Alfred University Libraries student employees guide: Hiring, Onboarding, and Training

This is a fillable pdf we use for all students who are applying for positions with our libraries

We interview all students before hiring them. While we call it an "interview", it is really a short conversation so we can get to know the student better, and simulate a professional job hunting experience in a low-stakes, low-anxiety environment. We don't necessarily ask all these questions every time, but they give us an example of some questions to ask to get the student thinking about the position as an actual job.

This is the mutual agreement that is signed by student employees, their supervisor, and the Public Services Librarian. It lays out general expectations for both the supervising team and the student. This is a living document and is usually tweaked slightly every year, so students are required to read and sign it every time they start a new academic year.

Because we have so many students employed at across the libraries, we use this "cheat sheet" to learn more about them when they are hired. It also helps us keep track of important things like their graduation date and any food allergies they have.

Our training checklists vary between libraries to suit each library's differences, but both cover the same basic information. These are also living documents and are changed yearly based on where we see gaps in the students' knowledge. We require all Public Services student employees to attend training at the beginning of each semester--fall and spring. On top of completing the training checklist, they also have training sessions with the Public Services Librarian to discuss rules and expectations, and other librarians who have volunteered to teach them how to search in Primo, how to read catalog records, how to answer basic reference questions, and when and how to pass along more in-depth questions to a librarian.

We ask the students to "reapply" for their positions every semester by giving us their availability for next semester and answering some questions. This gives students who have discovered during the semester that the library is not the best fit for them the opportunity to leave, and also for us to solicit feedback from returning students on how to improve our student employee program. We also use it as a chance to update our personnel documents for our students. Here is a sample of questions we ask returning student employees.