At the Library, I Hope

I'm really scared about my interview later this week about the internship. I mean, they're not paying me, so the stakes aren't as high as they might be, but still, they want to make sure I'm a "fit" for the job in terms of my interests and goals. So that means I have to state my interests and goals coherently.

What kind of questions do you think they'll ask? The job description has a split between two jobs, collection development and adult programming work. Both of them sound really interesting to me.

Comments

[elswhere]

If both those things sound really interesting to you, then I bet you're a good fit for the internship.

If you want to look at sample interview questions, this page might be helpful: http://www.liswiki.com/wiki/HOWTO:Apply_for_a_library_job

But don't be intimidated if you don't know how to answer them-- this is for an internship, not a paid librarian position, so they won't expect you to have experience already.

They might ask which of your classes you've enjoyed the most, or what you've liked most about previous library work (didn't you do some volunteering last year?). They may ask where you see yourself in five years, or what kind of library job you hope to be doing after you graduate, or what appealed to you about getting a library degree.

If the internship involves working on the reference desk, they may want to make sure that you're reliable in general and will show up. So it might be good to have an anecdote up your sleeve regarding a previous situation where you demonstrated reliability (teaching? Volunteering At kids' school?).

Also it never hurts to have an example ready about a conflict you had with someone (a co-worker, or someone you worked with in a volunteer capacity) and how you resolved it. That question seems to come up a lot around here and I always get stumped if I don't have a story ready. It doesn't have to be an all-out conflict--it could be someone who disagreed with how you were doing things, or vice versa, and if you talked with them about it and worked it out, that's all the interviewers will need.

Hope this is helpful and not scary. I've been on a lot of interviews in the last couple of years and find I'm more relaxed and confident when I've had a chance to run hypothetical questions with someone, even if those don't turn out to be the questions that I get at the actual interview.