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Evaluation ViewAttendees 26

Management + Business Acumen

Min Quals' : What's Really Needed in a New Law Library Hire?

'Min Quals': What's Really Needed in a New Law Library Hire? (Hot Topic)

Monday, July 17, 2023
1:15pm – 2:15pm EDT
Location: Hynes-302
For years, minimum qualifications for law librarians included either an MLIS, a JD, or in some cases both. Have these traditional requirements yielded the most qualified candidates? Lately, job postings that come through AALL email announcements often substitute experience for degrees—even academic postings aren’t consistently requiring both graduate degrees. Hear from a law librarian who modified those requirements and found a great hire. As the pool of interested applicants continues to shrink, is it possible to expand the pool (especially with regards to applicants of color) and still find the best hire?

Attendees will learn how to re-evaluate positions with an eye toward actual job duties and diversify the law library workforce by concentrating on ability to do the work rather than credentialing. Unless something changes drastically in the next year, we are all facing a reduced pool of applicants for our open positions. This session will offer a chance to engage with the idea of changing what we require of candidates as a method to locate the most qualified applicants for our jobs, regardless of the particular degrees they hold.

Target Audience:

Managers, or anyone involved in the hiring process, will be interested in this.

Takeaways:

  • Attendees will evaluate creating job descriptions that require skills and experience rather than relying on graduate degrees (MLS, JD, etc.) as the threshold determinant when seeking qualified candidates for a variety of roles in different law library settings.
  • Attendees will be able to apply a series of questions to open positions as part of a process of re-evaluating current position descriptions and the candidate requirements to fill them.
  • Attendees will generate talking points for making the case to re-evaluate all open positions and modify minimum qualifications when appropriate in light of whether degree requirements result in the best hires and whether degree requirements erect unnecessary barriers to candidates who have the experience to be successful, but don’t possess an MLS and/or JD degree.