Staff Recruitment

Purpose:

The purpose of this page is to communicate the policies, procedures, and resources for the recruiting of benefits-eligible classified and A&P staff within the College of Liberal Arts.

Relevant Definitions:

Staff: For purposes of this article, refers to UT benefits-eligible employees in paid classified or Administrative & Professional (A&P) positions.

• Note: There are generally two kinds of benefits-eligibility:

  • State (TX) benefits-eligibility: requires continuous employment of 20 or more hours per week for 135 consecutive days, with the exception of most jobs requiring student status.

  • Federal benefits-eligibility: Under the U.S. Affordable Care Act (ACA), a worker can qualify as benefits-eligible by working an average of 30 or more hours/week within any consecutive 90-day period. (This might not be precisely the correct wording as to how this is measured and monitored, but suffice it to say that we won't allow appointments of 90 or more days at 30 or more scheduled weekly hours (SWH) without a recruitment.)

• Benefits-eligible staff can be either salaried or hourly, but the strong preference in COLA is to hire benefits-eligible staff into salaried (monthly-paid) positions as it makes it easier to track Teacher's Retirement System (TRS) and Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) compliance, as well as ensuring consistent pay and accruals of paid time off.

  • Exceptions should be well-justified and require the assumption of additional monitoring and updating responsibilities at the unit/department level.

Recruitment: The process of posting a job, reviewing applicants, selecting finalists, conducting interviews, checking references, extending job offers, and finalizing the hire of a new employee. 

• The only benefits-eligible staff that are permitted to be hired without a recruitment are temporary A&P research positions (Research Fellows and Postdoctoral Fellows; see also). 

Job Posting: advertisement; publicly-available communication detailing an available job, its describing, its requirements, and application instructions.

Recruiter: person with the Workday security role of "Recruiter" for a given sup org; this role enables individuals to post and unpost jobs and grant access, as needed, to additional individuals/recruitment committee who will participate in application review and screening (done by adding them as Recruiting Viewers; see Candidate Management WIG p.2)

Relocation: providing monetary resources to offset costs of moving to Austin for work. All requests must be approved in advance of verbal or written offers. For university policy on relocation payments and tax implications, please see 9.1.11. RELOCATION EXPENSES.

Our College guidance on staff relocation:

• For any departmental/unit self-funded relocation requests for up to $6k, pre-approval requests are sent to the Director of HR for approval. 

• For any departmental/unit self-funded relocation requests that exceed $6k, must be routed to Dean for review and decision. 

• Any unfunded requests must be submitted as an SFR. 

• Note: For all requests, please provide the following information:

  • candidate's name

  • job profile of position

  • proposed annual salary

  • proposed relocation amount

  • source of relocation funds

• Important: In the event a relocation payment for a staff position is approved,

  • Specific language regarding the tax consequences of such a payment will be required in the offer letter.

  • The Hire BP will need to reference the name of approver, the approval date, and the approved relocation stipend amount.

Process: 

Note: For additional details on the below procedures (and helpful screenshots!) please refer to our COLA Staff Hiring Guide.

1. Before starting the Staff Recruitment process, determine whether you will need pre-approval to post:

   1. If the job will be non-benefits eligible, but you still intend to recruit (rare), skip to Step 2.

   2. If the job will be benefits-eligible, regardless of funding source or expected length of job, then complete one of the required COLA Request to Hire Forms (Classified and A&P Staff or Graduate Program Staff).

      1. Note: You will need to know some basic details about the job in order to complete the form, including desired job profile, key job responsibilities, PM sup org in Workday, salary range, and a justification of the need for the job. 

2. To create the posting content, develop a dynamic position description evaluating necessary tasks, skills, and desired knowledge needed for the position. See here for more resources on writing and maintaining position descriptions. 

   1. If you are filling an existing position, review the Position Restrictions information for the position in Workday and update/edit as appropriate. (See also Edit Position Restrictions WIG.)

3. You will create the job requisition and/or position (if new) in Workday. Please carefully follow the steps of the Create Job Requisition and Post Job WIG for creating a competitive search job requisition. 

   1. Reminder: All staff positions should be recruited within PM sup orgs in Workday.

      1. If hiring a non-benefits eligible employee without a recruitment, you may hire them into a JM org;

      2. the only other exception to this rule is if one is hiring a postdoc or research fellow (see also Hiring a Postdoctoral Fellow).

   2. For existing positions: please carefully follow the WIG instructions to ensure the job requisition is tied to the correct position so that, when hired, the incumbent will have the correct Workday security roles for that job.

   3. Please remember to attach the final-approved Request to Hire Form (unless non-benefits-eligible position) to the Create Job Requisition BP.

   4. Please include Job Requisition BP Comments including:

      1. the date of approval of Request to Hire; and clear indication of source of funds for recruitment (and their expiration/limits), when relevant; e.g., "NIH project "Title of Grant"; exp. 5/31/2024 with possibility of renewal, but currently posting for 1 year.";

         1. include similar relevant info, such as when funds are expected to arrive (if sending forward posting on stopgap account), etc. 

      2. a clear note as to whether the position is new or existing position; if existing, note whether there is intention for the new hire to overlap the current/departing incumbent, as applicable;

         1. Note: It is helpful if replacing an incumbent to include information about whether the individual is transferring or resigning from UT and the date that person will be vacating the position. Example: "Recruiting to replace graduate coordinator position as B. Smith will be leaving UT on 9/24/23. Have confirmed sufficient funds for overlap with new hire of up to two weeks, for training purposes."

      3. if the maximum salary for the position is the same as the minimum salary included in the posting, please add a note to indicate that this is intentional; i.e., that there will be no negotiation or range of salary possible;

         1. Note: Maximum salary on posting may not be higher than the approved maximum salary on the COLA Request to Hire Form.

      4. if, for some reason, the position's Manager in Workday will not be their direct supervisor, please clearly indicate who the direct supervisor will be and the business reason as to why they will not report to that person in Workday;

      5. include any other BP Comments helpful to approval. Note: if you have done a good and thorough job of completing the Justification, Job Position Details, and similar sections of the job requisition, you do not need to repeat that information exhaustively in the BP Comments, but please know that your Comments will facilitate efficient approvals when you can clarify what the BP is supposed to achieve (giving approvers something to check against) and fill in gaps in information/anticipate questions that may arise.

         1. Example:

            1. NO: "This position will be supported by grant funding expected to arrive soon."

            2. YES: "Recruiting on stopgap account to ensure lab manager will be in place when approved NSF "Researching Research about Research" project funds arrive (expected June 1, 2023; approved project dates are 6/1/23-5/31/24); PI, Prof. So N. So. Hire date will be adjusted accordingly if grant dates change, but funding secured for 1 year with possibility of renewal."

4. Once the job requisition has been final-approved, the Recruiter will receive a notification to post the job.

   1. Note all requisitions must be posted for at least 7 calendar days.

5. Reviewing applicants: Central HR has information on how to form a selection panel and how to use a selection matrix. A selection matrix and template can be found here. Creating a selection matrix allows you to objectively rank the candidates.

6. Review all candidates and select candidates to interview. All selected candidates should receive the same communication regarding schedule. Please note that copies of all communication should be kept in a recruitment file within the unit. 

7. Review all interview questions and ensure the same questions are used for all selected candidates. Please be sure to keep all notes from interviews and in your recruitment file. Please click here for information on how to select applicants and prepare for the interviews.

8. Once the top candidate has been selected, the references can be contacted.

9. After successfully checking references, a verbal offer of employment can be made contingent upon the satisfactory completion of a background check.

   1. The university requires a criminal background check, including a sex offender registry check, on applicants for employment, current employees, and university affiliates as required by university policy and state and federal requirements.

   2. Please note that the salary must be within the approved salary range (from the job req); rare exceptions would require approval from the unit head, the HR Director Tamela Walker, and Assistant Dean Rubina Saya, as well as central HR.

   3. Note: Verbal offer can include salary--up to pre-approved maximum (depending on candidate's qualifications)--but you cannot commit to any additional terms or conditions that might arise during negotiation without prior approval from the HR Director and Assistant Dean of Business.

      1. You will need to be able to document approvals for "additional items" when processing the Hire BP in Workday, e.g., BP Comments such as “HR Director Tamela Walker approved $3K relocation stipend via email, July 2, 2024." 

10. If the employee accepts, draft the offer letter using the appropriate offer letter template (bottom of the page). Send the completed draft offer letter to COLA HR for review and approval. 

11. Once you have received the approved draft offer letter from COLA HR, you can send it to the finalist for signature.

12. Once the offer letter is signed by the selected candidate, it’s time to begin the process of hiring and onboarding. 

Related Policies:

COLA Staff Hiring Guide 

UT HR Hiring and Recruiting Guidance

The Personnel Policy of The University of Texas at Austin (HOP 5-9993)  

Disability Accommodation for Applicants and Employees (HOP 3-3010)  

Criminal Background Checks (HOP 5-1140)

Other Related Links:

Staff Hiring and Onboarding  (Wiki page)

Recruiting Resources- (Workday @ UT webpage). 

Recruiting- Workday Process Overview

Staff Offer Letter Templates (Central HR site – at the bottom of the webpage)