Use of well thought-out criteria promotes:

• Hiring the best candidates
• Fairness
• Non-discrimination, ie. all considerations are as free as possible from irrelevant bias
• Promotion of diversity and enrichment of the workforce
• Efficiency, but not at the expense of fairness

Concerns in developing screening criteria:

1. Protected classes: criteria should be free from considerations that negatively impact members of a protected class (such as considerations related to disability, gender, ethnicity, race, religion, age, sexual orientation, etc.).
2. Needs of the position: criteria should not include considerations unrelated to the position.
3. Defining what is meant: criteria should not be undefined or ill-defined.
4. Bias: criteria should be unbiased (see handout "Thinking about Bias" for discussion of biased criteria such as prestige factors/sectorism).

Concerns in weighting screening criteria:

1. Narrow conceptions: Criteria should be weighted/prioritized, but not in such a way that it supports a narrowly pre-conceived notion of who will do this job. When criteria are prioritized at the beginning of the process, the system should be open to re-prioritization and re-screening of candidates based on evolution in the committee's thinking.

Concerns in applying screening criteria:

1. Performance based: assessment of how well a candidate meets a particular criterion should be based on the actual performance of the candidate vs. assumptions about performance from personality traits, pedigree or other considerations. Look at recent past performance.
2. Numeric ranking: Steer clear of rigid numerical formulations, which can give the appearance of objectivity to a system that is quite subjective. Numeric scores are helpful to guide your judgment, but are not a substitute for good judgment. Candidates near the borderlines between categories (unqualified, moderately qualified, highly qualified) deserve extra scrutiny to determine which category they best fit, regardless of numeric score.
3. Unnecessary rigidity: Do not evaluate candidates' experiences or qualifications in a way that is needlessly conventional or rigid. Be open to transferable skills and non-traditional career paths.