Staff hiring process overview
Table of Contents
Last updated: December 11, 2025
This webpage provides an overview of the process for recruiting, selecting, and hiring prospective employees for classified non-union, contract covered, and professional staff positions. Visit UTemp Staffing to learn about hiring processes and services for limited term hourly positions provided by UW’s staffing service.
Complete required trainings
Hiring managers and others involved in the hiring process such as interviewers are required to complete the Implicit bias training.
Step 1: Create position
For new positions, the first step is to create a position in Workday. Follow the instructions for Create Position – Staff Campus or Create Position – Medical Centers. You may create a new position and a requisition simultaneously by selecting create a requisition and indicating it is for a new position. Contact hrhelp@uw.edu if you need assistance, or in the medical centers, you may contact your recruiter.
- Classified staff positions are assigned a job classification and must use Classified Job Profiles and Class Specifications.
- Professional staff and represented civil service exempt staff positions are exempt from the state civil service system. For a position to be exempt from civil service it must meet one or more of the legislatively authorized exemption criteria. Professional staff positions must use Professional Staff Job Profiles and Represented Civil Service Exempt Staff Job Profiles and Class Specifications.
Step 2: Create requisition
Once you have created the position in Workday or if you are replacing a current position, the next step is to create your requisition in Workday. Follow these instructions and contact hrhelp@uw.edu if you need assistance: Job Requisition – Existing Position – Staff Campus or Job Requisition – Existing Position – Medical Centers.
Your recruiting partner will work with you to create the job posting and ensure it meets pay transparency requirements and is in compliance with Civil Rights Compliance Office guidelines. Use the template found in Job Posting Components and review Pay Transparency Requirement for Job Postings to ensure your job posting includes all required text and meets UW standards.
Requisition approval
Your requisition will be reviewed and approved by your unit approvers in Workday. When fully approved, your recruiting partner will review and approve the requisition and posting in Workday.
Step 3: Begin recruitment
Once your requisition has been approved in Workday, and the job posting is finalized, your recruiting partner will publish the posting online.
Competitive recruitment
Open positions posted to Workday Recruiting are considered competitive recruitments when:
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- Classified, contract covered, and professional staff positions are posted publicly for internal and external applicants for a minimum period of seven (7) calendar days unless a collective bargaining agreement requires a different duration;
- A candidate bank (most often an evergreen requisition) is used to source applicants, whose applications are reviewed before placing them in the pool; or
- Positions are posted as a limited pool recruitment under the terms of a collective bargaining agreement where the notice of job opening may be announced to all eligible applicants within a department or hiring unit without opening it to other applicants.
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A classified, contract covered, or professional staff position may be filled on a noncompetitive basis in the following scenarios:
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- When placing a layoff rehire for classified non-union (WAC 357-46-035) and contract covered positions;
- For the direct hire of an applicant into a nonpermanent or intermittent position (WAC 357-19-377(2));
- For the job change of an employee in a nonpermanent or intermittent position who backfilled during a leave of absence or filled the position due to the impending or actual layoff of a permanent employee IF the employee was hired using a competitive process (WAC 357-19-400);
- When placing an employee into an open position as an alternative job search;
- For an approved search waiver request; or
- When placing an employee into a specific position because of a union settlement agreement.
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Step 4: Plan the recruitment process
Here are recommended best practices when opening a requisition:
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- Indicate an end (closing) date to be transparent with applicants, to protect against bias toward early applicants and to design a timeline that is efficient and applicant friendly.
- Use cover letters intentionally, not as a default. Keep in mind that cover letters can be written by others or AI, are increasingly rare in other sectors and can eliminate applicants who don’t understand their application is incomplete without one.
- Plan for advertising and recruitment. While UW jobs are reposted on a number of sites, including Direct Employers and LinkedIn, identify colleagues who can promote the opportunity through social media and professional associations.
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Before you begin review of applications, consider competencies you are looking for and prepare rubrics and evaluation documents. Provide the interviewee and interview team with rubrics, interview questions and evaluation criteria.
Here are recommended best practices to follow:
Transparency: Clearly communicate the selection criteria, process and timeline to all participants in the process.
Compliance and accountability:
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- Ensure interview team members have taken required training and are familiar with fair pre-employment inquiries. Provide additional training and resources, as needed, to raise awareness and give members tools to better conduct more fair and objective evaluations.
- Interview teams should be composed of individuals with diverse perspectives and expertise. Diverse representation on interview teams helps mitigate bias and ensures a more comprehensive evaluation of candidates.
- Avoid “fit” language and remain focused on skills and competencies to do the job.
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Consistency and standardization:
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- Use a rubric or evaluation template that is competency-based and highlights elements of strong responses for all parts of the process: cover letter, resume and interviews.
- All interview team members should be present for all interviews.
- Interview structures should be identical for each candidate, and introductory comments by the chair or hiring manager should be similar.
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Decision-making:
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- Encourage inclusive decision making where you promote open dialogue and invite dissenting opinions.
- The interview team should strive for consensus in its recommendation; however, in cases where consensus may not be reached, the final decision rests with the hiring manager.
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Confidentiality: All discussions and decisions reached by the interview team must remain confidential. Applicants have shared their information in confidence; information relating to the candidates or the process should not be shared with anyone outside the committee.
Step 5: Review resumes
Your recruiting partner will review applications for employment eligibility and resumes against position requirements, and then move forward qualified candidates to hiring managers. Resumes are then available for hiring manager review. Depending on employment program and/or veterans’ status of the candidate, the recruiting partner may refer applications at various times. Consult with your recruiting partner to discuss a timeline of candidate resume referrals.
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- If a job has an end (closing) date, resumes will generally be available after the posted closing date.
- For positions that are open until filled, resumes may be available as soon as they are moved forward.
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To view the candidates’ resumes, open the candidate dashboard and click on the candidate’s name to display their profile and resume.
As candidates are reviewed, hiring managers can move forward or decline candidates by using activity disposition codes(s) that apply to the candidate’s current stage in the hiring process.
Step 6: Interview candidates and select a final candidate
Interview candidates who appear the most qualified, using tips and guidance posted on the Interviewing webpages. Move forward or decline candidates during your review and evaluation to track and document their status in the hiring process.
Prior to making an offer, where there are two or more equally qualified candidates and a candidate is a veteran eligible for veterans’ preference, the veterans’ preference will act as a tie-breaker.
Step 7: Steps prior to the offer
Sexual misconduct declaration
Once a finalist is identified, consult with your recruiting partner, so that they can send the pre-offer required sexual misconduct declaration to the final external candidate.
Reference checks
Reference checks are required prior to extending an offer to a final candidate for all campus positions and professional staff positions in the medical centers, whether the candidate is internal or external. When the final candidate for a position is a current or former UW employee, departments must obtain a reference from the candidate’s current (or most recent) UW manager and, additionally, contact UWHR to request a review of the candidate’s official personnel record.
Use the move forward codes to document that you have conducted a reference check on the candidate.
Propose salary offer for campus staff position
Once you have selected a qualified candidate, establish a proposed salary and obtain approval for the salary offer from both your recruiting partner and your department approvers. The initial salary offered to the final candidate must be within the range disclosed in the job posting. For classified staff, your recruiting partner will verify that the desired amount is within the hiring range and ensure that current classified staff are being offered the required salary step. Initiate Offer will trigger the request for salary review.
Propose salary offer for medical center staff position
Work with your recruiting partner to establish a proposed salary.
Step 8: Make the offer
Once the salary has been approved by both your recruiting partner and your department approvers, you may extend a conditional offer to the final candidate, contingent upon satisfactory completion of the criminal background check (if required). Contact your recruiting partner if salary negotiation is needed.
Step 9: Post-offer
After an offer is accepted, alert your recruiting partner that the offer has been accepted and provide the start date. Once the recruitment is completed, the hire process will kick off. You can find instructions on the Workday hire process in the Hire Staff Campus user guide.
Campus departments
The recruiting partner will initiate the criminal conviction history background check, if needed. See the Criminal Background Check webpage for details.
Prepare and send a hire confirmation letter to your new employee. Download hire confirmation templates from the “Developing and extending the offer” page.
Medical centers departments
Medical Centers Human Resources will perform the following post-hire activities for you:
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- Send new hire confirmation letter
- Complete Workday entry process
- Complete background checks
- Verify education
- Medical Centers’ orientation registration (includes Husky Card and photo identification name badge for new employee)
- Clinical orientation (scheduling as job applicable)
- Collect completed payroll paperwork
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Step 10: Close out the Recruitment and Document the Hiring Process
Update candidate statuses in Workday and save all recruitment materials according to the records retention schedule. For more information, review the Documenting the recruiting and hiring process webpage.