Confessions of a Mad Librarian

Why I am not going to hire you

Ok, someone wanted a manager to chime in. I happen to be one (wielding great power and what not). Below I will let you all in on a few of the secrets of what goes on behind the closed doors of the academic library search committee. I have no idea about what happens in a public library, because hey, I am a snobby academic type ;-)

A caveat that will likely be ignored from those of you itching to fight (bring it on, I can take you): I do not believe half the stuff below. I am an enlightened being and would never do anything wrong or allow any sort of prejudice to cloud my judgment of your perfect application/resume/CV. I am acting as reporter of what I have encountered serving on 10-15 search committees in the last 6 years. So, I am not necessarily the "I" below.

Why I am not going to interview you:

--I googled you and found that a) you are weird or maybe b) whine a lot on listservs with searchable archives or c) whatever. Do I know that this is wrong, that I should be evaluating your skills and not your personal life? Yes, of course. I am not stupid. Will I do it anyway? Yes, of course. After all, I am not stupid. Should you hide your personal life? Up to you. It often works to someone's advantage because it adds life to your boring resume if I know you are also a writer/harley owner/dominatrix/whatever. But I google every serious candidate.

--All your experience is in public libraries and you did not do a good job reminding me that many skills are the same or transferable. Yes, yes. We are all the same. A librarian is a librarian and why can't we all just get along. But the resumes I am looking at from academic types look like my resume. I understand them better. You have to make me understand you better.

--I look at your resume/cover letter and I see what? That you went to library school. Ok, good, you have the absolute minimum requirement. Anything else? Did you work at a library while in school? An interesting internship or practicum? Anything at all that stands out. Now I have seen resumes and cover letters from newbie librarians that make the most of what they have even though there is no library experience. They point out how previous work experience in another field showed them how to be helpful, or how to teach, or how to deal with unreasonable expectations from clientele. Or how they turned some boring library school class project into something interesting and relevant to the position I am advertising. (At this point some of you will be wanting to respond to this telling me that no one told you to do this at your crappy library school or hey, you need to eat and could afford to do any of the above. Save it. I mean really, please just save it. Go ahead and write it out if it makes you feel better, but don't send it. I read the list and have heard your same sad song too often and can just tune it out)(Besides, in this email I am "search committee member" which means I have a job and I do not care about why you do not. I am judging you when i read your resume. And even if I am an enlightened search committee member and we are trying to hire a fresh newbie because we want to help all you poor people lied to by your graduate schools, I still want to hire someone who did more than just show up.)

--Your cover letter makes you sound dumb/stupid/bitter/whiner/loser/incompetent. Or I cannot tell from your resume/cover letter that you even read the job description. Or you misspelled something in the first sentence. In short, you couldn't handle polishing one of the more important set of documents you will put together. Remember, you resume/cover letter and google is all i have to go on.

--There are at least 3-4 better resumes in the pile. I am looking for the best set of skills packaged in the best person I can find. Someone else can worry about giving the mediocre a shot. I have to work with the person I hire.

Why I am not going to hire you after interviewing you:

--The person I interviewed the day before was better. Define better however you wish.

--Hanging out with you for the day I just get the feeling that you are a frustrated academic that couldn't hack it so you are slumming with your PhD in the library world. That if the academic departments out there were more enlightened they would hire you in a heartbeat and beg you to teach all them big and important ideas in your head to the masses. Not that I am bitter, but I deal with all your colleagues that could hack it and get the job and they are pains the ass, so why do I want to hire you? It is ok to _be_ all of the above, but it is not alright to show that you are in an interview.

--Around lunchtime (insert superfluous reminder about academic library interviews usually lasting a long days journey into night), you started to get unintelligible. I am on the search committee and have seen you at various pints in the day and know you were fine at one point, but some key people will have only seen you once and they cannot believe you have a brain.

--You at no point could show any knowledge or curiosity about important topics affecting the library world. If you have no publications or experience I am trying to see if you have anything to build on, and when I asked you what you were reading/following you had nothing.

--You are so good that I am threatened by you and so I pick a more mediocre person so I can continue to shine (obviously this doesn't refer to me ;-) (or you, probably)

Why I am not going to hire you even though I want to:

--We went into a bad budget cycle and we cut/froze the position (or, more likely, it was cut/frozen by someone higher up the food chain.
--Your references didn't check out.
--The long arm of the plot against you got to me

Hope it is useful.
--matt