Don't call us, we'll .... oh, nevermind

Tuesday I received a letter from a certain library concerning a certain job opportunity. It was for the job I applied for 4 years ago and never heard back about. How they found my new address, I'll never know, but I do know I couldn't make this stuff up!

I guess the bright side is I didn't end up with that place. They obviously have some bureaucratic/administrative issues they need to work out.

The Long and Winding Road

The Chronical of Higher Education featured this article, The Endlesse Searche, today about the extremely slowwww nature of the hiring process of academics, namely academic librarians. Having previously been a candidate in multiple searches (some bad, some good) I know exactly the frustration Mr. Gilman is talking about.

Gilman advises those hiring an academic librarian to do a few common sense things. Why? Because very often, libraries don't do these things when conducting a search and end up shooting themselves in the foot because they A) don't get the pool of candidates they want [or they don't get a pool at all], B) don't have the money to pay for the qualifications they want in a candidate, or C) slack off in their searching duties thereby allowing other institutions to snap up the good candidates in the meantime.

Gilman also advises search committees to notify candidates the minute they're no longer in the running for a position. HA! I interviewed at one instition, got along famously with everyone there, and didn't hear anything for 2 months. Come to find out, I had been the only person interviewed, HR didn't like the fact that there had only been 1 candidate, and demanded at least a second person be interviewed. The search committee scrambled to interview another person a month later and ended up hiring her. Where did that leave me? Three months after my interview with bupkus.

The job I did end up getting I had actually written off because, like I said, I had applied in February and by August hadn't heard a peep. Seven months is a freakin' long time to go without work. (Out of the 27 jobs I applied for in 2004, only about 10 even bothered to tell me "thanks, but no thanks." Talk about courtesy! Yikes.)

I stayed in said job for 18 months. Turns out the institution itself was run little better than its job searches. Fortunately for me, there's a happy ending. (Or beginning, in this case.) With a year and a half of professional experience under my belt, I applied for my current position in March, got invited to interview in mid-April, was offered the job in the beginning of May, and started working in mid-June!! Wow! It all happened so fast, I'm still suffering a bit of dizziness!

So, how do you run a good job search? It's quite easy. Even a robot like me knows.

1. Figure out what qualifications you want in a candidate. Do your research!
2. Figure out how much you should pay someone for such a position, then find out how much you can actually offer. Don't be a cheap bastard. Librarians aren't stupid. (Well, some of them are, but that's another rant altogether.)
3. Advertise a concise and clear ad in appropriate venues. Include a description of job duties and desired/required qualifications and be sure to post a salary range.
4. Conduct formal interviews. Don't ask stupid questions like, "If you were a garden tool, what would you be and why?" or "Where do you want to be in 10 years?" You'll scare off the smart candidates in a second.
5. Contact candidates soon after the interview to let them know A) they're still in consideration, or B) they're not right for the job. Oh, and 'soon' doesn't mean in 3 months. It means soon, like within a couple weeks, yo? People have lives, they have shit goin' on and they shouldn't have to wait around for you to make up your mind, have HR or the dean say, "Nope," or wait for you to scramble around doing anything in steps 1-4 at this point.
6. Make an offer to the top candidate and be flexible. Next thing you know, she/he will be working at your institution! They'll be happy, you and the search committee will be happy, HR will be happy, and everybody happy! Oompah!

I'm certainly not going to hold my breath about academic libraries getting their act together when it comes to hiring new librarians anytime soon; however, having recently been through a well-run and briskly-paced job search, I know it can be done. There's no need to have 10 months between receiving an application and having a candidate start work. None. Academic libraries, like glaciers, have been around for a very long time; however, longevity is one thing, stagnation is quite another.