From the issue dated December 10, 2004
|
|
|
Help Wanted, PleaseApplicant pools for top administrative posts are shrinking
Among the most persistent presidential candidates encountered by Bill Funk, a longtime search consultant, one stands out. Determined to crack academe's upper administrative ranks, a firefighter from Houston submitted his application to Mr. Funk "10 to 15 times a year." Then, about five years ago, the applications stopped. What happened to the serial job candidate is a mystery, but Mr. Funk says the firefighter's sudden withdrawal of interest coincided with the beginning of a "precipitous" downturn in applications for senior administrative positions throughout higher education. Five years ago, for example, an institution searching for a president would typically receive 125 to 150 applications, says Mr. Funk, a managing director at Korn/Ferry International. Now, "the average number is between 50 and 70," he says. Theodore J. Marchese, a senior consultant at Academic Search Consultation Service, says advertisements for administrative positions that once drew 100 to 200 responses might now generate 40 replies. Mr. Marchese says he knows of several recent searches that generated surprisingly few applications, including one by Yale College for a "significant administrative post" that brought in only nine candidates. "It really is a different world for search committees," says Mr. Marchese, who has written a new edition of a handbook for search committees that will be published soon. "Something is up out there and nobody is really sure what it is." It is not just the overall size of applicant pools that has shrunk. Luring quality candidates has become more challenging, too, Mr. Marchese says. The best potential applicants have become choosier, and often wait for a search committee to express interest in them before submitting a formal application, he says. "I think even the good candidates are exercising more discretion about which jobs they want to be considered for," Mr. Funk says. "The best candidates we still have to cajole." Among consultants and experienced members of search committees, speculation varies about the causes of the phenomenon. Some observers suggest that the increasing role of fund raising in administrators' job descriptions might scare off career academics, while others cite tight housing markets or unpleasant past experiences with search committees as reasons for applicants' hesitancy. One search-committee trend noticed by James F. Brennan, who was recently named provost and vice president for academic affairs at Towson University, is the "real emergence of the search firm." Mr. Brennan participated in previous searches in 1995 and 2000, and says the use of search firms is now "more typical rather than an exception." Mr. Brennan says dealing with search firms as a candidate can be a mixed bag. Though he says experienced search pros are "incredibly constructive," more junior headhunters can unintentionally mislead and alienate applicants by "giving mixed signals." Doing the Homework Given the stakes involved in hiring a new president, Melissa Fitzsimons Kean wanted to ensure that Rice University had a satisfactory pool of candidates to choose from -- both in terms of quantity and quality -- in its search last year for a new president. Ms. Kean, who was the presidential search committee's executive director and is now deputy to the president, did her homework. To learn how to better recruit and scrutinize applicants, Ms. Kean called members of recent search committees at other institutions. Ms. Kean says she learned that there is a great deal of variation in how committees conduct searches. Some universities, for example, have opted against enlisting the help of a search firm, she says. "Nobody really knows anything about [a search] except these search firms," Ms. Kean says. Though Ms. Kean says search firms "do a great job," she adds: "We didn't want to simply turn our search over to the search firm." The search committee at Rice eventually hired A.T. Kearney, a consulting firm, and with its assistance and "a great amount of research" was able to land a large number of applicants. "We consider ourselves quite fortunate," Ms. Kean says, attributing the search's success, in part, to the fact that Rice is a private university with a huge endowment. While presidents at many public institutions are struggling with tight state budgets, Ms. Kean says Rice had the luxury of recruiting a president who would inherit healthy coffers. In addition, Ms. Kean notes that private universities can often be less transparent during president searches than can their public counterparts, which gives candidates the enticement of privacy when entering an applicant pool. Rice University's hiring of a high-profile candidate, David W. Leebron, the former dean of the Columbia University School of Law, has prompted "a lot of phone calls" from search committees at other institutions seeking her advice. Ms. Kean's experience is not unique. Search committees elsewhere are doing more of their own legwork to ensure a good crop of resumes. The University of Tulsa did its cajoling for a new president in May 2004, at the end of an 11-month search that had netted more 100 applicants. Unhappy with the final pool, Fulton Collins, the search committee's co-chairman and chairman of Tulsa's Board of Trustees, took matters into his own hands by calling a coveted candidate, Steadman Upham, who was president of Claremont Graduate University at the time. Mr. Upham says he was happy at Claremont and had actually ignored an earlier nomination letter for the Tulsa job from a search firm. "The last thing on my mind was moving," Mr. Upham says. But the call from Mr. Collins "intrigued" him. After a full-court press, which included a trip to Tulsa and a visit to Claremont by several members of the search committee, Mr. Upham was sold. He was named president in June 2004. Rodney Davis, an associate dean for instruction and operations for the Miller College of Business at Ball State University, is in the midst of running a search for a dean. He says search committees have had to be more aggressive in recent years. "We really probably have to do more than just put an ad in The Chronicle and wait for the applications to just pour in," Mr. Davis says of the recruitment efforts required to land top candidates. Mr. Davis attributes the widespread drop-off in applications to the fact that "the notch has been turned up a bit in what you're looking for in a dean"citing fund-raising experience in particular. Fewer but Better Qualified The higher bar can cut both ways, however. Detailed job listings and information about institutions are easier to find in the wired era, and candidates are more aware of what it takes to land an administrative job. Though Mr. Funk of Korn/Ferry says applicant pools are thinner overall in recent years, he says they often contain a larger percentage of highly qualified candidates. Still, the new environment of dwindling applicant pools can be a rough adjustment for search committees accustomed to simply running a job posting and then sifting through reams of applications. "It's almost impossible to do an upper-level administrative search without doing recruiting," says Mr. Marchese. "In many institutions," he adds, "that hasn't been part of the equation." http://chronicle.com Section: Money & Management Volume 51, Issue 16, Page A24 |
Copyright © 2004 by The Chronicle of Higher Education