Equal Opportunities Section of the American Fisheries Society by Hadley Boehm
Inclusive Hiring Practices Fisheries Diversity & Inclusion Podbean Podcast
By Hadley Boehm
Equal Opportunity American Fisheries Society Special Reports
Identifying recruitment bottlenecks for walleyes in northern Wisconsin lakes
Evaluation of Striped Bass stocking in Bull Shoals Lake
Ecosystem Change on North American Percid Populations
Walleye Abundance in Northern Wisconsin Lakes before Fall
I have been involved with the Equal Opportunities Section (EOS) of the American Fisheries Society (AFS) for the last few years and am currently in my second year as its treasurer. Each year at the annual AFS meeting the EOS sponsors many activities and often sponsors at least one symposium on topics related to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility.
Last fall, I presented Shifting Baselines: Improving DEIJA Communication Within Fisheries which was sponsored by the EOS. I have an agency background before coming back to grad school, so have a particular interest in/read a lot about hiring processes which was the topic of my symposium presentation (Boehm, H., and J. Rogosch. 2022. Best practices for improving DEIJA in the fisheries employment hiring process. American Fisheries Society annual meeting, Spokane, WA).
George Scholten, who is the Fisheries Research Supervisor for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) attended the AFS meeting and planned the annual training for IDNR supervisors. George attended my presentation and decided it was a good fit for the IDNR supervisor training and invited me to Iowa! I met virtually with the IDNR planning meeting to better understand their needs, and turned a 15 minute presentation into a half day workshop within about 10 days!
“You did an outstanding job presenting on what can be a sensitive topic. I have received a ton of positive feedback from our newest to most senior supervisors and many in between. Our human resources staff appreciated the information. The HR team added your concepts into our Hiring Facilitator training. Great work! Undoubtedly, your trip to Iowa improved our hiring practices.” GEORGE SCHOLTEN | AIS Program & Research Section Supervisor Fisheries Bureau Iowa Department of Natural Resources
Then I headed up to Iowa for the supervisors meeting to pilot the workshop. I was a bit nervous going into it, but it was a great and open-minded group and it ended up going very well. Since, IDNR has been incorporating more DEI considerations into its hiring process (example below). We interviewed for Fisheries Podcast (https://fisheriespodcast.podbean.com/e/inclusive-hiring-practices/) to talk about the experience and what we learned from it.
I consider myself a fisheries research scientist. As a graduate student I never believed I would provide training to agency supervisors! At the training a couple of supervisors asked me if “I planned to go back to fisheries science or stay in this field,” and while I’m a fisheries researcher, I realize how important it is to pursue things I’m passionate about.
My advisor, Craig Paukert, Unit Leader, Missouri CRU, captured how I feel well in a recent reference letter he wrote for me: “I often think the impact of our work is focused on improving habitat, recovering a species, creating greater fishing opportunities, etc. However, the impact Hadley has in helping provide a more inclusive hiring process for a state agency blew me away, especially given the accolades she received from biologists, supervisors, and Human Resources!”
Thank you again for crafting the content of the All DNR Supervisor meeting. I appreciate the speakers and content you brought to the event to help me grow and improve as a leader. From the DEIJA and bias portion of the session, I was able to enhance my job posting, screen criteria, and interview questions approach. Below is an example of my first job posting structured in an inviting manner with more of the DNR culture components, DEIJA and like statements, instructions on how to apply, and more. Feel free to glean away, I was inspired by many other types of job postings which I pulled items I thought would work for our team. Jerah Sheets, Supervisor, Water Quality Improvement Section, Iowa Department of Natural Resources