Good morning colleagues,

Until very recently I’d been able to retain most of my team for a minimum of three years, with most employees with me at five or more years.  I worked really hard to provide a positive and engaging work environment, building respect and trust among the staff and supervisors. The leadership team makes a point of recognizing achievements with the group as a whole and with our college leadership.  We mentor our staff and help them grow to the extent they want those new and challenging experiences. I also scrimped on some budget areas so that I could support regular participation in national/regional conferences as well as study and exam fees for those that want to become a CRA.  We renovated the space to make room for more staff, but it resulted in a new, more beautiful and modern space for working.  My folks always had top notch laptops and resources available to them in their office space which were mostly cubes and a few private offices reserved for supervisors.

However, my team is now down about 50%, 60% in pre-award alone which is a real challenge.  Our candidate pool has seen very few candidates.  I now have approval to use a headhunter, but I don’t know of one that recruits for non-management positions in research administration.  If any of you can recommend a search firm for entry and mid-level research administrators, please let me know.  I’ll be posting a list of open positions here on Monday.

PSU had set up a great RA internship program with our local two year business school.  The intern earned $15/hour and did two 6-week rotations.  Each rotation was in a different college or OSP so that they were exposed to both pre- and post-award.  The interest was always great and we got great interns.  I think about 15 were hired as full-time employees.  Unfortunately, this took a hard hit with COVID and hasn’t rebounded yet. 

We haven’t reached out to our Career Center, but that’s a good idea and something I’ll try.  Conducting interviews at a regional/national conference is also great, but only if the timing aligns with ones’s needs.

I’d like to see at least a minor in RA offered at the Bachelor level in universities.  I think that would be fairly easy to set up since some courses are likely already offered in other majors.  That could be a real boon for us as well as for new graduates.

I’m happy to work with anyone that wants to brainstorm on creative recruiting.

Maryellen

Maryellen O’Brien

Director, Office of Grants and Contracts

College of Agricultural Sciences

The Pennsylvania State University 

University Park, PA. 16803

EMAIL:  xxxxxx@psu.edu

From: <xxxxxx@lists.healthresearch.org> on behalf of "Hollingsworth, David W - dhollingsworth at tamu.edu (via resadm-l list)" <xxxxxx@lists.healthresearch.org>
Reply-To: "xxxxxx@lists.healthresearch.org" <xxxxxx@lists.healthresearch.org>
Date: Friday, July 8, 2022 at 10:05 AM
To: "xxxxxx@lists.healthresearch.org" <xxxxxx@lists.healthresearch.org>
Subject: [RESADM-L] Seeking ideas for collaborating with your University Career Center to promote field of research administration

Happy Friday!

Are you fully staffed, low employee turnover?    Reality or just a pipe dream.   If all the job postings on RESADM-L is any indication most of us are in need of employees.   Have you thought about contacting your university career center to brainstorm on how to increase the visibility of the field of research administration as a job option for upcoming graduates and at the same time find ways to broaden the candidate pool for your job openings?

Next week I will be meeting with our career center to discuss ways Sponsored Research Services and the career center might collaborate on this effort.    If you have  done the same or you just have ideas on ways to accomplish this, please share them.

Best regards,

David

David Hollingsworth, CRA | Director of Professional Development and Outreach Initiatives

Sponsored Research Services | Texas A&M University

3578 TAMU | College Station, TX 77843-3578

400 Harvey Mitchell Parkway South, Suite 300 | College Station, TX 77845-4375

Ph: 979.847.7638 | xxxxxx@tamu.edu

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