Understanding the Experience of Partner Hiring: A Relationship Perspective

Despite dual-career couples and partner hiring practices being commonplace within higher education, minimal research has examined couples’ experiences within their romantic relationship as they move through the partner hiring process and navigate challenges within the on-campus community. Through a relational dialectic lens, this study examines the relational experiences of target and partner hiring processes of dual career couples within the higher education system. Using interviews of 12 target hires and 21 partner hires working at higher education institutions within the United States, the present study used a three-step qualitative process to better understand the relational experiences evident from the perceptions of couples throughout and after partner hiring processes. Three themes (openness vs. closedness, certainty vs. uncertainty, and connection vs. autonomy) with a total of seven subthemes arouse from these data. Understanding of and sensitivity to these relational experiences is vital for academic leaders, support staff, and human resource offices as they seek to best support target and partner hires on their campuses.