 Hello and good evening everyone and thank you for joining us tonight. My name is Kim Doherty and I'm the iSchool Career Consultant. Tonight we're going to be joined by Jesse Walker-Lance who is the Library Administrator and Head of Adult and Digital Services for the County of Los Angeles Public Library. And Jesse is going to be speaking with us about two really important topics. First one is how to interview in a public library setting. And the second one is how to find career success in public libraries. And I had an opportunity to speak with Jesse a little bit for, excuse me, a little bit ago about this presentation. And what he has to say is not only fascinating and really, really helpful, but it applies across a broad number of career environments. So I think you're really going to enjoy and benefit from Jesse's presentations. I'd like to introduce our speaker for this evening, Jesse Walker-Lance. As I mentioned, he's the Library Administrator for Adult and Digital Services with the County of Los Angeles Public Library. From his first job shelving books at a small public library in his Ohio home town, Jesse has gone on to hold a number of paraprofessional and professional librarian positions, which if you're looking at the broad scope of an LIS career, this is really the important part is your ability to hit that first job and then keep growing in your career and transitioning into new and emerging opportunities or broader areas of responsibility. Jesse has done that throughout his entire career. He has worked as an audiovisual librarian, an adult services librarian, as well as manager for the Diamond Bar and West Hollywood libraries. This has led to his current position as an administrator for one of the largest and most dynamic public libraries in the country. So with that, I would like to hand this off to Jesse, who has really interesting things to tell you tonight. Jesse, all yours. All right. Well, thank you very much, Kim, and thank you for that very, very kind introduction. And I'd also like to thank Kelly for helping me out with the Tech as well because this is also my first iSchool webinar and thanks to all of you for being here. So I've got a little agenda for this. I'm going to start and I'm going to tell you just a little bit about myself, not because I want to talk about myself, but because I think it might give you an idea about the kind of career path that public libraries have to offer. I'll tell you a little bit about the LA County Library and I hope in doing that, I will also impart why public libraries are so great, particularly the LA County Library. I'm obliged to try to let you know about that. But then the second part of my presentation, that's really the biggest part. I'm going to talk a little bit about what we are looking for when we are hiring. We call them librarian ones. It's our entry-level librarian position, something that someone with, you know, fresh out of getting their MLIS would qualify for it. And then I'll talk a little bit about what to expect during the interview. And I'm going to talk a little bit about the civil service process. We're not going to get bogged down into details, but there are some things that make that a little bit different than other interviews you may have been on. And how interviewing in the public sector, like public libraries, is a little bit different than interviewing in the private sector. I'll also share some insights that some of my colleagues gave me as well. And then as Kim mentioned, there will be plenty of time at the end for any of your questions. So let's get started. As Kim said, I'm a library administrator for adult and digital services here at the LA County Library. And just to tell you a little bit about what that is, because I remember when I was in library school, I don't think that I would have known exactly what that is. So there's a bunch of pieces that fall into my job. One is I support all of the system-wide adult programming in my system and help to develop programs that we can easily roll out to librarians all over the city and in our community libraries all over the county. We have four cultural resource centers that have collections that are much beyond what most normal public libraries have. And so I work with all of those librarians. And they do some really amazing programming that's actually much more like what an academic library would do, and it's kind of unique for public libraries. We also, we have a learning coordinator that does all of our sort of system-wide learning and literacy programming for adults, including a lot of online learning. We have a community engagement coordinator that coordinates all of our sort of system or county-wide community engagement events. And then also the internet services team is part of my group. So we do all of the website, as well as an internal intranet for our staff and a staff blog. We also run the library social media and do a lot of work with graphics. And pretty much anything that you see on the website comes through our internet services group, which is kind of interesting. So Tim already kind of told you a little bit about this, but I think that I will tell you just a little bit more about how I got to where I am. And more is kind of an example, not because I want to talk about myself. My first job ever was, in fact, solving books in my high school library. And it was, you know, it was a great job. I really liked it. Went away to college. I knew I had to get a job. Most of the opportunities there were, you know, working in the cafeteria or things that were really unappealing. So I went and got a job at my college library, working in the processing department, so getting books ready to go out on the shelves. And actually summer's home, because I already had an in with my hometown public library, they hire a 30 hour a week summer reading assistant because they had such a great summer reading program for kids. And so I did a couple of summers working there in the children's room and, you know, working one-on-one with kids and helping them sort of develop this really fantastic children's summer reading program. And then I graduated. And I, you know, I had, through all of this, you know, I've been working in libraries for five or six years at that point. The children's librarians in my hometown said, you should be a librarian. We know you were going to go to library school and you were going to be a public librarian. And I said, no, thank you. I really wanted to do other things. I was a psychology major and I thought I wanted to be a professor. Then I spent, oh, I don't know, the next five years or so being a waiter and working in retail and doing things that didn't seem maybe quite as interesting, although they ended up being very useful. And I'll get to that later on. And then I kind of suddenly realized that I had always loved working in libraries and in fact they were right. I should go get my master's degree, so I did that. And then I got my first public library job as an audiovisual librarian and doing sort of adult services and reference work at a kind of a medium-sized public library in northeast Ohio, a job which I really enjoyed. I bought the audiovisual collections for that library and its five branches and its bookmobile, which was really, really interesting and I enjoyed it a lot. But then I had the opportunity to move to Los Angeles and that was too tempting. So I quit that job and moved out here to Los Angeles. I set up librarian one exams with the city of Los Angeles and the county of Los Angeles, which are by far the two largest libraries in Southern California. And the LA County Library happened to hire me first. I started as a librarian one at the West Covina Library, which is in the San Gabriel Valley, for any of you who might know where that is. And did adult services work there. And then eventually I went to the Diamond Bar Library and became a community library manager there, which is great, Diamond Bar is a fantastic community. And while I was there, actually, the library moved into a new building. So I had the experience of moving from an old, smaller building into a new, brand-new, beautiful building, which is kind of rare. Not that many people get the opportunity to do that, sort of manage through it and sort of see that whole process. From there, I went to manage our West Hollywood Library, which is one of our biggest libraries and an extremely engaged, really, really interesting community, which I loved. Then I came here to our library headquarters to be an assistant library administrator in public services administration, which that is kind of a crazy title. And basically I just worked on system-wide special projects, most of which were in relation to our system's capital projects. So all of our new buildings, all of our service buildings, they need someone to look at everything and talk about how customers use buildings or how staffs you use buildings. And so I spent time looking at floor plans and looking at furniture and testing furniture and looking at signage and all things about the physical aspect of our building. And I had the opportunity to come over here to adult and digital services, so it's kind of like a 180 before I was all about physical buildings. And now the biggest part of my job is sort of online and digital things. So I went from very real to very virtual. And I'm here doing adult programming, which is kind of where I started in my career. So I kind of feel like I have back full circle of doing a job that I really, really love. So that is enough about me. So just out of curiosity, how many of you, if you can use that little hand-raising button, how many of you are considering maybe thinking about working in public libraries when you graduate? Oh, good. I was hoping there would be some dings. All right, very, very good. And so how many of you are just kind of weighing your options? You think maybe there's another kind of librarianship that you're curious about? Okay, all right, very good. Is there any... Oh, okay, that's good, very good. I think you're very wise to weigh your options and I'll talk a little bit more about that later. And just out of curiosity, anyone just here for the interview tips? Okay, good, that's good too. I'm going to be talking about public libraries, but the things that I'm going to be talking about are actually definitely applicable to all jobs. And I actually, I'm basing this not only on my own experience, but the experience of several other administrators in this organization who have worked all over the country and all different kinds of libraries. So I think there's definitely something here for you as well. So just to tell you just a little bit about the county library. We are one of the largest public libraries in the country. We have 87 branches, including two institutional libraries. So we have two juvenile hall libraries. We have three bookables. We serve 49 cities and all of the unincorporated areas of Los Angeles. Our service area is more than 3,000 square miles. If you look down at the bottom of your screen, we actually have a branch on the island of Catalina. It is our overseas branch. So it's definitely a huge, complex and very dynamic organization. And my favorite metaphor for the county library is we are like a cruise ship. And we're really big. It takes a lot of people to make us run. Sometimes it takes a little while for us to change direction, but we will be impressive when we get there. So there are things about working in big libraries that give you particular advantages. And one of those is we do everything in a really big way. And just to give you the example of some of the projects that I have been working on recently, the picture on your screen is one of our maker mobiles. We decided that it would be cool to sort of bundle up a bunch of maker and STEM or STEAM, science, technology, engineering, arts and math equipment, put them in vans and take that programming out so that we could do it at libraries that maybe otherwise wouldn't have room for the equipment or community spaces or parks, outreach events, all different kinds of things. And so we had this pilot project. There are other libraries that have kind of done this. We are doing four. And actually three of the four on the road, the fourth one will hit the road next month. Another example, we decided, this is about three years ago, to circulate Kindle e-readers. And a lot of libraries kind of do this project. For our Kindle pilot project, we circulated 920 Kindles at 24 branches, to give you an idea. And now we're managing more than 1,000 Kindles all over the county or customers. It's a big project, extremely complicated. Buying not many Kindles, even from Amazon, was quite the feat. Another project that I worked on is we recently opened our second institutional library, which is in a juvenile hall facility right down the road from our library headquarters, actually. Our probation department had an empty room and they had some money in their budget and they asked the public library if we could come in and we actually programmed a space so it looks like a miniature. It's about 960 square feet, a miniature community library. It's got a customer service and information desk. It's got flexible seating that can be moved around for different kinds of programming. It's got a collection of about 4,000 books. It's got a sort of a lounge seating area. It's got technology so that they can do classroom presentations. Really exciting project. And it's a really good example because we are part of the County of Los Angeles, which is the biggest county in the country. We, our first partners are often other county departments and so that was in partnership with the probation department. We've partnered with our parks and recreation department to do lunch at the library programs where we give kids free lunches in certain communities over the summer where they may not otherwise have access to a meal during the middle of the day. We partnered with public health to do food shop clinics. We partnered with our department of consumer and business affairs to do small business workshops for people in the process of starting up their own businesses. So those are like some of the really big things. But also because we're so big, there's these big projects. But there's also all of these other little pilot projects happening all over the place. Like we have one library that did it. They checked out Wi-Fi hotspots to teens that were taking a coding class in their library. We had another library set up a business incubation zone. They turned an old unused staff office into a little incubator for small businesses in their community. So those are just some of the examples of the kinds of things, you know, both really big projects are a whole bunch of little ones that are possible when you're in sort of the large public library arena. And also we have a really big team and I think my colleagues are the biggest resource that I have access to. You know, somewhere in the county there's someone that knows something about the thing that I'm curious about. You know, there's a huge amount of talent at my disposal because we've got such a big team. And it also means that we have lots of support. So if I wanna try to pilot a project I can find someone else in my organization who is interested in helping me out with it or who did that same thing in a previous library job at some point. And so it's also, you know, having access to this huge team of people is a great advantage. Also lots of professional development opportunities. You know, opportunities to serve on system-wide committees where we've got a project and I need to pull in a bunch of people to help me work on it or a special project. Sometimes smaller libraries, they might only be able to send one person to a conference because, you know, you can't have too many people out of the building at the same time. We have lots of opportunities for people to go and attend conferences, not just even if they're presenting, but just for their own professional development. Lots of training opportunities, you know, the vendors, because we're a large library they're always happy and we get lots of training for all of our databases. We do a lot of our own in-house training. We hire enough new librarians at a time that we actually form a cohort and have a basic training class that most recently we had 30 new librarians in that have all been hired with them last year where they could all kind of meet each other and get a little bit of training on how to work in this big organization. There's also the opportunity to find mentors kind of within the organization. You know, I think mentors are really important and one thing that's really nice is in an organization this big you can find someone that you look up to that you don't report to because it's nice to have someone who's not your boss to ask questions about and so that's another advantage of working in a big organization like this. Also, we have paid internships and this is something that's very rare. Just out of curiosity, how many of you are planning on doing an internship? Ah, okay. Very good, very good. And I realize that all of you are sort of all spread out geographically, but we do have, we have a large internship program. We hire interns two times in a year. Our internships pay $20.94 an hour, which is rare to have a paid internship like that. They do require people to be taking the internship class. We do them in the fall and spring semesters. They're highly competitive. It's really caught on that these are things that are available. But if any of you still have a ways to go and your master's is library science and you need an internship and you're approximate to Southern California, you could definitely send me an email after this and get some more information about this because it's a fantastic opportunity. So now, I'd like to talk a little bit about what we look for in people that we're hiring on at kind of the entry librarian level. And as I mentioned, this is not just my own insight, but I asked some of my colleagues who are also at the same level of the organization what the skills and characteristics they're most interested in seeing, what advice they'd give MLIS students who are thinking about maybe going into public libraries and if they have any words of wisdom that they'd like to share with you. And just to give you an idea, I've been on librarian one exam panels, I don't know, probably dozens of times. I have been a hiring manager from people from library pages all the way up to assistant administrators. And the colleagues that I asked, all of them have as much if not more experience, hiring and evaluating candidates. So these are definitely people who know very well what they're looking for in potential hires. And the first thing that they almost all said, I think this was in every single person's list is that they're looking for people who are flexible or adaptable. And they really are talking about this flexibility on multiple levels. They're interested in someone who can thrive in the rapidly changing environment because public libraries are changing a lot and we need people who are able to kind of roll with that and willing to sort of try new things and be really sort of willing to take something and run with it. Also, people who are willing to consider various positions and be flexible in that way are certainly very desirable. Often we think that we're interested in one kind of position and it's possible that either that kind of position isn't there. It's also possible that the interviewers might see something in you that you do not even see in yourself. And I think the most frequent example is that often people think that they do not want to be children's librarians. They have no interest in doing story time. That is just not for them. And sometimes the position that they're going is a children's librarian position or sometimes there are multiple positions but we see that you would be an excellent children's librarian and that's really your calling. And so it definitely candidates who are willing to sort of think broadly about what they're interested in trying or what they would be up for. That's a huge advantage. And also, people who are willing to consider different kinds of libraries, I know that some of you said that you're kind of maybe just keeping your options open and thinking about public libraries. And it's very often people think that they're going to be going into archivism or they think they're going to be wanting to work in academic libraries. But having, keeping an open mind and being willing to work in different kinds of libraries will definitely make you a more desirable candidate. And I think that the first quote really speaks to that. Just because you focus on an area in library school, it does not mean that you're boxed in. You're not limited to your area of focus. I myself, I really, I thought I wanted to be an academic librarian actually. I spent all four years of college working in one and I really, I thought that that was really probably where I'd wind up. And when I was in, when I was in grad school I did an internship in my university library and I liked it okay, but it did not inspire me the same way that working in the children's, for the children's summer reading program in my hometown library and seeing the really fantastic programming that they did, I realized that that was really more where I wanted to be. So, just something to throw it out there, just because it's an area of interest doesn't mean that you need to consider yourself boxed into that thing. So the next thing, and this was another thing, it was on every single person's list is people skills. Emotional intelligence, like helping people, they phrased it in different ways, but ultimately they were all talking about people skills. Teamwork is another huge one. And particularly for us, because we're a large public library, people who likes to work with teams and work well in the team environment are going to thrive here. And I think it's kind of a cliche, and I hear people say things like this kind of a lot, but you're supposed to say that you get into library work because you like people, not books. And I think that's true. I also think it's okay if you like books, but we're looking for folks who want to help share that love of books with others. So it's okay if you're getting into this because you really like libraries, like books, but you have to be the sort of person who wants to translate that into helping others and to help other people find that same love that you have. For us, Los Angeles County, it's if not the most, it's certainly one of the most diverse places in the United States, possibly in the world. And so we're also looking for people who really like working with diverse customers and who are able to work on a really diverse team with really diverse people. It's really important for us. And we have lots of different communities, and so we need lots of different folks from lots of different backgrounds and who are able to adapt to all of those diverse communities that we serve. Customer service. So this one is always my number one I think about the kinds of skills that I want for anyone and any place on my team. And it's really interesting because so many people actually have gotten really, really good customer service skills, and I find, not to jump in front of myself, but I find that often people forget to talk about this when they're interviewing four positions. As I mentioned, I took some time off between my undergraduate and graduate work, and I worked as a waiter, which is kind of the most elemental customer service. And it's a place where you learn how to be really good at customer service because if you're not really good, you don't make any money. There's huge incentives to hone your customer service skills. I also worked in retail. The things that I learned there have been extraordinarily useful for me. And actually, I don't think that this is just a public library thing. I think all libraries, everyone serves customers, even if your customers are students and professors in an academic library or researchers at an archive. People that have customer service skills have such a huge advantage. And it's something that we take a lot of time and we do a lot of staff training around this. So any time that you're able to demonstrate that you have customer service experience is going to put you in a really good position. So we're also looking for people who are innovative and creative. I mentioned some of the projects that we're working on. We need people who are really creative, who can sort of take a concept for a project and sweat the details and figure out how to make it work, who can take a small program at their library and tweak it and turn it from something that's just okay to something great. And people who are really creative about sharing all of this with their colleagues. We want people who are going to bring ideas to the table and who know how to share their ideas in an appropriate way. And people who are really open and really willing to try new things. My colleagues expressed it in a lot of different ways but almost all of them talked about how innovation and creativity were really important when they were looking at candidates. And finally, enthusiasm for the profession. We want people who are passionate about libraries and especially we want people who are passionate about public service. We are civil servants. It's our job to serve the public and we want people who get kind of excited about the idea that they're providing these fantastic services and hoping their community is find resources that they might not otherwise have access to. We talk a lot at our library about eliminating barriers and figuring out how we can reduce barriers to people accessing the things that they need and just figuring out ways where we can increase access. So we knew that there are kids who are not getting access to good high quality STEM and STEAM programming and the libraries in those communities might not have the space to store their equipment. So we figured out a way to put it in vans and have a professional library and go out and bring it to the communities. We help all different kinds of people and we're looking for people who get passionate about that kind of work. So those are the things, the main things that we are looking for. My colleagues also had a lot of really good insights about the things that you can do to set yourself up for success. And the one that every single one of them mentioned was doing your homework. And visit, visit, visit. This came up a lot. Visit the library. Visit the website. Visit with a librarian who works in a public library. It's really, really important for you to have a good feel when you go into an interview for a public library position, for you to have a good feel of what public libraries feel like these days. And probably some of you are thinking, but what if I can't? And I can actually, you know, from my own experience, when I left my audio visual library job in small town Ohio and moved to Los Angeles, I drove across the country in a 14 foot Penske track with my car in tow behind me. We arrived on a Sunday night. The next day was Monday, but it was a Memorial Day holiday and we spent all day unpacking that Penske track and setting up the apartment. And then that next Tuesday morning, I had my interviews. So I literally, I did not have a chance. You know, my library has 87 branches. The other libraries I was applying for have, you know, 70. And so it wasn't really feasible for me to physically visit the library. So instead, I really concentrated on the second one. I learned every single thing that I could about the website. And I tried to figure out, you know, based on what I could find online, just anything that I could about the fuel of the libraries. And then I owned it. I mean, I had to tell them that, you know, I had been in Southern California for a day, so I had not had a chance to really visit their branches, but from the website, I could tell these things about, you know, but these things that were obviously important to them because they were so prominent in the website or I saw pictures of this thing online or I saw the programs that they were doing. So, you know, visit, visit, visit, really, really important. You know, follow the library's social media. Get a sense for how they're using social media and the kinds of things that they're doing. You know, maybe look at their press releases. Find out what you can about the community. And so one of my colleagues said this and I put it down for data because I think it's good. Do your research. You're a librarian. You know, it's really important when you go in to one of these interviews that you've done your research, that you know a lot about the library, that you know a lot about the community it serves. And if at all possible, I would highly recommend attempting to intern or volunteer or work in a library. You know, if at all possible, and I realize it's not always possible, but it really, really helps even if you're solving books, even if you're volunteering and doing something that's not very exciting to just be in a public library. And to kind of get a good understanding of what public libraries are like these days. You know, and I should say that in my library system and I think most library systems, the entry-level library jobs don't require any previous library experience. And I think it's actually very possible to be a successful candidate without any formal experience, but anything you can do to sort of soak in the public library experience and to learn more will definitely, definitely help in that regard. And as one of my colleagues said, it's not all roses in reading books. Oh, and I see people are saying my voice is getting softer and louder, so I will try my best to be louder all the time. It's not all roses in reading books. There are good and bad things, not bad things. They're good things and challenging things about public libraries. And I think the people who can come in and discuss the challenges, as well as the good, you know, reading books part, are definitely in a position to be more successful when they interview for these positions. And I hate to say it, but looking at the part is important. And the reason why I hate to say it is because everyone at this level, you know, you're a professional, you've gotten a master's degree, and I shouldn't have to say it, but sometimes I do. It's important that you look like you can jump right and fold the part. So definitely when you're going out to do your interviews, make sure that you look professional. And make sure that you look like someone who would fit in at the organization. Because, you know, in most interviews, they have 30 minutes with you, and they have to look inside themselves and say, can I see this person working for me? And anything that you can do to make yourself look the part will definitely help in that regard. And I'd also like to point out, this is in fact my cat. I could not resist. I am a librarian. Yes. And then they had a, my colleagues had a lot of other words of wisdom. And these are all sort of general things. None of this is very library specific. It's actually a very sort of interview 101. But it bears repeating because these are people who are experienced at interviewing. And candidates don't always do all of these things. And the number one, and this was something that came up from every person to smile and make eye contact. It sounds very, it sounds very elemental, but it's not uncommon for people to sort of get nervous and forget about these things. Remembering to breathe. And that kind of goes into also, it is okay to pause and think. If you get a question that you need a moment, it's okay for there to be a few seconds of silence in the room. And it feels much more awkward for you as the interviewee than it does for the interviewers. They will not, they will not think it's odd if you stop and pause to think for a moment. Practice. Do mock interviews with someone else if you can. If not, look up common interview questions online and practice your responses to them. You don't want to sound rehearsed, but it's not a bad idea to have some, kind of elevator pitches in your pocket for some things that you think they're likely to ask you so that when you're in the interview, you're not trying to formulate ideas in your head and put sentences together at the same time because it's not that easy. So practice. Give specific examples. Often people come out of interviews and I will take a closer look at the resume and I will say, oh, they had all of these things that they've done and they didn't talk about them. So make sure to give specific examples to the questions. Speak from the heart, be honest. I've just told you many of the things that we were looking for, but if one of those things is maybe not you, it's better for you to be honest about it because people will know if they think you're not being genuine about things. So make sure that you're really bringing it and that you're really being sort of forthright about everything. Take your time. This is another thing that often people, I think they try to rush through and try to get done. And you might only have six or eight questions to answer. So make sure that you take your time. But the flip side of that is make sure that you're aware if there is any time restrictions. So if there are, usually they tell you at the outset, we have 45 minutes for this interview. If you know that, make sure you pace yourself. And also I would add be careful, particularly at the end of the interview, you should make your most of every opportunity but also the interviewers aren't there to chit chat. So you wanna make sure that if there's some sort of a conversation at the end that you partake in that, give it your all, do your best to make that great last impression. But also you don't want that to go on indefinitely because the interviewers are probably starting to think about the next person that's already running late. Let's see. And then be polite. I think that's a really obvious thing but I would extend that and make sure that you're impeccably polite to every single person you interact with in the organization. The staff assistant, the person from HR that you will talk to on the phone, all of these people have opportunities to kind of let everyone know who was kind of not that nice to them on their way into the interview. So make sure that you're polite to everyone. Again, it sounds obvious but people do not do that sometimes. And then the last two things, this is kind of the most elemental thing. Know what value you can add to the organization and then demonstrate that you're a good fit for the position. And the good fit for the position, I think that is really key because it requires you, you should know the position that you're interviewing for and you should know it well. You should take a really, really good look at the position description and then pick out all of the things that are part of your own experience or part of coursework that you did so that you can speak to all of those points. Because these interviewers, they have a short amount of time and they're trying to say to themselves, does this person fit in the position that I've got? And so anything that you can do to demonstrate that you were that fit and that you have value to add to the organization is gonna put you that much further ahead than any other candidates. So now I'm just so worried about civil service. And just out of curiosity, have any of you ever applied for a civil service position before? All right, there's a few of you. That's good. It's a little, it's a little bit different. It's a little bit different than the private sector. And lots of public sector jobs are civil service jobs. And the ones that you normally think about are firefighters and typists and male sorters. And they all, those are all civil service positions as are most public library jobs. And I'm not gonna talk too much about the civil service process and I'm also not a human resources expert. But basically the way that it works is you take an exam to get in the list of eligible candidates and then when they are ready to full positions they pull people in for additional interviews based on the results of that exam. And so that's basically how it works. And so for librarians, your civil service exam typically is an interview. And I'm gonna talk in a minute about how it's a little bit different because it's an exam rather than an interview. So also, read job announcements really carefully. There are clues in there if you are dealing with a civil service application. And for example, our own, all of them say, for any of our librarian positions, it will say something along the lines of the examination is 100% based on an in-person interview. You know, it's possible that some positions might be 100% rating from the application. It might be a weight of 50% from your application and 50% from the interview. So definitely make sure that you take a really careful look at that announcement because there are clues in there that will help you. So the application is the first step in sort of the civil service exam process, okay? And if you can't, if you don't fill out the application correctly, it can hinder your chances for actually getting into the exam or the interview. So make sure that you follow the instructions. And again, this sounds like it's very rudimentary, but make sure that you fill it out completely. And the instructions will say there are some where you can just upload your resume and it will pull all of the information from that. There are some where they want you to enter all of the information from your resume into their application form. So make sure that you follow, make sure that you follow the instructions very, very closely. And make sure that you fill everything out completely. Spelling counts, unofficially at least. No one is going to be checking your application for spelling, but these are things that people notice and it definitely could give an incorrect impression. Same thing goes for grammar. And then attach all required documents. If the application says that you need to attach proof of your MLIS degree and a resume, make sure that you submit those attachments because if you don't have those, then your application for the exam is incomplete and they cannot let you get to that next step. You know, civil service rules are their firm. And so you need to make sure that you're really being very careful about that. And the one thing that I will say, the Human Resources Department is your friend. They can definitely help you, they can definitely help you with any questions you have about this application process. I definitely recommend when you're applying for exams to work with their HR department. If you're not sure, call and have them check. They will be interested to help you. So definitely don't be shy about reaching out to the Human Resources Department for any time that you are applying for a job. So let's say that you've successfully submitted your application and now you're in your first exam, where you're interviewing. And I think we all have an idea in our head about what this looks like. And you know, it's kind of this happy, smiling, free-flowing exchange of information. And unfortunately, a lot of times what you get is this. You get a panel of people and they might seem not all that interested and it's really not that easy to make it be like that interview that you have in your head. And there's actually one reason in particular that civil service exams might feel more like this than like in, you know, interviews that you might have done elsewhere because it's an examination, not an interview. And what they're doing is they're rating you, they're scoring you. And it's often, it's a panel of people that are sort of neutral. They're not the hiring manager. They're just judging candidates based on a set of criteria. It's entirely possible that they may not even work for that library. They may have come in from another library to serve on the interview panel. And so even though I would like to think that when I'm interviewing, I always look like one of these guys. You know, it does happen. If people aren't, you know, it's kind of personally invested in finding your candidates. It does definitely change the tone of the conversation. So just to give you kind of a quick rundown of the difference between interviewing in the private sector versus doing an exam and a civil service or the public arena. So public sector exams, this is an open and transparent process. You can look up the rules. All of the information is on, it's all on the exam announcement. In the private sector, things might be open and transparent or they might not. You don't know. A public sector exam is highly formal. They want to make sure that every candidate gets the same questions and the same order so that they can judge it as objectively as possible. In the public sector, you could have interviews that are highly formal. It could be very informal. It could be a lunch interview. It could be a group interview. There's kind of a big range of things. In the public sector, things are usually not that conversational and I would urge you to try to make them as conversational as you can but ultimately those interviewers are going to ask you the same questions and the same order that they ask everyone else. Private sector, they're often a lot more conversational. And so this next one, I already talked about this a little bit. In the public sector, the interviewer may or may not be invested in the outcome. You know, certainly they want to do a good job and they want to identify good candidates but they may not have a personal interest because they won't be the hiring manager. They're not looking to fill one of their spots. They're just looking for candidates that might be a good spot, a good fit for a spot somewhere. Whereas in the private sector, usually you're interviewing with the people you're going to be working with. So they are highly invested. They want to know. They want to try to figure out if you were a person and they want to sit next to you for the next five years. Public sector exams, they're very carefully scored. Private sector, you don't know. And then in the public sector, so after you've taken this exam, the successful result is you get placed on the eligibility list and then from that list they call people and when they're trying to identify candidates for particular positions. So in private sector, your interview, that might be one and done. You might be hired right after, you know, right from that first interview or you might be called in for additional interviews. So these two things are a little bit different. It changes the dynamic of what's in the room and I find that often our entry-level librarian candidates don't necessarily know about the differences and they think that understanding that will definitely help you to be more successful when you're taking an exam. So some other things to keep in mind. Don't assume the interview panel has reviewed your resume or your application and it seems strange but it's actually entirely possible that they have been asked to do a totally clean slate evaluation of you based on only your response, your verbal responses to the question. It's also possible that they have seen your resume or application but you can't assume that and in fact even, I would say that this is true for any job, even if they have seen your resume, it's very unlikely that they will have studied it. Often the busy people, they might have looked at it for 90 seconds before you got in the room so make sure that you're able to hit all of the high points. Don't forget to talk about the things that are relevant to the job that you're applying to. Another thing, these are very often panel interviews, make sure to address the whole panel. Make sure that you're making eye contact with everyone. It's entirely possible that one person might ask all of the questions but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't look at every person in the room, that you shouldn't at least attempt to address everyone in the room because they will all be scoring you and so you need to make sure that you're giving everyone your full attention. And so this last point, this is a really big one. You may or may not be asked if you have any questions at the end of the interview and this is something that's very different. In the private sector and a normal, kind of a normal interview, there's always an opportunity at the end for you to ask if you have any questions and that's not necessarily part of sort of the standard script for one of these scored examinations. So you might not be asked if you have any questions. I would recommend that all of you keep a list of questions in mind. That way you can pick a couple of relevant ones just in case. And the thing that's really tricky about that is the panel who's interviewing you. And that's the knowledge of the specific position because remember they're trying to pair you up as, you know, to kind of score you based on whether or not you're a good fit for a potential spot in the organization, not a specific one. And it's entirely possible that it might be someone who actually works in another library system and they're coming in to be an independent writer for the panel. So you need to be really thoughtful in how you select questions if you are given the opportunity to ask some. If you sort of just do a quick search online for recommended questions for interviews, a lot of those questions really do not apply very well to the public sector into this kind of interview. And I would recommend, you know, trying to think about things that more address, you know, asking about sort of the culture of the library or challenges that you might face in the position or what you would do to succeed in that position or how that library works to grow its team members. Things that are a little bit more general, you know, not anything too specific. I will also say this is not the place to ask human resources questions. So this is not the venue to find out how many weeks of vacation, what the salary range is. Those are all things that you should address with the Human Resources Department. I will also say that if you are given the opportunity to ask questions, you're not trying to stump them. Asking a super complicated question probably will not make them think that you look smart. It will probably make them flustered because they're having trouble formulating the answer in their head because it wasn't something that they were prepared for. And so you really don't want, you don't want to put the panel on that position. It's not a strong way to end an interview. So you want to be thoughtful and have some questions in mind in advance in case you are asked if you have any questions for the panel. I would also say, and this is probably a personal pet peeve of mine, but I don't think I'm the only one that feels this way, this is not a substitute for doing the homework. I talked a lot about sort of doing your homework and doing your research in advance. Asking basic demographic questions about the community demonstrates to me that you have not done your homework. You should go into the interview knowing a fair amount about the organization, so you shouldn't ask something that the answer to which could be identified in looking at the library's website for less than 10 seconds. Anything that's very, very basic about the library is just not a good question. So, I'll just leave that at that. And then my last point here, have a concluding pitch to end on a high note. Whether or not you have the opportunity to ask questions and if they give you the opportunity to ask questions, I do recommend that you do it. Interview panels, often you're sitting there for a full day and talking to, you know, it could be half a dozen to a dozen people and the panel will probably enjoy the opportunity to talk for a minute. So I think it's a good idea to ask questions. You know, not only does it get them talking and people tend to be interested in things that they're talking about, but it also demonstrates that you're a curious person and that you've thought about the position. But whether or not you have that opportunity, definitely have a concluding pitch. You know, this whole idea of having an elevator pitch, something where you can briefly explain yourself in 30 seconds, you should have one of those for the end of the interview. And even if they don't explicitly say, okay, even if they say, all right, well, you know, thank you, it's okay to chime in with a very short little pitch to say, you know, thank you, thank you so much for the opportunity for this and this and this reason. I'm looking forward to, you know, the possibility of working for your organization. Definitely have something to end on a high note. Often, sort of at the end of the interview, if there's no questions, they may say something like, oh, do you have anything else to add? And people will say something like, nope, that covers it and get up and leave. And that's not, they will remember the last thing you say. And the thing is, as soon as you walk out of the room, they will start to think about what score they will give you. And so you want to end on a high note. So think about what your concluding pitch is. It will definitely make for a stronger interview. So that was actually the end of my spiel. But now is your opportunity to ask some questions for me. And I don't know. I did see the thing about the mic, but I wasn't able to really keep track of other things in the comments. So I made the need, you might have to re-ask or remind me what your questions were. Alicia, did you have a question? It was regarding keeping your resume in front of you during an interview. That is a great question. And so I would say there's kind of a couple pieces of this. Definitely have copies of your resume on hand. And I don't think it's a bad idea to offer resumes to the interview panel, you know, especially if you can see that they clearly don't have a copy. Depending on the instructions that they've given you, they may or may not accept it. It's entirely possible they may say, oh, no, we're not supposed to look at that. Or they might say, OK, and not really look at it. But I do think it's a great idea. It shows that you're prepared to have the resumes on hand. It's fine if you have it in front of you, but I really strongly recommend not reading off of your resume. The things that are on your resume, you should know well enough that you should be able to explain them in your own words. And that's the kind of thing where, you know, sort of rehearsing that if you're having trouble, you can think about it like a little elevator pitches like, this is my little elevator pitch about how I have customer service experience. You can break it up if you want. You know, you need to be able to explain the information on your resume succinctly. And I don't know that it's something that we get you scored against, but I don't think it leaves a strong impression to read off of your own resume. To me, that says that you haven't really prepared that well. And it's your resume. You should know what's on there. Did that answer your question? Is it OK to have a notepad to write down notes? Absolutely. That's great, especially, you know, it's possible that you may get some kind of a multi-part question that has a couple of different pieces. Insert jotting down the parts of the question to make sure that you address all of them. I think it's great. If they ask you a question and you need to write down a couple of words just to remember these are the points that I want to address. I think that's a great idea. The only thing that I would caution you against is you don't want to have the interview come to a grinding halt because you need to record some lengthy thing. You don't want it to interrupt with the flow. So, you know, I would recommend that if you're going to take notes just make sure that they're brief. Make sure that the interviews aren't sitting there looking like they're getting bored because you're trying to, you know, do some really elaborate note-taking. So I would say my answer is yes, but be careful in how you do it. OK. That's a good question. So, first of all, and I do want to clarify, LAPL is actually Los Angeles Public Library. That is our sort of our sister library, and I work for the County of Los Angeles Public Library, which is a separate system. We serve all of the areas in LA County except for the city, which is not, that's a mistake that's commonly made. I just don't want you to go to their website and try to figure out, you know, why the things I was talking about wasn't there. So my own career with the County of Los Angeles Public Library, I think it does illustrate that if you're willing to move around, you have more opportunities. And by move around, I mean work in different libraries. I've lived in the same place the whole time. And sometimes for some of my positions, I had a relatively short commute, and for some of them, I had longer ones. I will say that my organization is really understanding about, you know, they will not send you to work up in the Antelope Valley and slave in Long Beach. So they're not looking to have anyone have some ungodly commute. But I think that the more positions that you're open to, the more opportunities that you would have. Let's see. I hope that answered your question. For a youth librarian position, would they ask you for a demonstration of the storytime? So that's also a good question. I would say that in the initial librarian and a library exam, it's unlikely that that would happen. Because at least for us, youth services and adult services and team services librarians all come from the same librarian one eligibility list. So at least for that initial librarian one exam, they probably wouldn't make you do a storytime demonstration because they're not only looking for children's librarians, they're looking for all kinds of librarians. Once you get into a particular position interview, it is possible. And, you know, speaking not just about my own organization, but, you know, public libraries in general, I've worked in some where librarians do have to demo a storytime, and I've worked in some where they don't. You know, if you're thinking about being a youth librarian, I think it wouldn't be a bad idea to practice, you know, how you might read a story or have a couple of finger play is kind of backed up. I do know that, you know, if you don't have a great singing voice, they won't hold it against you. It's more about the enthusiasm of your presentation. So, yeah. But for us, for the exam at least, I wouldn't expect that. Let's see. Internships for Fall and Spring, what about summer? So, we are not doing any internships this summer. We actually used up all of our librarian positions for the fiscal year between the Fall and Spring semester. There have been some summers where we have done them, but to be honest, we've had very few takers. I think because of the collapsed timeline of the summer semester, people often find it hard if they're taking other courses to get their coursework and their internship in. So, we're not, we don't generally offer summer internships and we definitely won't be doing one this summer. Let's see. Useful classes. I took in my MLIS program. That's a great question. So, the one that I can say was definitely the most useful for me was actually a class on library management. And it's funny because I took it not thinking that I would become a library manager. I think at the time, well, for one thing, I thought I wanted to be an academic librarian. But I think even if I had been honest with myself, I thought I wanted to work at the information desk. I really, that sort of reference work was really where I thought my passion was. And I had a fantastic library management class. I was taught by an adjunct professor who had also been the director of kind of a medium-sized Midwestern library. And it was really fantastic. I will also say, and you might think this is weird, but I do not. I actually took full on cataloging, which, you know, even when I was in library school, a lot of times people would do more of an information access kind of thing and not necessarily full cataloging. And it really helped me to understand how libraries organize information that I think made me a better reference librarian. Trying to think what else. Those are the ones that really come to mind, though. I did also, I took a really good reference class that was taught by an excellent professor, learned a lot about how to do reference interviews that, you know, I think was really, really helpful for me. And, yeah, I think those are the ones that were most helpful. Let's see. Okay, there's a really good kind of long question about looking the part. And thank you for asking that, because I think that I maybe didn't explain myself enough in that. And actually, what I was talking is not necessarily looking like a librarian. What I really should have said was, look like a professional. And we actually, as I mentioned, we're an extremely diverse organization and we are looking for all different kinds of people. It's a huge priority for us, actually. And we want all different kinds of candidates. But we're also an organization that we consider our librarians to be the professional, you know, it's the professional public-facing part of the organization. And so what I was actually referring to was making sure that you're dressed really professionally. So, you know, wearing business attire, wearing a suit, you know, and I see now where I'm saying look the part. I didn't mean look like you're about ready to sit down and do your story time. What I meant was we expect people to come in looking like a polished professional, because we expect all of our librarians to be highly professional. So, I hope, does that answer, does that help to clarify your question? I hope. Oh, and there's too many comments, so I can't see. But I hope it did. If it didn't, let me know and I'll try again. Let me see here. And if NLS is new study towards the second career, is it appropriate to apply for non-entry level positions? Oh, that's a great question. So, yes, it is appropriate to apply for non-entry level positions, but you would have to really look closely at the job descriptions and see whether or not you qualify for them. Some of them are very specific. So, for instance, if you were, we have five levels of librarian in our organization. Most of our coordinator positions, like our learning coordinator or internet services coordinator is our librarian fours. And that job description says you have to have three years of experience at a librarian one level or two years as a two or one year as a librarian one to qualify. So, even an external candidate that had that outside experience, they would have to demonstrate that they had comparable experience in an unrelated profession that equated to what we would consider three years at a librarian one. I don't think I explained that particularly well. But basically, it is possible to apply for non-entry level positions, but you need to look really closely at what the actual qualifications. Some of the job descriptions have it built in where people who have been working or have library experience in non-professional capacity or who have outside experience and, for instance, management might qualify, but you would just have to look and see if you meet the qualifications. Let's see. In an interview panel, is it okay to ask for business cards? And yes, it's absolutely okay to ask for business cards or an email address or a thank you letters. You should know that in that initial exam, they will have already sort of rated you and made their decision before they get your thank you email, even if you send it pretty quickly, I would guess, and definitely before you send the letter. But I never think it hurts to send a thank you note. I think it's a really polite thing to do. I've done it. When I've received them after interviews, I think it does definitely make an impression. But it's also not necessarily expected, particularly for that first exam. Things are a little bit different once you're in a high-ring interview, once you're in a selection interview where it's particular people looking for a particular position. And in those, definitely it wouldn't hurt to write thank you letters. I don't know that anyone's ever been upset. And asking for a business card is that's something that most likely your interview panel would expect. I'm sorry. It's not an expectation, but it's something that are accustomed to. They wouldn't think that anything was odd about that. Let's see. Oh, okay. And I see you are referring to a hiring interview. So, yes. Yeah, I would say definitely asking for a business card and sending a thank you note wouldn't be a bad idea. Absolutely not. Those are all really good questions. Does anyone have anything else? Jesse, this is Kim. I do have one question. You had mentioned talking to the HR person about things like compensation and that sort of thing. At what point during this process of these perhaps multiple interviews, at what point would you be in a position to be discussing compensation with the HR person? I would say, so if you have general questions about compensation or benefits, like if you're at the very initial stages, like you're thinking about submitting an application, it's not clear to you if it's in a range that would be acceptable. That would be a good time to ask, you know, if you could ask that of the Human Resources Department right at the beginning. If you're talking about salary negotiation, that would be way at the end. And so it would be more like they're making you a job offer or, you know, a provisional offer. And that's the point at which if you were trying to negotiate a salary, you would do that. So I would say Human Resources at the very beginning and then all the way at the end if you're trying to negotiate something. It's pretty rare. For an entry-level librarian position, usually there's not a lot of negotiation in positions where people have previous experience from other organizations. And they're trying to sort of figure out where on the salary scale you might find. That's where there might be some wiggle room. And actually, this is something that even as myself, I'm not a library director. So it's a question that I would defer. You know, if someone asked me about that, I would, you know, at the beginning of the process, I would refer them to DHR. You know, and at the end, that's part of the sort of final negotiation when you're considering accepting an offer. Did that help? Yes. Thank you. Are there any other questions? We've, oh, here's one. How do you feel about candidate follow-up job? Oh, okay. So yeah, candidate follow-up is fine. Particularly after sort of the, if you've gotten past that first exam process and you're into the hiring process. And for example, I actually, I'm the hiring manager for our intern program. And so people send me a follow-up email and ask if, you know, say something like they enjoyed talking to me and wonder, you know, they're available if I have any follow-up questions or, you know, are wondering if we have a timeline for the process. I don't think anything of that. That's fine. I wouldn't do it follow-up from sort of an initial exam. That would be much more appropriate to go directly to the Human Resources Department because the raters in the exam don't know how long it takes for the Human Resources Department to compile, you know, to compile the results of the exam. So it's, it wouldn't really help you to reach out to the people on an exam panel. In that, in that case, I would talk to the Human Resources Department. Let's see, how much weight do you and other interviews put on job titles? For example, my current title is Associate. Oh, I would be, for any library outside of my own system, I would be much more inclined to look at job functions and to see what you were actually doing. So I, myself, don't put a lot of weight on titles. I would say in general, when you are submitting the application, though, you need to make sure that it's clear so that the Human Resources Department can tell that your experience does actually qualify you for the position that you're hiring for because if in your application it sounds like you have only been doing work at sort of a paraprofessional level or not professional librarian work and you're interviewing for a position that requires some previous professional library experience, then you might not even get an examination. It may not get past that point. So I would just be really careful on how you describe these other jobs, especially if the titles are, you know, not very clear on exactly what you're doing. But I do think, you know, different librarians call different positions all different kinds of things when the functions are often very similar. And so I'd be much more likely to look at the functions than, you know, not only the title. Did that help? And also I should add that, you know, if you've gotten to the point where you are in an exam or an interview, definitely if you think it's unclear, that would be a great point to hit. Like, oh, in this position my title was associate, but I was actually, you know, answering questions at the information desk, doing programs, you know, I did, you know, this particular collection development thing and just, you know, make sure that in your talking points you hit that you were doing, you know, particular professional functions. Oh, so that question is actually the best for your academic advisor, the point in your MLS program when you intern. I do know we require our interns to be taking the course for credit. And I think that you have to have a certain amount of coursework done before you qualify to take the internship class. So our interns are generally not in their first semester. I believe that we have had some in their last semester, but then I would definitely defer to find out, you know, when you qualify for the internship class. If you're considering an internship like ours, that requires you to be registered for the class. If you're doing other kinds of internships, particularly on paid ones, it might not matter. But I would talk to your advisor. Jesse, related to internships for students who have done an internship in your system, is it, what's the likelihood if they were to apply for a job within the system that that internship experience would help them be in a better position to get a job? Or a quick way of saying this is, how many interns do you hire into the system? Oh, boy. Okay, so that's a tricky question. I don't want to get myself into trouble because at least for the librarian, one, the initial thing, it's an examination. And so technically, an internship doesn't advantage anyone. It does not weigh into the scoring. And in fact, unless the candidate talks about that experience, it wouldn't be something that the raters might not, they might not even know about it. But I will say that our internship program is actually designed. So for instance, if you're in a youth services internship, in addition to planning and promoting and performing a program of some kind, you also would have the experience to do some reference work. You might have to do some collection development work. You certainly would have the opportunity to attend and sort of be able to audit or assist other librarians with adult team programming. Our internship is designed so that our candidates come out with a really rounded experience in a short amount of time, so that they have lots of specific things that they can talk about when they're interviewing for their first librarian positions, not just with us, but with any organization. So I would say that it doesn't officially advantage anyone, but I think that the opportunity to do an internship can greatly, I can really, greatly give you experiences and real concrete things to talk about in your interview to demonstrate that you are ready for a librarian one position. Is that into your question? Yes, that was great. Thank you. And do we have any other questions or we're about ready to wrap it up? I know you guys have stayed longer than you probably intended to, but pretty good information. Thank you, Jesse. Oh, yeah. And thanks, everyone. Wow, I did not realize I was concentrating and not looking on the time. Thanks, everyone, for hanging in there. I know these are long, so I appreciate it. Well, thank you very much. On behalf of the iSchool, there is Jesse's email address in case you have any follow-up questions for him. And Jesse, we can't thank you enough. This has been incredibly informative. And the rest of you, I hope you enjoy the rest of your evening. Thank you so much.