Resources for Recruiting

Recruiting and Advertising for Opportunities

When recruiting students or participants, decide who your target audience is, how will this opportunity benefit them, and how will you reach them. 

Inclusive Practices:

  • Recruit using a wide range of accessible mediums - e.g., email, flier, video, social media
  • Provide clear information about the opportunity and obtain feedback to ensure the language is appropriate and helpful
  • Be specific and clear with expectations and address how participants will benefit from the experience
  • Consider how individuals might be excluded from an experience and work to minimize those exclusions

Recruitment Video Example:
Michalak and Baughman AGeS-DiG Funded Undergraduate Thermochronology Research Cohort Recruitment Video 

Applications

When crafting an application or asking for participant information, consider the information that you actually need to make a decision, when you need that information, the time commitment required for the application, and if that time commitment is appropriate for an application to the program.

Inclusive Practices:

  • Ask applicants to respond to clear and succinct prompts
  • Give students space to explain what on the application worries them. 
  • Inquire about the whole person
  • Make sure the application questions are available ahead of time outside of your application system.
  • Consider using interest forms instead of applications
  • Do not rely only on quantitative measures like GPA. Consider a wide array of indicators of achievement and potential.

Application Example:
UNAVCO Research Experience in Solid Earth Science for Students - RESESS Application

Review and Participant Selection

Make sure that your protocol for selecting students or other participants for your AGeS funded experience incorporates BAJEDI principles. Ask for help, seek multiple perspectives, use clear standards, and watch out for biases.

Inclusive Practices:

  • Confront your own biases
  • Consider what skills are actually needed to be successful in this experience
  • Remember that recommendation letters hold many biases and GPA and GRE scores do not correlate with research success
  • Anonymize student names and associated institutions for the first round of review, if possible
  • Create a selection committee with diverse perspectives and offer compensation to committee members, particularly those from minoritized groups.