Oct

17

Library Interview Questions

October 17, 2009 |  Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

I’ve been on a number of interviews over the course of the summer and I’ve been asked a lot of interview questions. Some questions were strange, some were standard, and some were unexpected. Here’s a list of some of them for those wanting to brush up on their interview skills. These questions were asked by public and academic librarians.

1. Do you have an aversion to working with the homeless?
2. Have you ever had to break up a fight? If so, how did you do it?
3. What is your experience level with video games?
4. Why do you want to work at this library?
5. Tell me about a time when you had to make a snap decision.
6. Tell me about a time when you enjoyed working in a group.
7. Where do you see yourself in 5 years? 10 years?
8. Tell me about a time when you had to prioritize a large number of tasks.
9. What is your greatest weakness?
10. What can you bring to this organization that others might not be able to?
11. What did you like least/best about your last job?
12. How would your previous supervisor describe you?
13. Tell me about a time when you had a positive library experience.
14. Do you like the design of Dominican University Library? (After finding out we both went there)
15. Tell me about your experiences with Library 2.0.
16. Tell me about a time when you had to deal with a difficult coworker.
17. What management style do you prefer working with?
18. What motivates you?
19. If you were sitting in my chair, what would you look for in a candidate?
20. Do you have any questions for us?

Before going into an interview there are several things that you’ll want to do to prepare.
1.) Review the job ad. Make sure you know exactly what the employer is looking for and be able to talk about it.
2.) The person conducting the interview will invariably ask if you have any questions for them so you’ll need to have some questions ready. This is important because you want to look like you’re interested in them. Try and have at least 5 questions ready before you even go into the interview.
3.) Read about the organization. Find out if they’re doing something innovative or if they’ve recently won some awards. They’ve spent time researching you, you’d do well to spend some time and research them.
4.) This might seem like a no-brainer but you should practice answering interview questions with someone. Here are some handy links:

University of S. Carolina SLIS interview page
*Nailing the Library Interview: a Wiki*

Links to Job Boards:
LibGig
Metropolitan Library System Job Board
USA Jobs
ALA’s Joblist
A major job search site compiled by Sarah Johnson.

Good Luck!

And because you can never know too much, Dominican’s podcasts on the interview process.


Comments



6 Comments so far

  1.    Manya on October 17, 2009 9:08 am

    #1 is such a silly question. Would anyone answer yes?

  2.    Dan McPhillips on October 17, 2009 12:57 pm

    I know. That question came from an academic library in an isolated area.

  3.    Dan Mauller on October 17, 2009 3:43 pm

    I was once asked (by a woman) if I would have a problem working with women. SOOOOO tempted to answer with something like “Women? Can’t stand ‘em.” I mean, really, what did she think I was going to say…..

  4.    Dan McPhillips on October 17, 2009 4:16 pm

    When people are preparing their questions I’m not sure they think about the types of answers they expect to get. When she asked that what did she expect you to say? Funny

  5.    John Stanton on October 17, 2009 6:21 pm

    I am a former software engineer and presently a librarian (5 years in). In my former work life I interviewed around 50 different people and screened several hundred resumes. I was known for picking good candidates.

    It might be that interviewing in the library world is drastically different, but what I looked for was the following:

    1) Is this someone I would want to work with?
    2) Does the person know how to think?
    3) Do they have good communication skills?

    I voted no on plenty of people who knew all the right answers to questions because they failed on one of the above questions, but if I saw them as a good fit I would go to bat for them in the hiring meeting.

    Case in point: A young lady was up for a position as a software engineer, but she lacked experience. I told the committee that not only should they hire her but that she would probably be a vice president in 5 years. 3 years later she was the youngest director in company history. Sometime you can just see the spark.

    Now I am slated to be on the hiring committee for the dean of a library. This will be the first time I have been in this role as a librarian. It will be interesting to see if I am allowed to provide the same criteria.

    At my engineering company we used to conduct 4-8 one hour interviews with the same person in one day. Even lunch was an interview ;-) It was grueling for the candidate, but I think it was effective. Then the interviewers would meet with a representative of HR and a VP of engineering and come to a consensus.

    It doesn’t work that way in the academic world or the public librarian world based on interviews I have been on the receiving end. I have always been subjected to a panel of 2-8 people all meeting at the same time. I don’t like this methodology as well.

    John

    P.S. I *would* hire someone who said that they had an aversion to working with homeless people, as long as they were actually willing to do so. And I would be more interested in their line of thinking rather than a yes or no answer.

    P.P.S. Here is a question I got at a librarian interview: “the computers are all down and students need to find research materials. What do you do?”

  6.    Dan McPhillips on October 20, 2009 1:22 am

    Thanks for the post John! I would definitely not look forward to an all day interview. I’ve been on a few panel interviews and I didn’t enjoy them. It takes some getting used to, that’s for sure.

    I agree 100% with you about the importance of someone “fitting in” at an organization. You want to like the people that you’ll have to work with every day for x years.

    Thanks again for the post. It’s always good to hear from someone with experience

Name (required)

Email (required)

Website

Speak your mind