Recruiting IT Faculty

The current shortage of qualified IT professionals in industry now extends to academia. Academic departments need a systematic approach to recruit new IT faculty effectively. This process is hindered not only by the shortage of formally qualified PhDs, but also by the lack of consensus in the definition of "IT" and the competition with industry for skilled professionals, even at the PhD level. Another challenge is the gap between new PhDs seeking research positions and the shortage of qualified faculty in institutions for which teaching is a priority. This tutorial explores these and other issues related to IT faculty recruiting, and provides a systematic and practical methodology for pro-actively attracting the right people to the right places in academia. An effective recruiting process requires thoughtful problem definition, identification of appropriate sources of alternatives, consistency and fairness in selection using well-defined criteria, and aggressive closure.