Posted by Kanga. Please do not reblog.
In November, I had to decide whether I would sign on for another contract or if I would move on at the end of the school year to something else. This is always a complex issue and it is never easy to make the commitment one way or the other 7-8 months ahead of time. We weighed all the variables and decided that it was time to move on and time to leave China. If I had known then what we know now, the decision would have been even harder. COVID-19 has made job hunting exponentially harder than it usually is.
Due to the limited number of international school librarian positions available in countries I would consider, I began looking at returning to the American academic library scene.
I am at a disadvantage for several reasons, including that I have been working abroad for 12 years and for 9 of those years have been at the high school level. Even before I left the States, I was at a disadvantage. I had worked for small, liberal arts colleges. Trying to get a job at a larger institution meant coming up against the assumption that I might be a big fish in a small pond, but I would be a small fish in their very large and important pond, again and again. So, just imagine what a small fish I appear to be now.
Surprisingly, I actually got some interviews with big/medium institutions. In fact, I made it past the initial interview for two of them. This meant traveling to the institutions for in person interviews. In person interviews in academia can take a whole day (or even multiple days) involving meeting with several groups of people and even giving a presentation or example of your work. I believe that one of the unstated purposes of these interview days is to test the candidate’s stamina. Can he/she be broken in a few hours?
My first of these in person interview days was mostly okay, but it only takes one or two terrible things to sink the candidate. And I definitely sank myself. My presentation was terrible. I knew it immediately and I take full responsibility for it. I did not take it seriously enough. I was not terrified during the preparation process. I did not do enough. I did not push myself. Therefore, I stank up the place.
The people on the search committee were polite and continued to be nice to me as the day continued after the disastrous presentation. However, the last event of the day was a meeting with the Dean of the Library. We could have saved a great deal of time if it had been the first event of the day instead of last. He confirmed that my presentation was a disaster by saying “You are a mismatch for this position. What in the job description led you to apply, because maybe we need to rewrite it.”
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He also made a confusing comparison using his concept of the school where I am currently working and his concept of HIS school. The conclusion of this comparison was that I was incompetent. My high tuition international school which he assumes is filled with the sons and daughters of diplomats is TOTALLY different than his land grand university. I savor the paradox of a university that is so full of itself and yet has such a chip on it’s shoulder. Boo hoo, poor institution that depends on government funding. All the colleges I have worked for have been private institutions dependent on tuition and donations that received no government budget money. The only government funding they received came through financial aid to students, therefore tuition.
I am still unclear on how this economic comparison led to a negative assessment of my abilities. He did not make much sense.
However, I am thankful that Dr. Rude was so very direct and blunt, although not necessarily logical, because he told me everything I needed to know about working in his library. I would not want to work under his leadership. Several of the people I interacted with had been students at the school and “fell into” working in the library and haven’t worked anywhere else. They may not realize that having an abusive leadership is not universal or normal. The position I was applying for had been filled by at least two people in the last 6 years, which implies that the position was not long term comfortable.
I have no desire to work for bad management. I know that I don’t have to work for bad management.
Next, I had an interview at a community college. I thought it went fairly well. However, I was totally ghosted afterwards. No rejection email, not one peep out of them. It is amazingly unprofessional to interview someone in person and then not communicate, even, if it is in the negative.
I returned to Shanghai, China in early February and then the COVID-19 fun began. Countrywide self-isolation and closing of school campuses had me working from home. Then, in late March, the China borders were closed to foreigners and I began getting replies from US institutions that indicated job searches were being put on hold, so this meant shifting my job search to inside China. I had a couple of video interviews. One was a school in Beijing with a good reputation. I thought the interview went well and the principal mentioned arranging for me to speak with a teacher, so that seemed like there would be more. But then, crickets. Ghosted again. No further communication.
As time dragged on and negative result after negative result, it became fairly obvious that I needed to stay at my current position. A recent posting of said position led me to believe that the school had not been any more successful at finding a replacement than I had been at finding a new position.
It is official now. I have signed a one year contract. Only time will tell what the next job hunt season will be like, thanks to the worldwide pandemic. Luckily, we are in one of the safest places due to the effective isolation, contact tracing, testing, and treatment measures taken by the Chinese government. We opened the school this week. Life and work is not fully normal, but it is certainly more stable than what is happening in other parts of the world.
Living the Travel Channel 