How do open-rank searches go?

In our most recent "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

There have been discussions on both TT search and senior search but I do not see much about the "open rank" search. I am curious about how an "open rank" search goes. For example, when a position is advertised as "open rank", does the hiring department really mean it, or is there still some preference for a TT position? What is the context for this kind of search? Does the committee review materials separately (TT vs. Tenured) or altogether? Thank you!

Great questions. Do any readers with inside experience have any helpful insights to share?

Comments

[Mike Titelbaum]

Unfortunately I'm not sure there are any useful cross-departmental generalizations to be made. If a department advertises an open-rank search, they have (hopefully!) been authorized by their dean and have the budget available to hire at any level. But beyond that, the answers to your questions are highly contextual.

Here at UW-Madison, we ran two open-rank searches last year, and this year we are running an open-rank, open-area search. (Please apply!) One technical detail when we do this is that we request recommendation letters from non-tenured candidates upfront, but from tenured candidates only once they have made it past a first screening. That means that the committee doing the search usually runs through the two groups separately for logistical and timing reasons. Also, we have different standards for someone to be a viable candidate at the two levels. With that said, we don't go into the search necessarily favoring one over the other; what transpires is largely driven by the pool of applications we receive.

However, I have anecdotal evidence that things run differently in other places. For instance, while this is the first open-rank, open-area search our department has done in living memory, there are some departments that run open-rank, open-area searches fairly consistently. You can look back and see whether those places most often hired junior or senior folks.

[H]

I have never served on a search committee, but I know that my current department has made decisions on open rank hires by trying to split the number of tenured and TT hires roughly evenly over time. For instance, if the department is hiring open rank in AOSs A and B in a single year, hiring a tenured candidate in A mandates hiring a TT candidate in B, or vice versa. If the department is hiring open rank this year and they hire a TT candidate, the next hire one or two years down the line will have to be tenured. From what I've heard, this is the usual practice at my public R1.

[A data point]

When we did it we asked for different kind of materials for different stages but reviewed them together (obviously we judged them based on stage-appropriate criteria). We had a preference for senior scholar so tried to make sure at least one tenured person made it to the shortlist. We would've been fine if zero TT made it to the on-campus shortlist. We ended up hiring a TT.

[Anonymous R2 Prof]

My department has done open rank hires in past years (in fact, the job I applied for and got was one). Our open rank hires have all been Assistant or Associate, not including full professors, which might be different. In terms of process, all candidates were treated the same, with all the same application elements required at the same time and applications considered at the same time, though of course what we expected of applicants was different based on their current status.

Of the five recent hires, two of us were hired basically right out of graduate school, two were hired from TT jobs as Assistant Professors (both were 3-4 years into the other TT job), and one was hired as an Associate Professor. In two of the cases, some flyout candidates would have come in at the Assistant level and some at the Associate level, but in two cases, all of the on-campus candidates would have come in as Assistant Professors (though it was usually the case that some would have come in with credit and a shorter timeline to tenure, while others would be on the normal timeline). I didn’t sense in my department any preference for one over the other; it really depended on the search. In at least one case, the Assistant person was chosen over the Associate, and in another case, the Associate candidate was chosen over Assistant candidates.