Administrators are responsive to initiatives that have the potential to energize teaching and research, particularly across several departments, and to attract students. Before you act to maximize your chances to obtain faculty positions, I would recommend that you step back to ask yourself a few questions. The first is whether faculty positions are indeed what your department most needs. I have said that faculty positions are a gold standard in institutions of higher education, the good that everyone most desires. It is easy to see why this is so.
Departments attain prestige from the accomplishments of their members.
The more members, the more accomplishments. We all like more colleagues, and we all like the excitement and stimulus of hiring. But it is worthwhile at least to ask whether your department is overinvested in faculty. From an institutional perspective, all money is green. With the funding for an average Berkeley faculty salary of, say, sixty thousand dollars a year, one could create five TA positions or four continuing graduate fellowships or three secretarial positions.