My first thought is that this is not the ideal post to show to a potential employer. :)
Ruth, Xiaomei, and I had a practice interview session on Thursday evening. Because there were three of us, each person got to experience the process as an interviewee, an interviewer, and an observer. The chance to be an observer was really helpful, as both interviewers and interviewees were nervous. Just as in a real interview situation, we didn’t know each other that well and wanted to make a good impression!
It soon became clear that each of us had prepared for the session differently. Ruth, who was actually in the process of applying for a job, had made copies of her resume for us to look at. Xiaomei had printed off a list of common interview questions and thought about the job she was hypothetically interviewing for. I spent most of my preparation time reading through lists of questions and writing down the ones I felt were the best for employers and job applicants to ask. I do think that I learned a lot about Ruth from listening to her answers to my questions. On the other hand, because I did not spend very much time reviewing what my answers to these questions were, I sort of panicked when Xiaomei said, “Tell me about yourself.” As Ruth pointed out during our discussion, I probably could have led off with something better than a list of my degrees. You can tell I’m coming from an academic background. :)
Each of us noticed different things during our time as observers. (We brought them up at the time, so I am not going behind anyone’s back here!) Ruth noticed the emphasis Xiaomei and I placed on educational background. I noticed the other two saying that the job would be good for them, rather than that they would bring a lot to the job. Xiaomei pointed out that she and I hardly smiled at all, whereas Ruth spent the whole time smiling. All of these observations were useful feedback; but they also made me think that 1. there are hundreds of little aspects to a job interview that you need to keep remembering; and 2. while different employers are going to pay close attention to different aspects of your presentation, you don’t know which aspects they will choose to emphasize, so you still have to be great at all of them. Really, job interviews are pieces of performance art.
I noticed that I started to answer questions (for example, “What would you do if a parent came in to complain that their child had checked out an offensive book?”) before I knew quite where I was going with the answer. My initial responses aren’t wrong, per se, but they’re not as good as the answer I finally arrive at. This again would suggest that I could benefit from more preparation time. It might also suggest that I should pause longer before I start to answer. But sometimes it’s as though I worked my way to the Best Answer by going through the So-So Answers, and I’d rather end on a high note than take a long time thinking and still not answer well.
As far as the smiling goes - I think I sometimes handle stressful public situations by acting much, much calmer than I am - not only calmer than I am in the interview situation, but calmer than I am under normal circumstances. My voice gets quieter, my intonation is flatter/less variable - I sound kind of like a therapist. This assumed calm is not incompatible with smiling. It does make it hard to sound enthusiastic and energetic, though. I will have to think about this issue some more.
Final observation: At one point while I was being the interviewer, I realized that I wasn’t really listening to what my interviewee was saying, not because she was boring, but because I was deciding how the interview was going and thinking about what I was going to ask her next. If real employers “blank out” like that a lot - and why wouldn’t they? they’re interviewing more people, for a much longer time, than I was! - then it is even more important to emphasize your strengths at the very beginning of the interview, keep your answers relatively short, and find a way (perhaps in the questions you ask?) to re-emphasize your strengths at the end.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Monday, January 19, 2009
The only-partly-fictional Large City Library
The Large City Library is a 150-year-old institution whose mission is to serve as a gateway to knowledge for city residents and visitors.
The Library is open six days a week for a total of 57 hours. Its collection includes over 200,000 books as well as CDs, DVDs, VHS tapes, microfilm, online databases, and periodicals. Annual circulation has recently hovered around 250,000, almost a third of which was children’s materials. The LCL offers cultural and educational programming for children, teens, families, and adults. It also provides classes in computer and internet use, adult literacy, and English as a second language.
The LCL is located in a historic building that recently underwent substantial renovations and is now fully handicapped-accessible. It has a small parking lot. It can be reached using the city’s bus system and is within walking distance of the city’s main high school and the downtown retail district.
The Library’s director oversees nine librarians and thirty to forty staff members. The staff includes hourly employees as well as volunteers whose numbers and hours fluctuate based on the academic calendar.
The director reports to a nine-member Board of Trustees. She must also work with the City Council, the body responsible for determining the LCL’s annual budget; an active Friends of the Library group; and (to a lesser extent) the directors of eight neighboring library systems with whom the LCL has reciprocal borrowing agreements.
Large City is an economically and ethnically diverse city of more than 100,000 residents. As of the 2000 census, sixty percent of its population was European American, fifteen percent African American, fifteen percent Asian American, five percent of more than one race, and five percent of other races. Almost twenty percent of city residents of any race reported themselves to be Hispanic or Latino. Both the Hispanic and Asian American populations have increased significantly in recent decades, the latter because of immigration from Southeast Asia.
Large City is home to a state university campus (10,000 students, many of them commuters). While many residents work in manufacturing or in wholesale/retail trades, a substantial portion of the city’s labor force is employed in the fields of education, health, and social services. In recent years the city has also seen substantial growth in its tourism industry. The average income is relatively high, but so is the average cost of housing. Both of those numbers vary significantly across neighborhoods.
With the recent economic downturn, the LCL, like many other public libraries, has seen rises in all of its usage statistics, including number of in-person visits, number of items circulated, and attendance at library programs. At the same time, it is danger of seeing its budget reduced significantly in the coming fiscal year.
The Library is open six days a week for a total of 57 hours. Its collection includes over 200,000 books as well as CDs, DVDs, VHS tapes, microfilm, online databases, and periodicals. Annual circulation has recently hovered around 250,000, almost a third of which was children’s materials. The LCL offers cultural and educational programming for children, teens, families, and adults. It also provides classes in computer and internet use, adult literacy, and English as a second language.
The LCL is located in a historic building that recently underwent substantial renovations and is now fully handicapped-accessible. It has a small parking lot. It can be reached using the city’s bus system and is within walking distance of the city’s main high school and the downtown retail district.
The Library’s director oversees nine librarians and thirty to forty staff members. The staff includes hourly employees as well as volunteers whose numbers and hours fluctuate based on the academic calendar.
The director reports to a nine-member Board of Trustees. She must also work with the City Council, the body responsible for determining the LCL’s annual budget; an active Friends of the Library group; and (to a lesser extent) the directors of eight neighboring library systems with whom the LCL has reciprocal borrowing agreements.
Large City is an economically and ethnically diverse city of more than 100,000 residents. As of the 2000 census, sixty percent of its population was European American, fifteen percent African American, fifteen percent Asian American, five percent of more than one race, and five percent of other races. Almost twenty percent of city residents of any race reported themselves to be Hispanic or Latino. Both the Hispanic and Asian American populations have increased significantly in recent decades, the latter because of immigration from Southeast Asia.
Large City is home to a state university campus (10,000 students, many of them commuters). While many residents work in manufacturing or in wholesale/retail trades, a substantial portion of the city’s labor force is employed in the fields of education, health, and social services. In recent years the city has also seen substantial growth in its tourism industry. The average income is relatively high, but so is the average cost of housing. Both of those numbers vary significantly across neighborhoods.
With the recent economic downturn, the LCL, like many other public libraries, has seen rises in all of its usage statistics, including number of in-person visits, number of items circulated, and attendance at library programs. At the same time, it is danger of seeing its budget reduced significantly in the coming fiscal year.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
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