Content on this page: 

• Responsibility is divided between the manager and the academic appointments board
• The needs analysis acts as the basis for the person specification and vacancy notice
• Assessing redeployment and preferential rights throughout the process
• Recruitment takes time, take account of this in your calculations
• The person specification determines qualifications, merits and expertise

Responsibility is divided between the manager and the academic appointments board

The initiative to recruit an associate senior lecturer, senior lecturer or professor usually comes from the organisation, but this may depend on the faculty. Here we start from the faculties where the head of department/recruiting manager is some part of the recruitment process.

The academic appointments board is responsible for implementing the process. The academic appointments board has an HR officer attached to it, who is responsible for using the recruitment system, for example. If you, as head of department, have a conflict of interest or are at risk of having a conflict of interest, appoint another manager to be the contact person for the academic appointments board.

Decisions on whether to recruit can be made in different ways at the faculties, but if a professor is to be recruited, it is always the University Vice-Chancellor who decides if the appointment may go ahead. The faculties have different procedures, and the recruiting manager or head of department is involved to varying degrees.

Sometimes recruitment committees or working groups are used

The academic appointments board may sometimes choose to create a recruitment committee or a working group at different points in the process. The recruiting manager may be part of such a group. Other representatives from the department, such as a subject expert, may also be included. Read more in the Lund University Appointment Rules.

It is important to discuss and handle any conflicts of interest that arise during the recruitment process.

Read more about conflicts of interest in recruitment Link to page about conflicts of interest

Read more in the Lund University Appointment Rules which can be downloaded from this page

Lund University Appointment Rules

The needs analysis acts as the basis for the person specification and vacancy notice

It is time to start a recruitment process when as a manager, you see that a subject area is expanding, there is a greater need for teaching, someone who is leaving needs to be replaced, that a certain compentency is missing, or if it is planned in the faculty/department’s talent management strategy.

The first step is to develop a needs analysis of current and future staffing needs. Depending on which faculty you belong to, you may be responsible for putting together the needs analysis with the support of others in the department and HR. Use your faculty’s needs analysis template. You should always start with the strategic positions contained in the faculty or department’s talent management plan.

Examine whether the need can be met with existing staff within the organisation or whether a new position needs to be advertised. If there is a need to advertise a new position, financial provision must be available for this throughout the period of employment.

Assessing redeployment and preferential rights throughout the process

As the manager, you should review the skills of the people on the preferential rights list and any redeployments within the organisation before every recruitment. This can be done with the support of your nearest HR officer or HR administrator. This may mean that LU already has employees or former employees with sufficient qualifications for the position. In this case, you may employ them without needing to advertise the vacancy. The academic appointments board should still be contacted.

Before advertising a vacancy, the department or faculty’s HR officer must go through the following steps:

1. The HR officer must review the redeployment needs of the University.
2. The HR officer must check in the recruitment system who has preferential rights to increased hours.
3. The HR officer must check in the recruitment system who has preferential rights to re-employment. If no one suitable is found, you may proceed to advertising the vacancy.

You must check for any relevant redeployment needs and preferential rights on an ongoing basis during the recruitment process until the decision to appoint has been made.

Recruitment takes time, take account of this in your calculations

When a recruitment goes through the academic appointments board, it is difficult for you as the recruiting manager to control the timetable. You may want to draw up a rough calculation of when you and your department need to perform certain tasks. At some faculties, it is the departments that organise selection days, while in others this is the responsibility of the academic appointments board.

It is difficult to say how long a recruitment takes, from identifying a need to the employee being in place. A recruitment process handled by the academic appointments board has many steps and each step can take differing amounts of time.

Most steps take longer than in the recruitment of technical and administrative staff. Vacancy notices should be published for at least 4 weeks, but 6-8 weeks is standard. At least one to three months should be allowed for receiving the opinion of the external expert.

Recruitment is also impacted by the frequency with which the academic appointments board meets and whether the decision to appoint is made by the dean or the Vice-Chancellor of the University. For international recruitment, time for processing residence permits and moving must also be taken into account.

The person specifikation determines qualifications, merits and expertise

The person specification is an important starting point for a recruitment. What you write in the person specification determines who will ultimately be judged to be the most qualified and have the most expertise. It is important to clearly state which qualifications must be met (eligibility) and which qualifications are meritorious. In order not to discriminate against any potential applicant, it is also important that the requirements are justified objectively in terms of the tasks to be performed.

You should always use the academic appointments board’s template for the person specification and the contents should provide a clear description of

• the organisation at which the position is placed,
• the work duties associated with the position,
• areas of responsibility associated with the position,
• the education, experience, knowledge and skills required to perform the duties.

Always use the needs analysis as the basis for the person specification. The person specification should always be competency-based (read more in the course Kompetensbaserad rekrytering (“Competency-based recruitment”) in Kompetensportalen). Examine your work critically – have you written the specification objectively? It could be worth obtaining input from experts, colleagues or others impacted by the recruitment. The person specification must be approved by the academic appointments board or other qualified person at the faculty. Contact the HR officer for the academic appointments board for more information.

Links to LFN webpages at the faculties