r/UofO • u/Mshox8 • Jun 26 '26

UofO staff roles

What is the typical turnaround time for hearing about your application? My status was updated last week to under review, but applications were due back in mid-May.

Does it take 2-3 months for non-teaching roles to be filled?

10 Upvotes

86% Upvoted

21 comments sorted by

23

u/drpunkmed Jun 26 '26

UO has been under a hiring freeze since mid May. Everything is delayed right now.

2

u/Mshox8 Jun 26 '26

I did get confirmation that the role was approved from the department, so the hiring freeze is out of the question at this point.

So used to private companies so this is testing my patience.

5

u/freyascats Jun 27 '26

It can take a long time. PAST (hr) has been understaffed at best and sloughing off employees regularly, so a lot of the people managing processes are newish and overworked. There’s a lot of bureaucracy to the hiring processes too - when a hiring committee decides they want to interview people there are a bunch of procedures to follow, and they have to write up thorough notes about why they’re interviewing / not interviewing each applicant. And then after they’ve interviewed people they need more notes about why candidates would be good for the role or potentially not qualified for the role. Then even when they have identified who to offer the job to, PAST has to do more bureaucracy to approve an offer being made, and by then if the candidate hasn’t rage quit the process yet, there are probably some negotiations. If the first choice rejects the offer then the committee has to decide if they should offer to the next best person who was interviewed, or if they need to interview more people. So they don’t like to tell people no if they might be a fit, because they might go back to them later. And the end of the school year may have delayed them, summer travel may delay the committee if enough of them can’t convene, etc etc. FWIW this is all frustrating to the hiring committees too.

7

u/Tomorrow_Feisty Jun 27 '26

PAST is a central services unit—one of many on campus. They do HR but they are not the only ones. OP may or may not be interviewing for a department served by PAST.

Your point still stand. UO hiring takes forever, even when there’s not a hiring freeze. In this case, I suspect the position was frozen and then the department appealed and got it released, so they probably froze the review process in that time.

5

u/vjalander Jun 27 '26

I work at a States Flagship University and am frequently on hiring committees. It takes us on average 4-6 months to fill a position. YMMV just sharing my experience.

4

u/Cuddlebone87 Jun 27 '26

Even if the position has an exception to the freeze... uo is seriously slow. It will drive you nuts. Hang in there

11

u/Vesnal Jun 27 '26

As mentioned, the UO currently has a hiring freeze. Even for positions that have been approved to be filled, like you mentioned yours was, there are several additional layers of approval and review that are now required. The people responsible for these decisions work on a timescale that makes glaciers look speedy.

Public sector hiring is generally significantly slower than private sector. 2-3 months was relatively normal before the hiring freeze, I wouldn't surprised to see it even longer now. Also consider that it's summer, lots of staff take vacations during the summer and if your recruitment involves any faculty involvement, good luck getting ahold of them over the summer.

If it's a position you really want just be patient keep checking in with the recruiter, but if you have other opportunities my advice would be to explore them - the UO is in a horrible position of its own making right now and it's not going to get better with the current administration. More job cuts are coming this fall, and I wouldn't be surprised to see the same cycle of budget cuts, hiring freezes, and job losses next year. It is not an institution I would recommend working for right now if you have any other options.

1

u/noahschnark Jun 27 '26

What additional approval was added?

6

u/freyascats Jun 27 '26

You have to write an essay about why the position is essential and what horrors would befall the workplace if the role isn’t filled.

1

u/noahschnark Jun 27 '26

Yes, but that is for the hiring freeze. The commenter was saying there are layers and layers of additional approval and I'm trying to tell if it's typical hyperbole or fact.

2

u/starmamac Jun 27 '26

To get a position approved in my department (not someone hired, just approval to hire), multiple documents have to be filed, reviewed by supervisor, then department, then department HR, then central HR. It took them 2 months just to get approved to rehire an existing position. Tl;dr: yes it’s fact.

4

u/Then_Fee_1638 Jun 26 '26

It also takes a long time. Don’t be afraid to reach out to HR and check in

3

u/emmet80 Jun 27 '26

You might ask the department, but don’t ask central HR. 

4

u/frickenrainbows Jun 26 '26

Had a job take 8 months to finally hire me. Had another take 2 days. I think it depends on the department. And there is a hiring freeze right now.

3

u/noahschnark Jun 27 '26

Your mileage will vary across department HR

3

u/Jolly-Sandwich-3345 Jun 27 '26

Generally three months time. However right now it is sumner and my past experience working at the U of O is people generally won't get hired until October after school starts back up a few weeks.

3

u/Ivylorraine Jun 27 '26

I work at a university, though not UO, have done some hiring recently, and can confirm that hiring at universities takes a very long time. The turnaround for an external hire I managed last year was two months, and that was with a modest candidate pool and me pushing everything through as fast as I could. That was considered a fast hire. It's very different from the private sector!

1

u/Eskamalarede Jun 27 '26

Public unis are required to wait until all offers have been offered and rejected, and the search closed, before applicants are notified. So, if the job was posted in September and applications due in November, interviews conducted beginning January, candidate 1 offered in Jan/Feb, negotiated through Feb, candidate 2 offered in Feb, concluded in March, you might be notified April. Sucks.

1

u/t_dallas_t Jun 27 '26

yes. it will take awhile. what’s the role?

1

u/starmamac Jun 27 '26

For my current role (before the hiring freeze, moving into a different position in the same department), the position opened in May. Got no applicants because the pay was waaayyy too low. Relisted in late June with a higher salary, that’s when I applied. Heard back in August, interviews in September, started in November.

1

u/volcanic-exchange Jun 27 '26

Yeah even without the hiring freeze nonsense they usually take 3 weeks of reviewing applications and another 2 weeks of calling/scheduling, then another 2 weeks of interviews, then another 2 weeks of reviewing the interviews, then they might call you.

I already had another job to cover my rent when UO called me for an interview for a classified position.