“Managers like me are not equipped to lead so many people with mental health concerns on both sides of the desk”
Please note: This is an anonymous response to an online survey; I do not have any way of contacting the respondent or verifying responses. Their answers may reflect good, bad, or middling hiring practices. I invite you to take what’s useful and leave the rest. If you are someone who hires Library, Archives or other LIS workers, please consider giving your own opinion by filling out the survey here.
Current Hiring Practices and Organizational Needs
These questions are about your current hiring practices in general – the way things have been run the last year or two (or three).
Where do you advertise your job listings?
Library job line government jobs indeed
Do you notice a difference in application quality based on where the applicant saw the job ad?
Yes
Do you include salary in the job ad?
√ Yes
Do you use keyword matching or any automation tools to reduce the number of applications a human reads while considering candidates?
√ Other: City HR screens first
Do you consider candidates who don’t meet all the requirements listed in the job ad?
√ No
Does your workplace require experience for entry-level librarian positions? (Officially or unofficially…)
√ Other: Yes – typically at least some associate level work or equivalent
What is the current most common reason for disqualifying an applicant without an interview?
Not qualified or not best qualified in the pool
Does your organization use one-way interviews? (Sometimes also called asynchronous or recorded interviews)
√ No
Do you provide interview questions before the interview?
√ Other: Sometimes
If you provide interview questions before the interview, how far in advance?
When they arrive to interview location
Does your interview process include taking the candidate out for a meal?
√ No, and I don’t think we ever have
How much of your interview process is virtual?
√ First round/Initial Screen
Do you (or does your organization) give candidates feedback about applications or interview performance?
√ Other: If they ask
What is the most important thing for a job hunter to do in order to improve their hirability?
I want to hire someone who is:
Emotionally intelligent. We can teach hard skills to nice people.
Is there anything else you’d like to say about hiring practices at your organization or in current trends?
Covid has made people so much more emotionally volatile (staff and patrons). Hiring feels like a huge gamble. People are not the same.
Your Last Recruitment
These are questions about the last person you hired (or the last position you attempted to fill). This person may not have been a librarian, and that’s ok.
Think about the most recent time you participated in hiring someone (or an attempt to hire someone) at your organization. What was the title of the position you were trying to fill?
Adult services librarian
When was this position hired?
√ Between three to six months ago
Approximately how many people applied for this position?
√ 25-75
Approximately what percentage of those would you say were hirable?
√ 25% or less
And how would you define “hirable”?
Qualified and a possible match to org culture / worthy of at least one interview
How did the recruitment for this position compare with recruitments in previous years?
Yep – more applications than 5 years ago, but fewer were from people I would consider qualified
Your Workplace
This section asks for information about your workplace, including if you have lost positions in the last decade.
How many staff members are at your library/organization?
√ 10-50
Are you unionized?
√ No
How many permanent, full time job openings has your workplace posted in the last year?
√ 3-4
How many permanent, full time librarian (or other “professional” level) jobs has your workplace posted in the last year?
√ 3-4
Can you tell us how the number of permanent, full-time positions at your workplace has changed over the past decade?
√ Other: A few more FT positions by way of reallocating FTE. Nearly no new FTE/hours in almost 20 years
Have any full-time librarian positions been replaced with part-time or hourly workers over the past decade?
√ No
Have any full-time librarian positions been replaced with non-librarian, lower paid staff positions over the past decade?
√ No
Is librarianship a dying profession?
√ No
Why or why not?
No – no matter how digitized the world gets, people need navigation, discernment, community, and kindness. We need greater funding and emotional support after going through peaks of covid. Managers like me are not equipped to lead so many people with mental health concerns on both sides of the desk. Feels like false authority and we get beat up and paid for the jobs we held 4 years ago… not the psychological Wild West we are and have been navigating. Libraries before and after are not dying, but they are NOT the same.
Demographics
This section asks for information about you specifically.
What part of the world are you in?
√ Other: Colorado – west edge of Midwest
What’s your region like?
√ Urban area,
√ Suburban area
What type of institution do you hire for (check all that apply):
√ Public Library
What type(s) of LIS professionals do you hire?
Primarily public services staff – clerks, shelvers, circ supervisor, supervising librarians, librarians, associates (children’s teen adult)
Are you a librarian?
√ Other: I manage a branch but still consider myself a librarian
Are you now or have you ever been:
√ A hiring manager (you are hiring people that you will directly or indirectly supervise),
√ A member of a hiring or search committee
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