The Offer Survey

For the third consecutive year, MU-ADVANCE administered an Offer Survey to evaluate recruitment practices at Marshall.  The survey was distributed to every male and female faculty candidate who accepted an offer from a STEM department for the 2009-10 academic year.  Respondents were assured anonymity and confidentiality, as the survey was housed on the external evaluator’s website. 
 

This survey had a return rate of 100%.  Respondents represented all four of the MU-ADVANCE college affiliates (Colleges of Science, Liberal Arts, Information Technology and Engineering, and a basic science department in the School of Medicine).  Eight percent of the participants received at least one job offer, in addition to the Marshall offer, and 30% learned about the Marshall opening from HigherEdJobs.com (a MU-ADVANCE sponsored recruitment tool). 

Participants were asked to rank the importance (extremely, slightly, not very, or not at all) of several personal and career factors in accepting the Marshall offer.  “Research Opportunities” received the highest number of responses as being the most important factor in their decisions to come to Marshall, followed by “Potential for advancement,” and “Impression of the Department.”  Factors the candidates ranked as the least important were “Relatives living in the area,” followed by “Partner living in the area,” and “Child care availability.” 
 

One respondent suggested that Marshall’s recruitment process could be improved by inviting a candidate’s spouse or partner to the area to be given a local tour by other faculty spouses and/or partners.  However, when looking at the responses for “career for partner at MU or in the area,” the results were evenly split as follows: 30% said was not at all important, 10% not very, 20% slightly, 10% very, while 30% indicated it was extremely important. 

Women rated the following areas significantly higher, in terms of importance, than their male counterparts: the importance of facilities and/or laboratories, the potential for department and/or university collaboration, and the importance of start-up packages.  Men rated “relatives in the area” higher than their female counterparts. 

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