So you want to work at the Penn Libraries

Securing a campus job is an important but often overlooked part of the student experience. Not only will your job provide you with a steady paycheck, but it will also help to integrate you into the infrastructure of your school. At Penn, the library has long been one of the best places for students to work, since we hire a lot of students, offer flexible hours, and, yes, allow you to study while at work. But the popularity of our jobs means that we often have huge pools of applicants to sift through, and more potential students than we can employ. So how can you make yourself stand out and help secure one of these highly sought-after spots?

Well, I’m glad you asked. In over ten years at Penn I’ve hired hundreds of students, and I’m happy to pull back the curtain and share some of the things my colleagues and I look for in our student workers. Moreover, I’ll tell you what these jobs are really like so that you can decide if you even want to work at the library. Here’s a hint: it’s a lot more than just getting paid while you study.

Your timing matters

Libraries rise and fall with the academic calendar. Our busiest times are also your busiest times. Which means that, unfortunately, we can’t wait until after the semester begins to start hiring our students. If you are waiting until you are settled in to start looking for a job, that may mean you’ve waited too long.

Most student supervisors will start reviewing applications and conducting interviews a week or two before the semester begins, and they will do the bulk of that work during the first week of the fall term. Yet you also don’t want to be too early; I’ve had incoming freshmen email me in April looking to secure a job for September. While that is very nice, and I appreciate you being so forward-looking, it is also unfortunately impossible for me to hire someone before they’ve even matriculated!

Your best bet to secure a position (and have the best choice of hours) is to begin your search right before coming (or returning) to Penn; that way, we can arrange an interview right on the first few days you’re on campus. Also, we tend to make our decisions pretty fast, since we want to build our team quickly. Usually we will make a job offer shortly after our meeting.

That said, we do still hire throughout the year! Our schedules reset at the start of each term, so we usually do a second round of recruiting for the spring term. We may add you to a wait list and circle back to you if an opening arises, or share your resume with some of our colleagues who may still be hiring. It never hurts to ask!

Making your resume stand out

As you can imagine, I have reviewed quite a lot of resumes and cover letters over the years; frankly, they all tend to blend together. If you’re coming to Penn you are, more or less by definition, a high achiever. So what is it I am looking for in all these paper summaries of high achievers?

The first, and most important, thing I am going to be looking for is work history. While I very much appreciate seeing your academic achievements, remember that I am looking to hire you to work a job. I want to see some proof that you’re able to handle that responsibility. That doesn’t mean we’re not going to consider you if you’re never had one before; I’ve given plenty of students their first jobs. But what it does mean is that you should include anything and everything that might be relevant on your resume. If you were a babysitter, camp counselor, barista, whatever, put it on there!

Writing a cover letter is recommended but not necessary. However, if you do, make sure you are tailoring it for the job you are applying for. Your cover letter should tell me why you are applying for this particular job. I should be able to walk away from it with an answer to the question “what makes you want to work in the library?” Even if the answer is a simple as “I like books”, cool! Me too! I’ll be much more likely to bring you in for an interview if I sense a genuine interest in library work from the materials you’re using to introduce yourself to me.

What to expect from your job

Most library jobs are public-facing. The traditional student job is staffing our circulation desks, where we loan out materials to people and receive them back. This means you’ll be interacting with your peers and sometimes even your professors. So you should prepare to be seen.

Of course, not every library job has a public component; there are plenty of positions available that don’t require any interaction with people at all (this is a selling point for more than a few librarians). If you’re not interested in a job that’s going to be in a customer service role, you’ll want to look for jobs that have more technical requirements.

By and large, you should not need specialized knowledge for a student library job. If you’re a liberal arts student, consider applying for a job at Holman Biotech Commons. And if you’re in a STEM program, you’re welcome to work at the Fisher Fine Arts Library. In fact, it might be a nice change of pace to be in a library that is outside of your field of study!

Our expectations of you

The main thing that we are looking for from our student employees, and what I always stress most in interviews, is reliability. That means showing up for your shifts consistently and on time, and communicating clearly when you have a conflict. That being said, we do understand that sometimes things happen beyond your control. Perhaps your advisor needs to meet with you during your normal working hours; or you have a group project and that’s the only time everyone can meet; or you’re just so unbelievably stressed that you can’t possibly make it to the library.

We understand that you’re all students first, and that your job at the library is just one of the many responsibilities you must juggle. What we don’t want to see is people getting overwhelmed and burned out. As long as you’re communicating what is going on in your lives, we will be understanding.

Is this the right job?

Our student employees are a vital part of our library operations, and at the heart of our services. We literally can’t keep our doors open and circulation desk running without you. These are active jobs, but also ones that are fulfilling and rewarding.

At a place like Penn, where students sometimes feel siloed in their programs, working at the library allows you to expand your social circle beyond your school. I’ve seen close friendships develop between people that might never have met if not for their shared job. And while I have yet to see romance blossom at the circulation desk, I am hopeful that some day I’ll be invited to the wedding of two former students.

Ultimately, your campus job, whether it’s at the library or somewhere else, should be an important and formative part of your life on campus. It should help you to set your expectations for your work life once you are out of school, and to provide you with a wider understanding of Penn as a whole. Our mission as librarians is to help our student body succeed in all their goals, and nowhere is that more true than with our student employees.