Interviewing in digital preservation: a duty of care and community
Sometime in 2024, I received zero feedback for a job interview—one of at least five interviews without any feedback in the last eight years.
The thing is, digital preservation is very niche. Those five roles probably represent a good number of institutions actually hiring specialists and likely represent some of the best chances for jobs in the future.
Not getting a role is part and parcel of interviewing, but in not providing feedback, a didactic moment was lost—a moment of community connection and outreach—and simply an act of care.
Furthermore, loops are not closed, processes feel incomplete, and of course, you will likely know the person who gets the role ahead of you. Trying to measure yourself against that individual will likely be in the back of your mind when you next meet or work with these individuals because you have been left questioning by the recruiter.
And before it is suggested that this is just a ‘you’ thing—let’s say conservatively, five people interviewed for each of the five positions I applied for. Assuming everyone is treated equally, that’s 20 people missing out on something critical to improving their skill set, interview technique, or helping them find more suitable jobs in the future. I guarantee, you ALL deserve feedback. It is also 20 people that each recruiter has missed an active opportunity to build a stronger bond with, who will sing the praises of the process and the organization; this is important.
Modern recruitment
Some things I am noticing in modern digital preservation recruitment:
- There are too few jobs,
- especially in local areas, often requiring a geographic shift from someone, which might imply other life changes to be made,
- prep time is not insignificant (2-3 days if asked to provide a presentation),
- increasingly online, e.g., via Zoom or Teams,
- increasingly time-boxed (my last interview was stopped at 45 minutes),
- increasingly rushed (you shouldn’t be able to feel the presence of the last, or next interviewee if the window moves), and,
- increasingly impersonal, relying on generic questions with fewer references to experience in curriculum vitae (CV), portfolio, or points raised in cover letters.
Take one script for an international role with a one-hour time limit:
1. Can you describe a time or situation when you had to troubleshoot a complex technical problem? 2. Can you talk about your digital preservation experience and how it is similar or different from this role? 3. Give us an example of a time when it was difficult to find consensus. What did you do? 4. If you were asked to write a report about something you didn't know anything about, what would your general process look like? 5. If you were to design a digital preservation lab, what tools would it include? 6. Our current integrity checking practices are resource and time intensive; how would you provide a lightweight approach to checking and documenting fixity? 7. Tell us about a time that you had to work in a diverse group from a wide range of backgrounds. 8. Tell us about a time when you explained a complex or technical issue to a person who did not understand technical jargon. What approach did you take? 9. What are some of the international digital preservation projects that you are watching and why? 10. What are some of your favorite digital preservation strategies? 11. What do you think are some of the most challenging digital formats to preserve and why? 12. What do you think are the main risks to digital content that must be managed to preserve it long-term? 13. What do you think makes someone a good team member? 14. Why do you want to leave your current position? 15. Why do you want to work in this position?
Part of the feedback for this particular role was about having not answered all the questions. Now, with 15 questions in 60 minutes—if you speak about NOTHING ELSE AT ALL—that’s four minutes per question. This was a one-shot interview, folks, and I can tell you it concluded at the hour with no room for asking questions or more casual conversation to try and get a sense of each other.
How much was covered in my particular CV or cover letter? I’ll leave up to you to decide. What I will say as someone who has recruited in multiple positions for digital preservation or in my current role as a senior system architect is that I will walk into an interview with some scripted questions (measurable with their rationale for being asked decided among the panel), but I largely want to extract more about your story, understand your expectations, and get to know you to see if you will be a good fit. Much of this will come out of the back and forth based on an outline structure.
One rule for all
If someone interviews for a position, they have passed a lot of hurdles to be in front of you. You probably are interested in working with them, and they are likely interested in working with you. The process has moved beyond the more “anonymous” on-paper stage to the human; it is now face-to-face. The pretense of anonymity is no more, and you are now building a relationship, whether for those 60+ minutes or for the long haul.
If you interview eye-to-eye, you deserve feedback eye-to-eye as you interviewed.
Process is important
It is difficult to find consistency with the process. Some roles make it clear that feedback will be provided; some do not. This blog is making the case for making it an emphatic yes, but even if roles do offer feedback, it must be done consistently.
Take this follow-up for a position in 2017:
THEM: Hi Ross, how are you? I’m worried I’m in your bad books, as I owe you some proper feedback after your interview. Sorry to be so useless about that. Also it would be good to catch-up generally 🙂 We should try and fix up a Skype conversation, perhaps early morning or evening time? I can do more or less any day this week, if that helps.
Aug 8, 2017, 10:30 AMME: Hi …… – re: feedback. I think …… would be as appreciative as me at this point for you to go through the correct channel for that. I would also like the opportunity to thank her for her own patience once its done. re: catch-up. Sure. But another time that’s more appropriate. Thanks. Ross
This follow-up was received three months after the interview. Instead of following any semblance of process it was received via direct message on Twitter, and at this point, there had already been a number of messages between myself and the HR department of the recruiter.
I requested the person continue to follow the process because, again, this isn’t just me affected by a lack of process; I have to assume three or four individuals who have the right to receive feedback to build on are not getting it if requested. I also suggested that once the loop was completed, we could continue to catch up as the person hoped. They didn’t follow up.
While I can happily assume three or four other people were in the same boat—not learning about what they could develop in the future based on their rejection—I am less sure if each of them received what looks like special treatment by receiving a direct message via Twitter by way of follow-up. But these processes need to have integrity to protect all of us. We shouldn’t have leaders in our field who are essentially showing very little respect for something that actually has a huge impact on individuals.
No shortcuts
Recruitment takes time on both ends, but only one party can shortcut the process once they have what they need. Please don’t do this.
At a minimum, everyone who interviews should receive meaningful and constructive feedback. Don’t be ambiguous, or draw a comparison to the successful candidate where the comparison isn’t measurable. What did you like? What didn’t you like? What could be improved? If an individual is asked to take 2-3 days to prepare for a role, you could at least take 45 minutes of your own time to write that email.
A duty of community
Given good feedback, you’ve just put something immeasurable back into the community:
- You’ve potentially given someone something they can build on that will benefit the next institution they interview for or arrive at.
- You will most likely leave a positive impression, and that impression may lend itself to that potential recruit recommending your organization to others.
- You can show your organization as one that cares.
A duty of care
Importantly, you’re looking after people in your field by:
- Completing a loop,
- Not leaving people in doubt,
- Not leaving folk questioning themselves,
- Leaving them second-guessing whether it is worth their time applying to similar positions in the future.
Versus other industries
Reading around the subject, there may be some recruiters who don’t recognize the importance of feedback on interviews, but what do those industries look like? Were I myself in pure IT, I’d probably have half a dozen roles in my surrounding area, but digital preservation? I have to think these roles aren’t turning up every day. Anecdotally, most friends I talk to about job rejections immediately follow up with, “I hope you can get some good feedback.” This is what I hope for all.
Advocacy in digital preservation
So, this has happened at least five times for me now. I have to imagine this is the norm for many.
What worries me is that there is no advocacy—worse still, it’s almost impossible to find any of the current advocacy groups trying to improve recruitment processes;
- They are often institution-focused,
- They tend to look at the surface of the job market, not how to improve the quality of the processes in the job market,
- Folks involved in recruitment at these institutions are often deep within the advocacy group as well. If they are not affected, the issue cannot be affected.
Concluding remarks
I wasn’t even thinking about this one in the list of five, but fun fact: my best interview probably ran about an hour late just chatting with the person recruiting. I had already had a sense the role wasn’t going to be mine, but it was good to talk about the domain; they also gave me some important advice about ensuring that work is seen and recognized. I left the interview and wrote a follow-up including a decision making rubric that I would go on to use to help organize my work for a while afterward. Now, I didn’t get the job, but the sour part was no feedback AND I found out that I didn’t get the job when the individual who did get it was announced on Twitter 😱
That was a long time ago, but it was in this field, and so, weird stuff happens—it needn’t.
While we’re sitting in the chair at our most stressful, trying to impress you, it helps to keep in mind that the minimum demonstration of care on your side will impress us, and it almost guarantees we will go away and become your advocates in the future—and the best bit is you don’t even have to pay us to do it. The 5:1 ratio says it takes five positive interactions to outweigh one negative; perhaps though, in these difficult recruitment situations we find ourselves in at times, leaving one positive impression can feel five times better than one negative one.
Today’s header image is a poem by Californian poet Kay Ryan. It feels appropriate in this small field.
The Elephant in the Room
The room isalmost all
elephant.
Almost none
of it isn’t.
Pretty much
solid elephant.
So there’s no
room to talk
about it.