Remember how we were at six last week?  That’s kind of a big jump, right? Librarians are helpful people!  Established librarians *want* to share their perspectives with the rest of us.  I am very grateful to those hiring managers, etc. who have responded.

Distribution of Responses Over Time

These responses were collected between February 24 and March 14th, 2012. The charts and tables in this post are automatically generated by the Google Form.  So there are a few problems, including the truncation of labels on the charts. Apparently Google thinks I’m too verbose…

I also want to bring up the strength and the limitation of this blog: the anonymity.  Because even I have no way of identifying who the respondents are, there is no guarantee that they are actually hiring managers. It could all be some guy in Hoboken who thinks he’s funny.

Additionally, the responses are collected using nonprobability sampling, so it is inappropriate to assume they are representative of the entire population of library hiring managers, etc. As with most career sites, I consider Hiring Librarians to provide advice, which should be completely disregarded when appropriate.

That being said, here are the aggregated results:

Applications

How many pages should a cover letter be?

	Only one! 50     50% Two is ok, but no more 24     24% As many as it takes, but shorter is better 18     18% As many as it takes, I love reading 1     1% Other 8     8%

How many pages should a resume/CV be?

Only one!		3	3%
Two is ok, but no more		26	26%
As many as it takes, but keep it short and sweet		50	50%
As many as it takes, I want to look at every accomplishment		10	10%
Other		12	12%

Do you have a preferred format for application documents?

.doc		0	0%
.docx		1	1%
.pdf		26	26%
No preference, as long as I can open it		66	65%
Other		8	8%

The Other category includes the two responses from before this question was added.”

Should a resume/CV have an Objective statement?

Yes		9	9%
No		48	48%
I don’t care		35	35%
Other		9	9%

The Other category includes two responses from before this question was added.

If applications are emailed, how should the cover letter be submitted?

In the body of the email only		3	3%
As an attachment only		33	33%
Both as an attachment and in the body of the email		16	16%
I don’t care		34	34%
Other		15	15%

The Other category includes two responses from before this question was added.

Demographics

What library/institution type do you hire for?

Academic library		46	46%
Public library		29	29%
School library		0	0%
Special library		8	8%
Archives		2	2%
Other		16	16%

 The other category includes one catalouging agency, one consultant, one library network, and two non-responses. It also includes six academic, four public and one special library.  I changed this question after those responses had been submitted, adding the word “library” (as well as an “archives” option) so these responses were bumped out of their original categories by the Google Form.

How many staff members are in your library?

0-10 staff members		24	24%
10-50 staff members		42	42%
50-100 staff members		14	14%
100-200 staff members		10	10%
200+ staff members		9	9%

Are you a librarian?

Yes		96	96%
No		3	3%
It’s complicated		1	1%

Are you now or have you ever been:

a hiring manager (hiring people you directly or indirectly supervise)		87	87%
a member of a hiring committee		81	81%
human resources		5	5%
Other		5	5%

People may select more than one checkbox, so percentages may add up to more than 100%.

Thank you again to everyone who responded!

I am planning on exporting my data into Excel and doing a little more examination. For example, I would like to break out responses by demographic group (responses of academic only, etc.). I’m not sure when that will happen, but it will happen.

In the meantime, I’d love to hear your thoughts! Have you noticed any interesting commonalities among the longer interviews? Is there advice you agree or disagree with? Did anything particularly surprise you?  Please leave a comment.

Thank you for reading!