Over the last several months, RID hired Joey Trapani and recently announced that Trapani would be ending his term as CEO of the organization after only a few months. Even if everything else went well, this would still have been problematic. However, many people were unhappy with the hiring process including the candidate chosen for the position of CEO. This is an opportunity to start the CEO search and hiring process in a transparent and open way.

Here are a few examples of things the hiring committee could do (or continue to do) to improve the process:

Hold part or all of the interview in public (live streamed with the option of allowing people to attend and watch in person). There are no employee privacy guarantees regarding interviews in situations like this. In states with Open Meeting Laws, these kinds of public interviews happen regularly. Publicly list the applicants who have made it to a final round, so candidates are not identified from rumors or on social media. Have a presentation from the CEO to the public. Have it in communicated in ASL. It could relate to their leadership style, their goals for RID, their 30 day/90 day/180 day plans as the new CEO, how they plan on bridging the divide between RID and NAD and/or the divide between the interpreting profession and the deaf, hard of hearing and deafblind consumers of interpreting services. As RID did previously, they should allow membership feedback on the candidates based on a video and resume. Ensure a balanced and diverse hiring committee and interview panel to build trust among different stakeholders that RID serves (e.g., interpreters of color, trilingual interpreters, deaf caucus members, consumers of services)

Allowing the public to view some or all of the interview process (not including salary negotiations or results of a background check – things like that) and allowing stakeholder feedback will increase trust in the hiring process. Transparency and communication build trust and reduces criticisms when people see a fair and equitable process.