{"id":63282,"date":"2014-03-04T11:30:09","date_gmt":"2014-03-04T16:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=63282"},"modified":"2014-03-02T13:55:23","modified_gmt":"2014-03-02T18:55:23","slug":"how-to-prepare-for-an-interview-like-an-rpg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=63282","title":{"rendered":"How to Prepare for an Interview Like an RPG"},"content":{"rendered":"

by<\/em>\u00a0Ruth Kitchin Tillman, Head Editor,\u00a0INALJ Maryland<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

How to Prepare for an Interview Like an RPG<\/span><\/h3>\n

\"ruthtillman\"<\/a>In my free time (so, y\u2019know, not since August), I enjoy playing and running role-playing games.\u00a0When I started job hunting in the fall, my friend Mary Richardson<\/a>, a fellow gamer-archivist,\u00a0gave me the advice to think about the boring parts of the application process as \u201clevel-grinding\u201d\u00a0(a term used in video games for repetitive tasks you have to do to get to a cool quest) and the\u00a0interviews as an RPG session.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve decided to write about how I use the RPG mentality to prepare myself for the rigorous\u00a0gaming session that is the all-day librarian interview. I\u2019ll be switching a bit between the gamer\u00a0mentality and the game-master (GM) mentality, since I\u2019ve found both apply to interview prep.<\/p>\n

1) Know Your Character<\/strong><\/p>\n

In an RPG, who your character is and what they can do is helpfully written down on a \u201ccharacter\u00a0sheet.\u201d It not only tells basic stuff like gender, name, race, etc., but gives specific skill points. It\u00a0may also tell you the details of magic or feats you can call on throughout the quest. How many\u00a0times can you cast magic missile? What are the specifics around your use of a particular feat?<\/p>\n

When gaming, you don\u2019t want to be that person who spends so long looking for these details that\u00a0they pull everyone out of the game. When interviewing, you don\u2019t want to be the person who\u00a0spends so long trying to come up with these details that everyone feels uncomfortable.<\/p>\n

Now, it may seem straightforward. You\u2019re playing the same character every time, right? You\u00a0know who you are and what you\u2019ve done.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d counter that in each interview, you\u2019re actually playing with a different character sheet. One\u00a0job I interviewed for had a very strong WordPress focus. Before the interview, I spent a lot of\u00a0time reviewing what I\u2019d done and pulling up examples so that I\u2019d be ready. At another interview,\u00a0they didn\u2019t care at all about my ability to use WordPress. It was about as relevant as my 4th-\u00a0grade science fair project on polar bears.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t to encourage lying. Your character sheet for an interview always reflects who you are\u00a0as person and what you\u2019re able to do. But if you\u2019re interviewing for positions as an elf mage and\u00a0a half-orc barbarian, you should prepare yourself differently.<\/p>\n

2) See Yourself as the Character<\/strong><\/p>\n

The best role-players see themselves as the character that they\u2019re playing, but they do it with\u00a0care. Spend time familiarizing yourself with what the job posting indicates as the person they\u2019re\u00a0looking for. Review your character sheet to see what you can bring to the table. Then visualize\u00a0yourself as the character. What does that position look like when you\u2019re doing it? Show that in\u00a0the interview.<\/p>\n

And just as some people can take that idea in RPGs and make it weird, don\u2019t make it weird in\u00a0the interviewing session. Talk about would, not will. Be the person they\u2019re looking for, not the\u00a0person who seems to think she already got the job.<\/p>\n

3) Know Your Setting and NPCs<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is a cross between a player and GM skill. Before the adventure, absorb the setting and learn\u00a0about the NPCs or Non-Player Characters (the ones you can\u2019t control). See what projects the\u00a0library has been doing in the past few years. If they\u2019re full of kobolds, don\u2019t come in and offer\u00a0to solve their orc problem. If an NPC has won an award for doing X, you should be aware that\u00a0they\u2019re probably an expert at X and take that into consideration.<\/p>\n

As with number 2, don\u2019t make it creepy. Before interviewing for the job I have, I happened to\u00a0find out through Google that my boss\u2019s daughter was a nationally-rated synchronized swimmer.\u00a0You know how many times I mentioned that during the interview? Zero. That would have been\u00a0a bit weird and unrelated to the interview. On the other hand, if you saw that a person won an\u00a0industry award for X, as suggested above, it\u2019s totally ok to bring that up if relevant.<\/p>\n

If they give you a schedule, memorize it and look up all the people you know you\u2019ll be meeting.\u00a0Do your best to be aware of what you may be encountering throughout your day. When, as a\u00a0game-master, you spend a lot of time before the game being aware of what will happen when and\u00a0who people will encounter next, the game flows much more smoothly than when you\u2019re always\u00a0checking notes.<\/p>\n

I tend to be nervous about interviews. While I\u2019m not the perfect interviewee yet, I\u2019ve found this\u00a0method to be a more familiar way I can approach them. And whether I bring home a job at the\u00a0end of the day or not, I\u2019ve gotten eXperience Points in interviewing, learned new things, and\u00a0made new connections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by\u00a0Ruth Kitchin Tillman, Head Editor,\u00a0INALJ Maryland How to Prepare for an Interview Like an RPG In my free time (so, y\u2019know, not since August), I enjoy playing and running role-playing games.\u00a0When I started job hunting in the fall, my friend Mary Richardson, a fellow gamer-archivist,\u00a0gave me the advice to think about the boring parts of…<\/p>\n

Read more \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":58160,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[145],"tags":[69,5965,3592,3659,4514,6006,4590,5475,111],"class_list":["post-63282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-article","tag-being-interviewed","tag-blog","tag-inalj-maryland","tag-interview-tips","tag-prepare-for-an-interview-like-an-rpg","tag-preparing-for-interviews","tag-ruth-kitchin-tillman","tag-tips"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/ruthtillman.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1WoMK-gsG","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63282\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/58160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}