The job search can be a stressful proposition for a candidate, but for those making a hiring decision the process can be just as fraught. At colleges and universities, hiring is a crucial part of creating the desired campus culture. Those invested in the search process must consider the tangible and intangible attributes each candidate brings to a role.
JMahl Stewart, talent acquisition and recruiting manager at Virginia Tech, is one of the people working to make sure the school is getting the right people for the job.
Stewart started his career in talent acquisition in 1998. “Along the way, I’ve learned new ways to be innovative and strategic so we can always identify the right people at the right time for our organization, not just for today, but where we are going in the future,” Stewart says. He honed in on higher education in 2003, with a job at Walden University and has not looked back since.
“Going into higher education wasn’t an ‘if’ for me; it was always a ‘when,” Stewart says.
In large part, that is due to his upbringing.
His mother was highly passionate about her work as a K-12 teacher in Baltimore, staying on years past her official retirement in order to continue teaching. When she went to college, she was a member of one of the first classes to integrate Tennessee’s Memphis State University, now the University of Memphis. After a year there, she transferred to the historically Black Tennessee State University, where the environment was more welcoming. That experience instilled in her a strong belief in the power of education for all, a belief she passed on to her son.
“I think that’s one of the reasons she stayed on for so many years and kept wanting to give back,” Stewart says.
