Why Your University Needs a Search Firm When Hiring a New Dean or Provost

When seeking a Dean’s position, the candidate’s interactions with the search firm will have a significant impact on the search process.   Currently, a vast majority of dean positions are filled with the assistance of an executive search firm.   In my opinion, institutions of higher education that do not hire an executive search firm to fill executive positions are sending two signals to the academic marketplace: (1) as an institution we do not value this position enough to recruit the very best, and/or (2) we have an internal candidate hand-picked for the position and we are simply going through the motions of an external search.

Having been through dean and vice provost searches on both sides of the fence (search committee member and dean candidate), I can unequivocally say that the knowledge and professionalism that (most) search firms bring to the table is simply not found on the university campus.

To begin with, most faculty-led executive searches begin with the mind-set used when looking to hire a newly minted assistant professor.    This mind-set starts with an attitude of superiority and distrust.    Faculty committees, without proper coaching, often send all kinds of negative signals about the university and the position. I have experienced the following negative signals from university search committees (for deans and vice presidents) in searches unassisted by a search firm:

1. After contacting two of the applicant’s references, not contacting the applicant for a five week time period and then inviting the applicant to campus as ‘the leading candidate’.   The applicant declined the visit.
2. A  search committee conducting a video conference interview in which 2/3 of the search committee was absent and only one committee member spoke during the interview.
3. A search process where a particular video conferencing technology was consistently used throughout the search process even though on each occasion it was used it failed.   This reflected very poorly on the institution.
4. At a hotel interview with the search committee, one faculty member stated that the biggest problem with their institution was that 80% of the faculty were total disengaged from the university and did not bother to come into the office because most faculty were teaching only online classes.  No other faculty members bothered to correct or clarify this statement.    The applicant declined a campus visit.

Executive search firms are not a panacea.    However, a good search firm will effectively guide the search committee through the search process and minimize the negatives.

– from the pen of Dr. Percy Trappe