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One of our kids earned a library graduate degree and hit the job market. Just over a year after graduating—and about 10 months actively searching—they have accepted an offer as a cataloger at an academic library. It came soon after my own job search and I was interested to see the similarities in how candidates are treated by hiring organizations. There’s room for improvement.
They were navigating rougher waters than I had just a year previously. The effect of the Trump Administration’s attacks on public organizations like universities and public libraries caused a constriction in the job market. I had been monitoring jobs for a number of years, first for my own job search but also for a recent article I published on the law librarian pipeline. As I continued my monitoring, the drop in new job postings was worrying. This was especially true for a new grad, as it happened when there were also layoffs and hiring freezes and a discussion of people hunkering down (“job hugging“). New positions are rare and so most hiring will be into existing roles that have been vacated.
Poor Communications
I did not have to weather the same storms but that’s not to say that my own experience was ideal. Even though I was often applying for leadership roles at law schools with presumably fewer candidates than an entry level role, it was common for my application to go unanswered. My follow up emails were sometimes answered with an updated timeline or even sometimes a note that the search had been cancelled, if any response was forthcoming.
My favorite experience came after I heard back from a member of the search committee that I wasn’t a good fit. Then the University HR team sent out a “how’d we do” email to me…and about 100 other people, many of whom it turned out had also not been selected for a role. It was funny to watch the “reply all” comments, a bit cathartic and, if I admit it, a bit of a feeling of having dodged working at an organization that would make that sort of mistake.
In one case, the law school emailed me about 6 months later to say that the initial search had been cancelled—they had otherwise ghosted me—but that, in the new fiscal year, it was on again. I had already learned that this school was experiencing some financial challenges so I declined their offer to participate in a second go round. But, once again, the HR process was a red flag all on its own.
It reminded me a bit of when I first went to Canada to work. I noticed that there was a default message in all posting announcements that candidates would not hear back unless they were a candidate. This was new to me and not a practice I adopted if I could avoid it (initially, HR screened all resumes until I asked them to stop the practice and forward all of them to me).
I understand this at some level from an HR perspective but the law library world is very small. The people applying for a law library job are likely to already be law librarians or to become one. It seems basic courtesy to drop them a note to let them know what was happening with their applications. Also, it is not like law library jobs always experience a flood of applicants; being responsive isn’t a heavy lift.
It’s Not Who You Know
I approached supporting this search the same way I do for my own. I hit the bricks looking for posts that might be interesting. I have never gotten a job where I already knew someone at the organization. I have only ever leveraged my professional network for post-interview references.
We also didn’t use LinkedIn, either of us. I’m not a fan, although I’ve just made a new profile there because I’m supporting some students and I want to be able to help them build their networks. But LinkedIn has been a pointlessly time sink from my perspective. It’s a great example of a site that is notorious—I have already heard two lawyers give presentations to students saying they must be on LinkedIn professionally—but I find it hard to believe it’s worth the effort. Maybe it has a secret sauce referral ability for lawyer business development. But it’s only going for a certain type of client looking for a certain kind of lawyer.
But I have not found profile or portfolio sites helpful for job searches. And someone might say, well, you have this website and blog so maybe people find you that way. I can say with certainty that they don’t. When I’m prospecting jobs, I monitor my web traffic. I am confident that at least a few of my recent jobs, the people there who hired me had no idea that I had any sort of website presence or at least hadn’t visited it.
We hit the normal job posting sites: library-specific, academic-focused, and aggregators. Rinse and repeat. The market was so thin that I even flagged academic law library cataloging roles for them to consider. There were other limitations: no jobs in Texas or Florida because who would want to work in education and libraries there? No jobs in California because of the cost of living. Most everywhere else was fair game. I was surprised at the one or two law schools they applied to where the outcome was the same: application, no response or follow up. Now, I know that there are law schools who are struggling to get candidates so I’m surprised that anyone is ghosting applicants.
Putting People In Their Place
One thing that stood out with the place that made the offer to our kid was their process. It moved quickly, the people involved were communicative. The library director picked up our candidate at the airport—which, I explained, was a choice because director’s might delegate that to a colleague, as Deans often do—which was a good cultural sign. They also exhibited fairness, so each candidate only learned the presentation topic one week in advance of their visit. I have high expectations for their workplace experience.
Contrast that to a law school I interviewed at who had set up a student meeting. My faculty shepherd brought me to an empty room, and had to go out and shake the trees to get a warm body or two into the room. That speaks volumes about that law school’s culture. When I interviewed for my current role, the student interview segment was just as engaged as any of the ones with faculty.
Another red flag? A low ball offer. I’m not really money driven. I figure out how much I need to earn in a given location, given my particular goals and long term plans. I don’t apply to jobs that are below that amount. I was almost speechless when I had a one-on-one with a law school Dean who pitched a salary that was well below the going rate (thanks to my reading of the AALL Salary Survey) for the area, as well as below what my own valuation of the role and location was.
It may say more about how long I’ve been in the library world and how many places I have worked but I do listen to my instinct. Libraries and organizations that house them will often tell you if they are unhealthy places to work. Sometimes you want to listen to those voices because they indicate challenges, things you can wrap your arms around and improve.
If it’s really a cultural issue, it’s good to know where it comes from. At the end of a long day of interviews and a presentation, I met with a law school dean. We talked about the role, typical Dean-to-director content. Then I was assured I would get one more opportunity to discuss the role, as all three finalists would get a call from the Dean to let them know if they had or had not been selected.
No surprise that there was no call. Time passed, I followed up, and learned that someone else had been appointed to the role. No big deal. But I won’t forget that dean or that institution and even when our kid was searching, it was a place that I flagged as probably not a healthy place to start a career. Sometimes a rejection is a better outcome than an offer.
This caused me to be become a bit intemperate. I get that I’m not everyone’s cup of tea. I didn’t go to the right law school 30 years ago, I didn’t work for the right people or in the right places. I ended up asking my current boss in our interview a question that was probably more direct than I would have otherwise been. She’s pretty cool, though, and if it was perhaps bordering on tactless, she didn’t let on.
At more than one library I have worked at, I have walked into a culture that was unhealthy but mostly because it was poorly tended. The people in those environments know something’s not right but they often need someone, like a director, to enable their good ideas to flourish. There is nothing more enjoyable than having those early talks and then seeing people take the initiative and the culture improving without much more than setting a good example yourself.
I’m excited to see where this role takes our kid. As I explained to them, it will be the last time they apply for a job where the “two to three years experience” requirement is a barrier. In this role, they will be working at the coal face: academic materials, lots of print, the ALMA platform that is so dominant. Really, anything a new librarian into metadata and access could want.
I hope that the next time they get onto the job market that the experience is better. Ideally not when the Federal government is undermining educational institutions like libraries. Even better, organizations that let bad culture overwhelm candidate experience and whose HR or search committees ghost candidates can be ignored for healthier, more people-oriented libraries.