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Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
Faculty Affairs Office
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Accepted Undifferentiated Track Offer

The offer letter your candidate received indicated that the faculty appointment was contingent on approval by the Dean, APT Committee (if applicable), and Provost.  Now that your finalist has accepted your offer, follow these steps to complete the appointment paperwork needed to obtain those approvals.

Please note that these steps pertain only to approval of the FSM faculty appointment.  If your candidate also needs hospital privileges, contact the Medical Staff Office of the applicable hospital(s) for information on the medical staff appointment process, privileging, and credentialing.

 Step 1: Finalize Offer in Business Plan Database
Update the candidate's acceptance in the business plan database and confirm offer documentation is complete.

Note: This step is not applicable for academic part-time appointments (those fully paid by Lurie Children's, Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, Stroger, Jesse Brown VA)
  • Notify the Faculty Affairs Office (fao@northwestern.edu) that the candidate has accepted the offer and the business plan will be updated.  If the candidate will be employed by NMG, also notify mdgrowth@nm.org.  This notification triggers NMG to prepare the Employment Agreement. Contact NMG if you have questions about their process. 
  • Confirm the final offer letter (signed by the Department Chair) has been uploaded to the business plan 
    Note: The final letter should be uploaded at the time of sending the offer to the candidate. 
  • Upload the candidate's acceptance of the offer, if written acceptance was provided 

 Step 2: Collect Documents from the Candidate
Obtain these documents from the candidate, which are needed in subsequent appointment steps.

Obtain these documents from the candidate, which are needed in subsequent appointment steps:

 Step 3: Solicit Reference Letters
Use the referee list you collected in Step 2 to solicit reference letters.

Note: At the rank of Instructor, collecting formal reference letters is not required, though checking candidate references is recommended.

Before requesting letters, confirm the appropriateness of the referees:

  • Referee rank must be at least as high as rank candidate will hold at NU
  • Referees must be external to NU 
  • No more than 2 letters from the same institution (geographic range of referees demonstrates the breadth of a candidates reputation)

How to solicit reference letters:

The Department Chair's office should contact the referees on the candidate's referee list to request letters of reference. Referees may provide their letters by email (either as an attachment or typed into the text of the email itself). The letters must remain confidential and not be shared with the candidate or any individuals outside those who are involved in evaluating the candidate for appointment.  

 Step 4: Prepare/Distribute Additional Required Documents
Expedite the appointment and onboarding processes by completing these steps while you wait to receive reference letters.

  • E-mail candidate's completed New Faculty Research Questionnaire to FAO, if candidate will do research 
    This will help FSM anticipate the needs of the candidate as he or she transitions to NU
  • Coordinate Additional Appointments 
    • Secondary Appointments: In the offer letter, was the candidate offered a secondary appointment in another department?  If so, contact the administrators in the secondary department to coordinate paperwork. You can add the secondary appointment paperwork to your appointment packet so that everything is processed together.
  • Prepare Position Data/Appointment Forms
    • Prepare one set for the primary position, and one set for each additional position the candidate will hold in myHR (e.g., secondary appointment, faculty administrative appointment, "NMG Member" position, etc.)
    • For NMG-employed candidates:
      • The "NMG Member" record should always be Record 1 in myHR
      • Obtain NMG Payroll's approval of the Position Data/Appointment forms. Deliver the forms to NMG Payroll for signature and pick them up from NMG Payroll after they are signed.  NMG will compare your forms against the approved business plan to make sure the salary aligns with what was approved in the offer.  They will also wait until the Employment Agreement is fully executed (process initiated in Step 1 above) to approve the payroll forms.  Any questions about the NMG submission and approval process should be directed to NMG.

 Step 5: Deliver Complete Appointment Packet to FAO (paper copy required)
Submit paper copies of the following documents to FAO in the order listed:

  • New Appointment Cover Sheet
  • Prior correspondence with FAO regarding special circumstances, if applicable
  • Reference Letters (except for Instructors)
  • Personal Data Form 
  • Position Data/Appointment Forms, one set for the primary position, and one set for each additional position in myHR (e.g., secondary appointments, faculty administrative appointments, "NMG member" positions).  Note: For NMG-employed candidates, the department should add the NMG set of Position Data/Appointment Forms to the appointment packet after they are signed by NMG (see step 4 above). Do not submit the appointment packet to FAO prior to obtaining NMG approval on the forms.
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