us do better and help us notice our biases and, and better serve the candidate. So I think getting out of trying to prove that we’re right. And that perfectionism can flip that into an asset that we’re excited about, rather than something that we hope we don’t mess up. And we hope no one notices, right. So I think creating cultures of learning is a really important part of it, you’re also reminding me that we’ll, we started adding a presentation, which is not always a great idea, but we started adding a presentation. And it was so helpful, because it put the candidates in a different thing. And what I realized is, we were basically hiring based on who could sit a round a circular table, and talk to eight people over and over and over and over and over again. And that is a skill. Some people are very good at it. Some people are not, but we’re basically hiring people could use it at the front of the table, and talk to eight people. And that was like 5% of the job. So what a mismatch of evaluation and the actual role. And presenting was more a part of the job, we got to see how people could present which is about their ability to put together slides and tell a coherent story. But it was also about their ability to answer questions and engage with people and say, that’s a really great question. I don’t know. So how do we think about what is the job here? And how do we create opportunities for people to do that, or approximate that as the search to help guide us,

Tricia S. Smith
you totally hit the nail on the head with what is the job call? Right? On the flip side, candidates come to campus and they’re to do a presentation I’m like, But why it’s an administrative position, they’re not going to present when, or why, you know, or we’re going to have them present to the entire division, when they’re going to be a student program, deliver, have them to students and get student feedback on if that worked. You know, so just flipping that, like being really clear, I think one of the things that I’ve started doing with my director level searches, is, I will probably call it writing sample. So you know, usually it’s like, all day, all day all day and eat lunch with people, you know, like you’re actually going to eat, also interview. So we actually give them 90 minutes in a room alone, closed door, no window, here’s the menu, order what you want, we’ll have it ready for you in the room, take your jacket off, take your shoes off, I don’t care. No one can see you set up a laptop. And we do a writing sample. And for me, what that has looked like is for a recent search, I have gotten some grant money. And so I knew this money was coming. It wasn’t something that we had advertised with the posting. But I said what would you do? If you got an extra $50,000 per year for the next three years to impact these two outcomes that are goals of mine for this office? Free write. I’m not looking for is this formatted correctly? I’m just I’m gonna give you an open space and let your dream and see where you might overtake us. But that was just the start of my one on one conversation with the candidate the end of the day. Talk to me about your sample, what do you like about it? What would you have done if you had more time? Now that you’ve had a couple hours, maybe you’re still thinking about it, what’s coming up, so it builds off of itself? Another thing I do is, I keep hard things. So like during the year, you know, like all of us have people in these positions. Now. If a hard thing comes up, keep that in a little file to use as a search option. So I have a particular email that I got from a faculty member. And the faculty person was asking the diversity and inclusion director basically how to set up their class because there was some sensitive topics with the person she was bringing in to speak. This is one of those there are no right answers. And it’s not in the person’s job description. But it’s a pretty typical email Hey, only two person diversity person on campus can you helped me not mess it up. And so use that as the writing sample, I changed the names, of course. And so you’ve just received this email from a faculty member, you’ve got 30 minutes or whatever, an hour before your next meeting. What are your thoughts on how you might respond? So I really, I found great value in that. And the thing about it is, again, as you said, it goes back to the position description. I know for a fact, my directors are asked to turn around written whatever’s frequently this morning, we were crunching on assessments, like, we have to have these in by Wednesday, everyone’s typed up typing. So it just feels really applicable. And if I can’t, Donald, I’m going to throw out something because you made me

Keith Edwards
before you do that, I want you to do that. But before you do that, I just want to, I love this. Keeping hard things a mentor of mine 20 years ago said, when things are really bad, keep all the things keep all the files, someday you’ll be a faculty member, and we’ll call it a case study. And we’ll change all the names to protect. So just I love that notion that when things are when you have those tough moments in the job, or there’s conflict or there’s pushback, you have to deal with that. But you can also be like, Oh, this might be really useful someday. And bring a little bit into that. So I love that. So Tricia, you were gonna put Donald on the spot, which I love it,

Tricia S. Smith
do it. Yeah. And show me the section pulls on something you just said as well about like, question, are we asking good questions. And Donald was like, tight use of time? Why are we not giving people some questions up front? Like one? Like, send them here the four questions that we’re going to start the interview with? Yep. And then we’ll see where like, why can’t they prepare? Right? Yeah. Wouldn’t we actually be able to see the best of them? I’m not trying to surprise people. And be like, ooh, gotcha. Or or not, you know, I want people to feel confident coming in, because I know they’re going to be able to bring out some of those walls. I don’t know if you guys see that in your spaces, or would find that valuable. But I think why wouldn’t we?

Tricia S. Smith
Yeah, go ahead, Donald.

Donald Walker
Okay, I was gonna say, I find that incredibly important and helpful. Actually, we don’t necessarily give everybody all of the questions that we’ll ask, but I do tell every single candidate and then just have what you need to be prepared to talk about. And the reason why I’m telling people, what you need to be prepared to talk about is because when you look at a job description, or you’re looking at different things, and it can go all over the place, and there’s so many different things that you’re going to cover in your job day to day. And 95, if not more percent of the time, you are actually prepared to answer what it is that you need to answer day to day, there’s yes, there’s emergencies that pop up, yes, there’s things that you have to respond to. But I even think about it in higher education. When I was working in housing forever, like I knew the types of things I was going to have to respond to on a pretty frequent basis. And those things did not change, right? Like the circumstances may change, the players involved change, but this, but the gist of what needed to happen was always consistent. And so I think about that to hear in this world. And I think the more we can prepare people for what it is that they’re what we need to know, the better and not waste time on the things that we don’t necessarily need to know. And I think, Trisha, what you were just talking about, is, you know, you’re asking your directors to do something that they would actually have to do gives you a better idea on how they’re going to be able to tackle that type of job. And I think that those things are always really important.

Tricia S. Smith
Yeah, I was just gonna share as well. So clearly, this was a point that resonated with all of us go team. And and say that the best searches that I have ever been a part of as a candidate, I was given the questions ahead of time. And even if it wasn’t the day before, but 10-15 minutes. One, I think it calms folks, nerves. I think it allows folks to recenter on what the feeling of that conversation is going to look like. And to your point, Tricia, this is not a gotcha moment. It shouldn’t be if it is, then we’re weird. We’re mean. That’s because this is about again, finding the best people. And so, yes, I think that giving questions beforehand, even if it’s the 15 minute break before the next interview, which I think there should always be a break before the next interview. I think that is person centered and really, really important.

Keith Edwards
Yeah. I sort of want to remind folks who are doing these processes that you’re not just trying to hire the candidate who will then work for you. You want to treat these people who you don’t hire well, because if you come around my first search out of graduate school, I interviewed a Kansas State, and Todd Clark and Derek Jackson weren’t great to me. They didn’t offer me the job. But they were great to me. And they were kind and they were helpful. And they treated me like a human being. And I ended up serving on ACPA commission for I was in residence life with them, connected with them, and other ways still connected to them, see them at different conferences. And when people say, Oh, I’m thinking about doing this with so and so I’m like, oh, yeah, they’re great. And so even though it was not a match, in terms of that particular job at that particular moment in time, because the search process was a good experience for all of us, it has continued to serve. And even people beyond when people leave higher ed, right. They’re still connected. Here we are. Tricia is recommending Donald to be on a podcast for Student Affairs NOW. People are connecting Chad remember to search, right? We’re it was a good experience, and that you are doing things differently. So let’s remember, it’s not just about who’s the winner, and we make sure that they want the job, which is important. But let’s treat all the people in this process. Well, the biggest complaint I got in that post was I never heard from people. I never heard from HR. I never heard from the search chair. I never heard from the hiring authority. Like I don’t need someone said every candidate who spends time on campus, every Final should get a 30 minute processing interview about what well, it didn’t go well. Yeah, I think that’s great. How about just like a forum email, though? Yeah, I’m just sorry, didn’t work out. Good luck. Next time would be great. Candidates understand, like, we know you’re bringing three people, you know, and if I don’t get it, I don’t get it. That’s fine. No hard feelings. But like, Don’t leave me hanging and turning down other opportunities. The ghosting of candidates was the number one frustration. Yeah,

Donald Walker
thank you. One of the things that I will point out, when I was working in student affairs in running a search, it was a Residence Life search show there’s 8 million applicants for you know, the one or two jobs we had.

Keith Edwards
I don’t anymore. Yeah, not anymore.

Donald Walker
But I was processing through applications. And every single week, I would contact candidates to let them know where they stood in the process. So you are out you are out. And I was instructed by senior leadership not to do that. And not to respond to candidates that were out of the process. I broke the rules. And I did it anyway, because I’m like, that’s just that doesn’t feel great. And that’s not right. And so I think message to senior leaders don’t give that instruction, because the ramifications of it are horrible for your school and what you’re doing and everything else. And that’s just that just doesn’t sit well. I wanted to throw something else out here. If you don’t mind. I’m gonna take a because I’ve been thinking about, you know, advice for, you know, what paradigm shifts need to happen. This is going to be real radical here. But here we go. I think you need to get rid of the on campus interview. And the reason why is because number one, it creates this space where you have where you have to fill their time, right? Because you start feeling bad because their time isn’t being filled with all of the things. Number two

Keith Edwards
all the way here.

Donald Walker
Right? Yeah. And number two, it’s financially prohibitive for so many people, especially if we’re talking about people who are making like under 70 $75,000 a year. In the corporate world, if you’re going to go move to a new town and you’re interviewing at a job somewhere, you might not ever see that workplace beforehand. And then there’s implications for that. But I think that most of the time, it works out pretty well because you can get enough information that you need to gather that I don’t need to see Stephen’s hall or whatever it is right like that I might step foot in twice in my whole tenure on that campus. The other part is, is that if you are going to bring people to campus, you need to 100% foot the whole bill right from upfront, and do not ask for if you turn me down, you gotta give me part of the money back where you have to pay all the money back or there’s all kinds of those things that I remember and I don’t know if that’s outdated or not. So if it is correct me and I’m cool with that. But there’s this whole like if you’re coming to campus, you have to foot the bill before you get there. That does not happen outside of higher education. If you want me to come through the interview process. They pay for you to come they pay for a nice flight, they pay for your transportation to make sure that you can get where you need to go. They pay for all your meals, they pay for your hotel, they pay for your family to come with you if that is something that you want to do. They do they set you up with realtor they set you up with all of those different things that you personally need in HR is in the front helping to lead What do you need and the company picks up the bill for that whole process because they recognize that it’s small, it’s pennies in the bucket here for something that they’re going I get a really good candidate for.

Keith Edwards
Well, I love these radical ideas about doing away with search committees, I think that was mine via colleague about keeping it to two and a half or four hours to problem posing writing breaks, to not doing it. And I think, you know, the Zoom has really changed that. I’d also challenge conferences, and the cattle call at conferences. And who gets to do that? Who doesn’t get to do that? Who does that support? Who does? What kind of personalities, right, the, I will be favoring extroverts who thrive and are energized by that. And differently, we’ve got a little bit of time here, before we move to wrapping up. And I just would like to get from each of you real quick. We’ve talked a lot about what processes can do differently. Let’s just real quick, what suggestions would you have for candidates? What what how would you help candidates navigate this current environment, which to be honest, as the candidates market pools are smaller, there’s more competition, if you’re a candidate, and you have options, your ability to negotiate and ask for things and get them is different than that has been, in my entire experience in higher ed, Student Affairs, Shelby? What tips would you have for candidates to navigate? As you just did this?

Shelby J. Wieners
Yeah, um, I would say ask the challenging questions. I think that we say that a lot as folks who coach people, or maybe who have coach people. But I really mean it, like you want to find the place whose values align with your personal values to the extent that they can. And so figure out what your non negotiables are your your personal, non negotiables, in regards to your values and ask those questions. And, I mean, that can feel really odd in an interview when we’re supposed to be the one who’s being interviewed, but really, really recognizing that folks who are interviewing are also interviewing that institution and institutions need to step up, and really take ownership of the fact that these are their processes, and it needs to be about the people. And so I would say ask them questions, and be willing to sit in that, that discomfort for a few minutes. While that happens. I think it’s okay, if interviewers squirm a little bit to be quite honest, because that means that they’re probably they probably don’t have a canned answer for something. The other part is, I see it so often, especially right now, and people’s fatigue and feeling burnt out. And gaslit even is that folks have so much to offer. They have so many skills that they have, they have transferable skills, they they know more than they think they do, and they have more experiences than they think they have. And so that imposter syndrome, I have just talked to so many folks who are trying to transition and that imposter syndrome right now just seems like a huge mountain. And so just encouraging folks to recognize that the fact that they have gone through a pandemic, and still working in higher education, gives you skills to do the vast majority of jobs, period. And so recognizing that, that your worth is not based on an interview, but asking those challenging questions and recognizing that you you are enough and that you have more than you think you have in your back pocket. I think it’s really important and really powerful to remember. And if you can’t tell, I’m an empathetic people person. Really coaching folks in that regard to be successful candidates. Because I think there’s just a really in stable unsteadiness right now. And so really trying to reinforce folks is skills, knowledge and abilities, because it’s all there. Yeah.

Keith Edwards
we have to make these reciprocal processes. It can’t be about an organization finding the right person, it’s about the person, is this the right organization for me? And how only How do we encourage candidates to that, but how do we create processes where we’re coming to a mutually beneficial conclusion? Because if if the organization if Shelby hires me, and I’m not right for the role, I’m not right for the organization, I’m not right, for all of those things that I’m going to leave soon. And now you got to spend all this money to bring them in and do it all over again. So how to make these reciprocal processes and it’s just we ask questions of our bosses that make them squirm. That’s the job right? Yeah, why not do it in an interview? Let’s see how that goes. And how people respond to that. That’s that’s the nature of it. Tricia, what tips would you have for candidates or never Yeah,

Tricia S. Smith
um, you know, I, I love all of that shall be I would add Know thyself, know thyself, you are not everything. You weren’t meant to be everything. So get really clear about what are the three or four things that are like, you’re gonna get this from me every day, day in and day out, and then come up with three or four examples to prove that for every single one of those, and then last, yes, because you can say it, but like, trust but verify, right? Give me an example. And the step I would go even one step further than that is nurture thy people. So if you’ve asked someone to be a reference, that is not enough. I get emails quite often. Hey, can I list you. For what? So if I’m a reference, I want to be told what is the position and not just send me the position description, but like, boil it down? What is it that truly you’re interested in? So I can speak to that? And then if you came up with those three or four things, tell them to me? Because I want to be able to affirm the whole point of this is if there’s going to be a no, I’m going to make the No, I’m not going to let the campus tell me, No, I’m going to make them. Here’s all the evidence of why I can do and even in my blind spots, right? Like, if there’s a thing, I am not good at this. But here are three examples in my past of how I’ve built teams that can help cover that gap or how I have collaborated or partnered, and tell that to your references. So they can amplify the same things.

Keith Edwards
Donald, what would you tell candidates.

Donald Walker
So that Trisha and Shelby are two of the smartest people I know, I should just leave they nailed it. That was that was awesome for my candidate side, and really thinking about yourself and knowing yourself and putting yourself out there and knowing that you’ve got all these skills and everything else that you might not know about. But then also knowing like where your gaps are, and everything else. And I think being true to that. I think I’m going to try to take a little bit of a different spin here, maybe. But I read a lot of online posts and a lot of communities online and things that exist out there. And I think that number one, candidates, you have to realize that if you are transitioning into a different place, it’s your responsibility to tell the story on why you can do X, Y and Z. Right? So you can’t just assume, Oh, my resume is so awesome. And I have all these skills in that. I don’t understand why they didn’t hire me. Yeah, but you got to you have to take the responsibility to tell that story. And don’t assume that somebody can fill in the gaps. Because when there’s a gap, then people make up whatever story they want to put into that gap. Right? I think the other part of that, too, is it’s a hard world out there. And as much as you might think that you’re qualified for a job, you’re not qualified for every job that’s out there and expect it when you get the job, it’s a great thing. But when you don’t, that’s also a great thing, because you can learn something through that process. And you’re not going to be everything for everyone get there’s always a candidate that can do it better, no matter what. Right. And I think it’s a hard pill to swallow. But that’s one of the ones that I think is is really important. The last two things that I’ll say that I think are really important, because I see it happening online, and the online community is great. But number one, please, you should refrain from giving legal advice, especially about human resources, topics and things like that, that you have no idea what is happening, right. I think that too many times people are giving advice. That’s just bad legal advice and bad ways to run things. And there are a lot of rules that exist in the world, and how people are treated and everything else. And so take some time to learn what those things are. Because most of the time people aren’t out to get you. They’re just trying to follow the rules and their interpretation of what those things are. And the way that one university interprets HR rules is completely different than the way that another one does. And so those things are not universal across the board. There are guidelines, and then the people that work at that university get to decide what those guidelines are. So what applies at your school does not apply at the next school does not apply at this corporate company. Especially like understanding sizes of organizations, because the bigger you are, the more rules you have to follow. But the smaller you are, the less rules you have to follow. So there’s there’s some of that. And then one of the things in point of privilege here, sorry, everybody, but I’m going to do it. I see a lot of posts about HR works for the university, not for you. That’s not true. They work for both. You work at the university so they work for you to right. They a lot of times people just don’t get the answer that they want to hear. But keep in mind that they’re they’re keeping things illegal, and 99% of the time they run it by the officials who have to stand up for the university for whatever it is that might be if you’ve been mistreated by all means stick up for yourself. Find the help that You need, etc. And I will always, always, always advocate for that. But on the same token, know, if it’s just a really bad situation, and you’re getting the bad end of the stick of it, which happens. And that sucks. And I will talk to anybody ever if you need help with that, but those are my candidate advice points.

Keith Edwards
Awesome. Well, we’re running out of time. So her so real quick. This podcast is called Student Affairs now we always like to end asking our guests, what are you thinking about troubling pondering now might be this conversation might be something beyond it. And then if you want to share where people can connect with you, that’d be great. So, Donald, what are you pondering now?

Donald Walker
I think the biggest things that I’m thinking about is, you really got it across the board, if you are in hiring in student affairs, you have to consider pay benefits and flexibility. And in how are you going to radically change the system. So that gives the students benefit the most, and that you can’t have worn out people trying to do all this work in the first sign of that is wearing people out before they even get there. So you got to do that. And if you are going to wear them out, then you got to pay them a whole lot more than then what you do and right, because there has to be some type of push and pull there. The other thing that I will also say is like, don’t be afraid to hire a consultant. One of the things that I think that I’m learning more and more and more in the outside world is that number one, I don’t have time, and number two, somebody else can probably specialize in this. And so I think finding people who can specialize in that, and then also know different spaces and know how to navigate the HR space altogether, can be really, really beneficial for you in your search processes. As you learn and develop your organization, sometimes bring somebody in with some fresh eyes, to take a look at it and figure out what you can do better to make your experience better for the candidates that are out there.

Keith Edwards
Great. Shelby, what are you pondering now?

Shelby J. Wieners
Opening, obviously, this weekend. Um, but I think for me, just really hearing what folks have said, and thinking about how all of these amazing ideas can be implemented here and at a different institution. And so a lot of my examples came from previous experiences, but how can we do them here? How can we continue to do them better? What strategic and critical conversations can I have? But really thinking about some of these these great ideas and, and recognizing that it might take a little bit of time, but in our roles are in my role, specifically, it’s my job to to spend time on these things. And it’s my job to think of these things and to feel that tension. And to use that to pull us forward and sometimes push us forward and ask those hard questions and, and remembering the people at the core of all of it. So yeah, thank you about what we can do here at my current institution, and how we can continue to make it better for candidates and compiling all of the wonderful things that both Tricia and Donald have shared.

Keith Edwards
Awesome. Tricia, how about you?

Tricia S. Smith
Yeah, um, gosh, just thanks so much good stuff, so much good time and community. I have been thinking a lot lately about stewardship, I was reading some stuff about stewardship of our earth of our community of our, our natural resources. And it has just made me think about stewardship and in the work environment as well and the potential for decoupling your identity from the work if you consider this an honor of stewardship to hold this seat for this moment, none of us are promised that this just got me going down multiple paths thinking about this idea of stewardship. And so we’d love to stay connected with people if you want to have feedback or talk more. I’m on Twitter, talk to Tricia on everything, talk to Tricia. So find me would love to stay engaged with any viewers or listeners as well.

Keith Edwards
I love that I’m hearing a little Patty Perillo influence there with the stewardship and being of service. And also, you’re reminding me, one of the themes that keep coming back to Steve Herndon saying on this podcast, got to separate our identity from our work roles. And we’ve gotten a lot of bad messaging around that and student affairs and it actually makes us more effective, better decision makers and all of us that you you are not your job. That’s what we’re talking about separating those identities. I know Donald wanted to get in where can people contact you?

Donald Walker
Yeah, I am on you can find me on Twitter. I’m never on there. But send me a message. I’ll see, its at DDUB903. I’m also on LinkedIn. W Donald Walker, interview emails the way If you’d like to go you can hit me at Donald at 3dbusinessconsultants.com.

Keith Edwards
Awesome. And shall we? How about you?

Shelby J. Wieners
Yeah. So I’m only on Twitter to watch everything I rarely post. If I do, it’s usually about my dogs. But I am on Twitter. It’s my first and last name so Shelby Wieners, and so you’re, you’re welcome to find me there or on LinkedIn. If you want to email me. Great. Just know I get a lot of email, but it’s SJW5029@psu.edu.

Keith Edwards
Or you can get that do you want memorized already? Oh, yeah, it was so many forms. Well, thank you all so much. I really appreciate it. This has been terrific. And you’re reminding me to really be people centered in these processes. And also we can rethink everything. We don’t have to change everything, but we can rethink everything we can. All the different pieces we can we can do things differently. Thanks to all of you for the fabulous conversation and thanks to our sponsors of today’s episode Symplicity and Vector Solutions. Symplicity is the global leader in student services technology platforms with state of the art technology that empowers institutions to make data driven decisions specific to their goals. A true partner to the institution’s Symplicity supports all aspects of student life including but not limited to career services in development, Student Conduct and well being student success and accessibility services. To learn more, visit Symplicity, or connect with them on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. And how will your institution rise to reach today’s socially conscious generation, these students report commitments to safety well-being and inclusion are as important as academic rigor when selecting a college it’s time to reimagine the work of student affairs as an investment, not an expense. for over 20 years Vector Solutions, which now includes the campus Prevention Network, formerly EverFi has been the partner of choice for more than 2000 colleges, universities and national organizations with nine efficacy studies behind their courses. You can trust and have full confidence that you’re using the standard of care for student safety, well being an inclusion, transform the future of your institution and the communities you serve. Learn more at vectorsolutions.com/studentaffairsnow. And as always, a huge shout out to our producer Nat Ambrosey, who does all the work behind the scenes to make us look and sound good. If you’re listening today and not already receiving our weekly newsletter, please visit our website at studentaffairsnow.com. Scroll to the bottom and add your email to our MailChimp list and check out the archives while you’re there. I’m Keith Edwards. Thanks again to our fabulous guests today and everyone who’s watching and listening. Make it a great week. Thank you all.

When you collapse an accordion item and save, it will automatically display collapsed in front end