Recruitment and Selection of Accounting Faculty in a Difficult Market

Accounting department chairs responded to an electronic survey which examined the recruitment and selection process for tenure-track accounting faculty. Advertising in academic journals or on the AAA website were favored approaches. Doctoral schools obtained more applications through “cold” letters or through contacting friends at other schools than did nondoctoral schools. Nondoctoral schools conducted more AAA meeting interviews than did doctoral schools; the latter held more on- campus interviews. Doctoral-granting schools viewed teaching load and other research-related factors as the most important for successful hiring, while base salary was first for nondoctoral schools. Schools that did not quickly fill all vacancies attributed this to school reputation (doctoral) and base salary (nondoctoral). In attempting to attract faculty, schools may overweight the importance of salary and underweight factors such as the importance of a manageable teaching load in today’s environment. Breaking down schools into teaching vs. more research-oriented schools yielded similar results in many cases to those of nondoctoral vs. doctoral schools. Numerous other implications for recruiters are provided.