Hiring Decisions of Graduate Assistant and Full-time Hall Directors on Resident Assistant Recruitment

Resident assistant hiring decisions are critical to the residential student experience and ultimately to the success of housing and residence life departments. The purpose of this study is to explore the influences existing in the hiring decision-making process for housing and residence life staff. We also compare the influences of hiring decisions across various participant characteristics including professional status, master’s degree focus area, race, gender, institution type, and prior hiring experience for 138 participants. Staff diversity, group process scores, and observations are the most influential components in hiring decisions. Additionally, we found graduate assistants rely less on the metric-based aspects of the selection process, which could be a result of low levels of involvement in planning and facilitating selection processes within the department. Additional results as well as implications for practice and future research are also discussed.