The university I worked for had a very strict hiring process, and it was all recorded as well. The process worked something like this: 1) Get approval from HR

The university I worked for had a very strict hiring process, and it was all recorded as well. The process worked something like this: 1) Get approval from HR to start the hiring process. Your department needs to have the money to hire someone, and a need to fill a position. I'm not sure how either is decided. 2) Define the position. Several people are involved here, basically you define the role and the areas of expertise that you want and need. 3) Information from 2 gets sent back to all involved parties, and everyone ranks the skills by necessity and comments on things. 4) HR takes the information and creates job listings, and collects candidates. 5) Interviews take place, and you grade applications according to what you decided in 3. 6) Hire someone who satisfies the requirements and did well in the interviews. There's some leeway in the system because the interview and the judgment of the interviewers matters, but you can't just accept somebody because you like them, and you can't reject someone because you don't. As for what happens with an applicant's information after they're rejected... I'm not sure where it goes or whether it gets called up again if they re-apply. Our department was pretty small though, if we didn't hire you the first time, we won't have forgotten you by the second time around.