This Thing is what the past year has been for me: applications, applications, applications, applications, interview, applications, applications...

I feel good about the format of my résumé, which I started in college. I have a master copy on my computer (and flash drive) that I update every time I start a new job or get a new qualification. I also have a notebook with this information. I try to keep current with layout and content expectations, so once in a while I'll tweak a few things, but the information is always there for me to work with.

The first version of my résumé was a chronological list of jobs and the duties sounded like an abbreviated job description. This is how the career advisor at college helped me create my résumé. As I've read about current conventions and gotten feedback from employers, I changed things so that the duties read more as specific actions ("Lead groups of 10 -13 teenagers on adventure trips" instead of "Head counselor during trips"). I also changed from chronological to categorical-chronological organization. 

This way, if a hiring manager doesn't care about my experience teaching at camps, they can skip straight to the library section and see what I've done there. I've gotten mixed reviews for this format, but my work experience is so diverse, it makes the most sense to me and the feedback skews slightly towards favorable, so I'll keep this format until I change my mind or I have enough directly relevant experience that it doesn't matter.

Another thing I've changed is to make separate résumés for different positions and include only the experience that is relevant to the job posting. For example, if I'm applying for an instruction librarian position, I don't include the seven months I spent working on a guest ranch or the nine months I worked as a hotel housekeeper. These kinds of jobs are in my work history on the application. I use the résumé to help focus the hiring committee's attention on the relevant experience. Alternately, if I'm applying for concession work (yes, some seasonal places want a résumé), I put all the hotel, retail, and restaurant experience on the resume and leave off library and teaching experience.

My cover letters have gone through changes, too. When I first wrote cover letters, they were basically full sentence versions of parts of my résumé. As I've read and experimented and gotten more practice, they now (I hope) show some of my strengths and abilities that aren't listed on the résumé and point to the résumé as proof for what the cover letter says.

One thing I now believe about applications, cover letters, and résumés: there is alot of bad advice out there! If something feels weird or like a bad idea, it probably is. Telling myself that I need to do hard things to get what I want and since I'm not getting interviews, I should try another approach has caused me to do some things that I wish I hadn't. (Email a hiring manager every week to express continuing interest? No. Bad advice.) Also, career offices and employment agencies don't always know what they are talking about. It takes work to stay on top of current expectations. That work is something each person should do for himself; career coaches don't necessarily do that work.

Two people who I think offer solid advice on job searching and employment in general are Alison Green of Ask A Manager and Suzanne Lucas of Evil HR Lady. I like them because they are sensible and advocate avoiding coyness and games. I'm really bad at playing social games, so I appreciate anyone who makes suggestions for appropriately saying what you mean. Their work also helps take some of the mystery out of what is going on in an employer's mind.

Two of the most helpful things I found while job searching are statements Alison Green says in her free guide to preparing for an interview. Essentially, she says that if you are called for an interview, they have already decided that you meet their initial qualifications; no competent interviewer will interview someone they wouldn't even consider hiring. The other thing is that weird people get hired all the time. This encourages me that if nerves make me stutter while answering a hard question or if I blank for two seconds before understanding what a question means, maybe all is not lost.

Also, I'm starting more and more to be natural and avoid presenting the shiny-can't-keep-this-up-for-more-than-a-few-hours version. I think I always did this to some extent; it's hard for me to pretend to be different from who I am. The difference is that now I don't feel guilty illustrating all my answers with an example or analogy or giving a simple one sentence answer when that's all I have to say. This is how I am in real life and I have come to think that interviewers deserve to know the actuality of who they'll be working with, just as I want to go past the shiny truth and see the real truth of a prospective employer.

This leads to my next change. In interviews, I have started asking the questions I want to know and asking them just as the interviewers ask me. For example, I used to think it was too direct to ask, "What is a typical work day like? Can you tell me about the culture here?" So I struggled to find out this information with sideways questions. It didn't work out so well. Now I ask these questions directly.

I haven't yet been hired, so who knows if I'm on the right track, but at least I am acting in a way that prevents me from cringing in embarrassment and does get me the information I want.

I applied to a position at Brevard College. Before the closing date, I received an email stating that the college had decided not to hire for that position at this time. 

Now, the reason Brevard College gets a gold star is because they communicated. So many places keep silent and the applicant has no idea what is going on. Just a quick no-go email is all it takes so the applicant can move on with his life.

I don't even care if it's a form email from a generic HR address. But, in this case, a specific person with listed contact information sent an email that had my name  in the salutation. That tells me something good about the culture there.

When I'm new in a position, I want expectations to be clearly defined. I want to have a specific person I can go to when I have questions. Once I know what is expected and where I can get answers, then I like to be left alone to get down to work. Once I have a way to get information when I have questions, I learn best by being left alone to figure things out in a "what does this button do?" kind of way.

__________________________________________

This is the last question for now. 

Some of these questions are ones I have encountered more than once or that struck me as difficult to answer, but I used this article by Alison Green of Ask a Manager to help me narrow down to most of the questions I posted here.

Once when I worked at Dairy Queen a customer walked in and you could tell that she was looking for a reason to be unhappy. She ordered a caramel sunday. The way they are made is to put ice cream, caramel, and whipped topping in the bowl, in that order. The caramel is between the whipped topping and ice cream, so you can't see it until you eat the whipped topping.

When I gave her the sunday, she walked away, took one bite from the top, made a face, and came back. "There's no caramel in here," she complained while scooping the ice cream to the top and pushing the whipped topping to the bottom. I could see the caramel moving around, but she insisted there wasn't any there.

I tried to explain to her that the caramel was between the ice cream and the whipped topping, but that only caused her to more furiously move around the ice cream, pushing the caramel to the bottom. It was obvious that reasoning with her wasn't going to help things, so I took her sunday back and put caramel on the top where she could see it. She was satisfied enough with that to accept the ice cream without further complaint to us.

I do not like to use the telephone. I will do whatever I can to use another form of communication. But, the telephone is an essential part of business, so I can use it. I won't neglect calls because I'm uncomfortable, but I do rehearse what I will say, including voice messages, before I make the call. I also try to make calls as early in the day as possible while I'm fresh and so that they won't be looming over me all day.

If I see that I need to know something in order to do my job well, I take the time to learn it. For example,

Option A:

When I started volunteering at CV Community College, I felt confident in my searching skills, but I wanted to make sure I could easily navigate that library's particular catalogue and databases. So, for the first several days, I spent my free time running searches and reading the Help sections of various databases. It turns out, I was doing the right things and little had changed since I was in library school, but I think that by spending concentrated becoming familiar with the particular resources, I am able to more efficiently help patrons.

Option B:

When I was a field teacher at Bryant Pond 4-H Camp, we had a week of training and then were told to take the information and make it our own. After teaching my first couple of classes, I realized that my lessons were boring. I wouldn't want to learn from me. So, I went online and found additional information that I was able to include in my lessons. By finding something personally interesting to include in my classes, I think I became a more interesting teacher and that my classes were more effective. Also, as the season went on, if it seemed that I needed to review some information, I took the time to do it so that each group of students would get the best lesson I could provide.

(Obviously, this answer would vary based on wherever "here" would be. This question seems to be an acceptable way of saying "flatter us," so I'm never sure how to answer it. "I want to work here because it is a library and not in a large city" doesn't seem to be the best answer, although it might be the most honest.)

For a Reference/Information Literacy position at a community college, I might answer like this:

As I said, I want to teach information literacy, so first off, the job title attracted my attention. I also want to work at a community college, and after looking at this college's, and library's, website, it seems that staying current with technology is important, so that's why I wanted to come here specifically. 

Following this post will be several posts with my answers to some common interview questions. As my experience grows, the answers will likely change, but if I were to interview tomorrow, this is most likely what I would say.

If you have a bit of time, would you comment on my answers? I'm still learning how to answer "professional" interview questions (as opposed to those asked for seasonal work), but asking myself for my own opinion can only get me so far. Asking people who don't participate in the hiring process doesn't seem likely to yield the best results, either. So, if you feel as if you have the time and something to add, I will be grateful for any comments or suggestions. I don't want to be loosing job offers if the reason is something easily fixed. Thank you in advance for helping out a less experienced person.

 

I recently saw a job ad that contained this in the physical demands and work environment section:

"The employee is frequently required to ... stoop, kneel, crouch, or crawl. The employee is occasionally required to stand and walk." 

Is the library in a cave with 4-foot-high ceilings?