Journal of College & University Student Housing Vol. 47 No. 3 - 68

views, the audio recording from the virtual
interview had some level of distortion that
made it possible to hear much of the content
but difficult to transcribe. In these five instances, we transcribed as much as possible
and relied on our notes from the interviews
when analyzing the data.

To analyze the data, we utilized Inductive Analysis. Inductive Analysis involves
analyzing the data from each participant individually, highlighting notable statements,
connecting each statement to the research
questions, coding the data, arranging the
data in a matrix, and then looking through
patterns in the data for themes to emerge
(Percy et al., 2015).

Positionality
We understand that personal identities and
experiences impact how we as researchers
interact with, understand, and analyze the
data. We each had our own thoughts, feelings, and assumptions going into the study
including our personal opinions of what
makes strong RA candidates and RA teams,
the belief that hiring processes always possess some bias, and the belief that being as
objective as possible results in consistent
hiring decisions. Between us, we have 15 and
six years of experience interviewing RAs and
have hired a total of ten RA teams. Additionally, we are both White males and acknowledge that our privilege influences how we
interact with others and our perceptions of
higher education.

FINDINGS
After analyzing the data, we identified several
themes. In addition to the research question,
we were interested in how RLPs managed
their interview and selection processes. We
begin by sharing the context of the interview
process which includes themes of group
interview processes, trusting recommendations from colleagues, and " draft days. "
Analyzing data relevant to the research question, we explored what factors RLPs consider when building RA teams. RLPs consider
these factors: the RA teams being representative of the student population, having a
variety of personalities and skills to enhance
versatility, and having the ability to work well
as a team. We decided to not use specific
names as pseudonyms and instead to refer to
participants as RLPs. We took this approach
to avoid any assumptions that may be made
with any names that we or our participants
selected. Since we have reported our results
without name identification, it is important
to take each quote and point shared by RLPs
as individual comments in isolation and not
look for connections between them throughout different sections of this article.

Context for the RA Interview Process
Through our interviews, we learned a lot
about the RA interview and selection processes at various institutions which included some
key factors influencing how RAs are selected.
Factors included discussing group interviews

Healea and Hale found three key elements to encourage diverse
RAs to apply for the position: a departmental focus on diversity;
increasing the number of underrepresented students on campus
and providing adequate support while at the institution; and the
influence of professional staff in conversations on diversity including
recommending to individuals that they apply to be an RA.
Volume 47, No. 3 * 2021

Journal of College & University Student Housing Vol. 47 No. 3

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Journal of College & University Student Housing Vol. 47 No. 3