Woo key staff with hard sell, HEIs told

Universities have budgets equal to many leading companies and as many staff but, according to one management consultant, they are often selling themselves short when it comes to recruiting staff from the private sector, writes Tariq Tahir.

Rosemary Stamp told the University Personnel Association annual conference last week that higher education needs a new range of professionals in administrative and service areas such as finance, but those people are increasingly hard to find. Many universities are not competing effectively with the private sector when it comes to recruiting.

"Universities are more complex organisations than they were 20 years ago. It is crucial that they are able to describe themselves in the same terms as big private sector company," she said.

"Rather than just describe the job, there needs to be some idea of what the challenges are, how institutions will be able to manage change and what scope they will have for bringing that about."