Recruit Student Employees

The following tools and resources will help support you in the recruitment process from developing a position through selecting a candidate. Please contact Eli Davis at bereli@uw.edu with any questions or for additional support in recruiting student employees.

You can find additional information in our Employer Diversity & Inclusion Toolkit.

Develop the Position

• Develop the position purpose and describe why the role is necessary.
• Focus on skills, abilities, and competencies needed for the role.
• Identify the benchmarks you want to see in applications before posting the job.
• Identify the benchmarks you want to see in applications before posting the job.

Write the Position Description

• Job Description Template
• Sample Job Description from the Career & Internship Center
• Position descriptions introduce candidates to the job and your organization.
• Describe the position purpose and your organization’s work towards equity and inclusion.
• Clarify your “must haves” or qualifications and skills that will be learned in the role.
• Use gender neutral language and review the description for any exclusive terms or verbiage
• Studies show GPA is not a good predictor of performance for new hires and can limit your candidate pool.

Recruit Applicants

• How to Advertise Student Positions
• Cast as wide a net as possible to ensure a diverse candidate pool.
• Be intentional about which groups and organizations you contact regarding your positions.
• Tailor your outreach to specific communities and explain why you are interested in them.
• Avoid tokenizing diverse communities or only contacting candidates because of their identities.

Review Applications and Interview

• Diversity and Inclusion Trainings – list compiled by the Division of Student Life
• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion resources from UW Human Resources
• Use a rubric to score a candidate’s aptitude for the job.
• Avoid hiring based on cultural ‘fit’ as it unfairly advantages candidates similar to the current culture. Focus on how a candidate can be a culture ‘add.’
• Collect the same application materials from all candidates and ask standard, fair questions in interviews.
• Find evidence in a candidate’s application materials or interview answers to support your scoring.
• Acknowledge and move past your bias about a candidate’s major, experiences, or skills.