Recruitment

Recruitment Licence

A department may initiate a recruitment with written approval from the Provost and Executive Vice-President (Academic). The formal approval for the staffing plan will include the Recruiting Licence to be used for the position.

A new recruitment licence will be issued to replace pre-tenure academic staff, however, a department must nonetheless receive approval from the Provost and Executive Vice-President (Academic) prior to advertising the new position. New recruitment licences are not issued to replace retiring academic staff members.

Employment Equity

McGill University is committed to fulfilling its mission within an institutional environment that embraces equity and diversity. The University seeks to be proactive in attracting excellent academic staff who are members of designated groups, as identified by federal and provincial legislation, as well as McGill’s Employment Equity Policy. These groups include women, Indigenous persons, persons with disabilities, ethnic minorities, racialized persons/visible minorities, and persons of minority sexual orientation or gender identity (LGBTT2SQ* persons).

Employment equity recruitment guidelines are to be followed by all units in the course of hiring ranked academic staff (tenure–stream and contract academic staff).

Each academic unit that is recruiting ranked academic staff must take steps to attract applications from suitably qualified members of the designated groups.

For more information or support in employment equity in recruitment, please contact Tynan Jarrett, the tynan.jarrett [at] mcgill.ca (Director, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion).

Advertising a tenure-stream position

All tenure-stream academic staff positions must be advertised and specify the following information:

The advertisement must also include the following Equity Statement and immigration statement:

Advertisements must be publicly posted to the McGill Careers site on Workday, and to the following domains:

1. One advertisement in University Affairs or the Canadian Association of University Teachers Bulletin;
2. A letter sent to the department heads of at least ten similar departments in Canada, where possible;
3. An advertisement in a Canadian professional journal or association website, where possible.

*Note: You must ensure that the posting period on the McGill Careers website is for longer duration than it is on external websites to allow for administration time.

Advertisements that are posted to University Affairs and/or the Canadian Association of University Teachers Bulletin, and that are included in letters to department heads at other universities should be in both official languages. Assistance is available from McGill Translations Services for a fee. It is important to retain and submit proof of payments for advertisements and to ensure that the duration of the posting is clearly indicated. Online advertisements that are submitted as PDFs must include the publication date and the URL. The McGill Equity and Immigration Statements are automatically included in the postings on the McGill Career website in Workday, but must still be added to external postings. For support in broadening advertisement venues and ensuring a diverse applicant pool, please contact the sara.pierre [at] mcgill.ca (Senior Employment Equity Advisor).

Tenure-Stream Equity Assessment in Workday

The Selection Committee has access to the candidates' equity data in Workday. 

Information from the Applicant equity survey is confidential and may only be used by Selection Committees to ensure adherence to McGill's Employment Equity Policy. Specifically, a Selection Committee Chair may use the information to:

1. Evaluate the diversity of the applicant pool: where the pool is insufficiently diverse, a department may decide to extend the application period or reset the search; If the hiring unit is not satisfied with the response rate of the survey, they may send applicants a reminder to complete it;
2. Verify the composition of the shortlist - all shortlists must contain at least one member of a designated group, and an email including the Workday requisition number must be submitted to the the Senior Employment Equity Advisor to ensure compliance;
3. Select the candidate – where candidates do not differ in merit, selection committees are instructed to select the candidate from the group that is most underrepresented in their area. At the selection stage, the Chair may share equity data about short listed candidates with the rest of the selection committee in order to facilitate compliance with equity guidelines; and
4. Report on the search – approval from the Senior Employment Equity Advisor must be attached to the Workday recruiting business process. 

Selection process

Composing a Selection Committee

Each academic unit that is recruiting ranked academic staff should consider the following criteria when composing their Selection Committees:

• Committee should be comprised of at least 3 tenure stream members
• Committee Chair should have tenure
• Dean's representative is mandatory, and usually consists of someone from outside the hiring department. The Dean's representative focuses on ensuring equity in the process of recruitment and selection. Depending upon the department tradition, and the expertise of the Dean's representative, they may also weigh in on more substantive issues.
• Include members of diverse viewpoints and disciplinary schools
• Include people from designated groups, but be mindful of heavy administrative workload 
• All members of the Selection Committee must attend training on equitable recruitment practices. Faculty must refresh their training after three years.

Ranking and Shortlist

Ranking candidates will be done in Workday. Please recall that Selection Committees should not be numerically ranking candidates but should instead be placing them in equivalency classes (e.g. excellent, good, etc.).  All candidates shortlisted for a position should be ranked in the top class in order to be invited to an interview.  

Once a Selection Committee has established its shortlist (and it has been identified in Workday as such), it must confirm that at least one candidate on that list is a member of a designated equity group. This determination is to be made by consulting the candidate recruiting table in Workday. In the event that there are no members of a designated group on the shortlist, the Selection Committee Chair should consider extending or re-setting the search. If the Chair cannot extend or reset the search, they must provide justification about why the search should proceed with a non-compliant shortlist. 

Selection Committee Chairs should send an email notification, including the Workday requisition number, to the tynan.jarrett [at] mcgill.ca (Senior Employment Equity Advisor) as soon as possible after the shortlist is decided and the committee-level equity review is completed. The Senior Employment Equity Advisor will review the documentation and candidates' files provided by the Selection Committee in Workday and will confirm to the Chair that equity requirements have been met, or, request that the shortlist be expanded to include additional candidates.

Where two or more candidates are deemed to be "excellent" at the end of a search process, Selection Committees should apply preferential measures as outlined in the "Act Respecting Equal Access to Employment in Public Bodies."

Procedure