Organizational Entry: Human Resources

Selection and Adaptation in Response

to a Complex Labor Pool

KATHLEENM. HEIM

ABSTRACT
ENTRY-LEVEL RECRUITMENT to library organizations is discussed in light
of the complex labor pool. Suggestions are provided for better tech-
niques to accommodate both employer and employee goals. The need
for clearer articulation of specializations to facilitate targeted prepara-
tion of new entrants is presented as a strategy to develop a broader cadre
of entry-level personnel.

I NTROD UCTIoN
The complexity of the labor pool comprised of individuals holding
an accredited degree in library and information science presents special
problems regarding organizational entry. This article examines three
topics: (1) the complexity of the labor pool; (2) the scope of organiza-
tional entry considerations; and (3) considerations for organizational
entry in a library and information environment.
Historically, the organization has been the focus of study regarding
recruitment of personnel. That is, individuals have been seen in terms of
how they will fit into an organization, what skills and abilities they
bring, and how they will be trained. Recently, some researchers have
begun to consider the process from the dual perspective of the organiza-
tion and the individual. Wanous (1980, p. 10) has proposed a matching
process that considers the needs of human beings and the capacity of
organizations to meet those needs. While the traditional view of organi-
zational selection is that an individual’s abilities should meet the organ-
ization’s job requirements-resulting in good job performance-a more
expansive view is that the needs of individuals and the organization’s

Kathleen M. Heim, School of Library and Information Science, 267 Coates Hall, Louisi-
ana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803-3920
LIBRARY TRENDS, Vol. 38, No. 1 , Summer 1989, pp. 21-31
0 1989 The Board of Trustees, University of Illinois
22 LIBRARY TRENDWSUMMER 1989

capacity to reinforce those needs, results in job satisfaction and commit-

ment to the organization. Needs represent basic strivings, and abilities
represent what people can or are able to do. Clearly the individual is
concerned with the former and the organization with the latter. T h e
challenge of successful recruitment is to strike a balance between the
two.

THECOMPLEXITY OF THE LABOR POOLFOR

LIBRARY
A N D INFORMATION P OSITIONS
S CIENCE
For simplicity, this discussion considers only first positions. Mid-
level and upper-management positions involve different sets of norms
and factors relating to occupational culture and require separate analy-
sis. Dailey (1982) has posited that a completely new personnel selection
system is required at these levels based upon “track record inquiry.”
However, since recruitment at higher levels requires a considerably
different set of factors (including, but not limited to, institutional
comparability, career stage development, and professional affiliation),
this discussion will focus on the composition of the labor pool for the
first position.
Since most accredited programs of library a n d information science
education grant an “all-purpose” degree, it might be assumed by
employers at the outset that the potential labor pool for any entry-level
position is fairly homogeneous. However, this is certainly not the case.
Most new graduates with mobility target public service in a n academic
library as their most desirable job (Heim & Moen, 1989). Each program
will graduate a few students with clear and specific career goals based,
usually, upon preprofessional experience-such as health sciences
libraries or music librarianship-but most new graduates will modify
career goals in light of constraints on mobility, available positions, and
recruitment strategies of potential employers.
T h e primary fact to keep in mind is that each employer will find a
different labor pool for different jobs subject to many variables. A few
examples will illustrate this.
-A large urban public library with n o library education program in the
local metropolitan area will experience difficulty in identifying
youth services personnel for a n entry-level post.
-A small academic library in a small town will experience little diffi-
culty in attracting candidates for a public services position.
-An urban academic library with library education attainable through
part-time or full-time study will find it relatively easy to obtain can-
didates for most entry-level positions.
-School library positions-in states where the accredited degree is not a
requisite for employment-will not be difficult to fill if teacher edu-
cation programs provide state required courses.
-Large urban libraries-whether academic or public-will experience
difficulty in hiring if cost of living is extraordinarily high.
 HEIMIHUMAN RESOURCES SELECTION 23

-Suburban communities, in areas where there is n o library education

program, will experience difficulty in hiring entry-level personnel
especially for public library positions.
Far more than we like to admit, mobility plays a great part in the
candidate pool for entry-level positions. Because the median age of new
graduates is high-mid-thirties-many have already begun families or
made commitments to given communities, drastically cutting back the
pool of mobile candidates for entry-level positions. Because entry-level
salaries are low, relocation is generally based mainly upon a n impacted
local labor market. A good case in point is this author’s experience of
recent graduates at Louisiana State University. Until recently, local
entry-level salaries were extremely low-$3,000-$4,000 below the
national average. Consequently, graduates with mobility tended to
relocate. However, recent salary increases in the local job market closer
to the national average have tended to keep a larger portion of new
graduates in the state-even those from other regions. Whereas a $3,000
to $4,000 differential was impetus to move, a differential of $1,000 to
$2,000 was not, given that entry-level positions seldom provide moving
expenses-and often do not even provide interview reimbursement.
Additionally, when graduates move they tend to move for positions
they perceive (rightly or wrongly) as providingpotential for growth and
advancement. T h u s the public services positions in academic libraries
are pursued as these seem to hold promise for careers and development.
Positions that candidates view as somewhat static (such as youth ser-
vices or technical services) do not draw a large and geographically
diverse labor pool. A solid example of this would be school library
media positions. While a n individual may move for such a position, this
is generally due to family relocation-not due to the candidate perusing
openings throughout the nation and then applying. (Compounding
this problem is the school systems’ own tendency to hire a n d promote
from within and to prefer less experienced candidates due to costs.)

Available Positions
To a large degree, those graduates without clear career goals are
rather open-ended as to first job. For those with n o mobility, career
goals are flexible enough to modify the job search to meet local labor
needs. Again, to use the example of Louisiana State University, few
matriculated students enter the program with the idea of service in state
libraries or state agencies. However, the proximity of state government
means that such positions are available and are generally filled by new
graduates. Although the state library regularly advertises its positions in
the national press, the salaries are not high enough to attract many
distance candidates and the labor needs are largely met through hiring
nonmobile new graduates.
It seems that students will modify their course of study for the jobs
that they perceive as desirable. “Online searching” and “bibliographic
24 LIBRARY TRENDSISUMMER 1989

instruction” courses attract students who are targeting public service

positions in academic libraries, but few students will enroll in our
“management of technical service” seminars. There is a break between
students’ perceived ideas of positions and their desire to prepare for
positions. While those in the public services career stream can take little
credit for the fact that many students will modify their studies to meet
job requirements, it remains true that this appears to be the only
reasonably well understood career stream on the part of most students.
This is probably due to the visibility of these positions during under-
graduate or other graduate study.
What is needed to generate career orientation toward the require-
ments of the employing libraries is a profession-wide commitment to
delineating career paths for areas of library service in which there is a
shortfall of new entrants. While those in library education try to convey
the career potential of youth services or technical services, there is not
enough provision of role models in the field whose careers have been
analyzed to make such specialization attractive. Thus most new gradu-
ates will accept these perceived less desirable positions for reasons other
than career commitment.

Employer Response to a Complex Labor Pool

Employers who are disappointed at a small candidate pool for new
positions may not realize that positions outside of public service require
a different recruitment strategy than simply placing an advertisement in
the national press. However, once the factors of mobility and accommo-
dation of new entrants to available positions are understood, employers
should be able to develop a recruitment plan that enables them to attract
a broader selection of applicants. Techniques for managing recruit-
ment in light of a complex labor pool will be discussed in the third
section of this article.

THESCOPE OF ORGANIZATIONAL ENTRYCONSIDERATIONS

Activities Prior to Recruitment
“Organizational entry” refers to those components of the hiring
process that surround an individual’s recruitment, selection, and social-
ization. Before any contact is made with candidates for employment,
each position-whether newly created or ongoing-should first be sub-
jected to job analysis. Without a complete job analysis prior to
selection-related activities, the entire organizational entry process can
be jeopardized.
A number of well-developed techniques exist for the conduct of an
effective job analysis. These include: (1) Job Analysis Interoiews-a
trained analyst collects data by studying employees familiar with the job
under consideration; (2) Task Analysis Inventories-questionnaires
listing tasks associated with the open position that define the principal
 HEIMIHUMAN RESOURCES SELECTION 25

tasks for a given job; (3) Position Analysis Questionnaires-

standardized evaluation tools that examine work activities and compen-
sation issues; (4) Guidelines Oriented Job Analysis-a multistep
process designed to develop a selection plan reflecting the job being
studied; (5) the Iowa Merit Employment Systems-a process designed to
lead to content-valid selection devices; (6) Functional Job Analysis-a
thorough procedure for applying a standardized con trolled language
for describing and measuring what workers do on a job; and (7) The Job
Element Method which is designed to identify the characteristics of
superior workers on the job (Feild & Gatewood, 1987, pp. 113-22).
In their article, “Matching Talent with the Task,” Feild and Gate-
wood (1987, pp. 122-24)compare these methods of job analysis in light
of the EEOC Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedure
which lay out legal reasons for using job analysis as part of a selection
program. They also compare the seven methods on twelve variables:
(1) operational currency; (2) degree to which the methodological in-
struments are directly usable; (3) occupational versatility; (4) standardi-
zation; (5) acceptability to users/respondents; (6) required amount of
job analyst training; (7) sample size; (8) suitability for content validity;
(9)suitability for criterion-related validity; (10)reliability; (1 1) utility in
developing selection measures; and (12) cost.
The need for job analysis is underscored in Isacco and Smith’s
(1985) assertion that one of the primary reasons that the hiring process
fails is due to lack of attention to prerecruitment activities. In their
review, they observe that the spectrum of organizational policies relat-
ing to personnel should be surveyed frequently to avoid legal problems
and to ensure that the job analysis procedure takes place with appropri-
ate attention to position and organizational requirements.
Once the new position is sufficiently clear to those who will be
involved in hiring, internal selection procedures should be established.
These will vary depending upon the level of position. As noted before,
procedures and recruitment for mid or upper-level positions are differ-
ent enough from entry-level positions to warrant consideration other
than that which is the focus of this article.

Stages in Entry
For entry-level professional positions, however, there are special prob-
lems associated with the transition from college to work that need to be
considered. The model developed by Phillips (1987)is especially helpful.
Phillips’s discussion focuses upon organizational entry to profes-
sional jobs. Although the model he presents does not differ, on first
glance, from traditional models of entry, his focus on those aspects of
the process of particular import to new employees who have just com-
pleted their professional education has great relevance for this discus-
sion (Phillips, 1987, pp. 35-42). In brief, the stages include:
-Recruitment: This is the period in which employers work to ensure a
26 LIBRARY TRENDSAUMMER 1989

good match between individuals and jobs. Particular schools may be

identified that are known to produce ideal candidates. However, em-
ployers should not oversell their organization in such a way that new
hires are disappointed upon entering the organization.
-Pre-employment education: Given the amount of time between selec-
tion and entry, this stage can vary greatly. However, a number of acti-
vities that can provide early introduction to the organizational cul-
ture can be executed that provide for better transition. These include
provision of publications (annual reports, in-house newsletters),
direct communications from key people (such as memos that would
be routed to the new employees if they were already on the job), or job
related documents such as policy manuals.
-Orientation: This begins upon arrival to the new position. Well-
planned orientations with clear goals and objectives should take ad-
vantage of new graduates’ enthusiasm. Initial perceptions of col-
leagues and culture make the strongest impact at this time. Attitudes
may be shaped if organizational goals are made clear.
-Educationltraining: These activities are aimed at preparing the new
employee to accommodate pre-entry education to actual position
requirements. These activities should be organized with the needs of
both the individual and organization’s in mind.
--Adaptation: This is the stage at which an individual through recruit-
ment, pre-employment interaction, orientation, and education/
training has adopted the culture of the organization. Performance
feedback is crucial to good adaptation.
-Promotionlassignment: Many organizations bring in strong new
graduates with the intent of placing them where they are best suited
once initial stages are completed. It is critical to make the first assign-
ment to positions in which individuals are challenged and well-moti-
vated.
-Evaluation: This relates to an overall assessment of the management
of the transition and is a mechanism for gauging the effectiveness of
the methods employed in earlier stages.
Each stage of the organizational entry process can be configured to
meet the requirements of a given organization as well as to the individ-
ual position. What needs to be kept in mindat all times, however, is that
this is a process that can be managed and must be managed if the
organization is to be successful in identifying and retaining excellent
employees. The costs of hiring-both actual and in terms of personnel
time expended-are so great that organizational entry is the most cru-
cial aspect of human resources management.
ADDITIONAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR ORGANIZATIONAL
ENTRY
A N D INFORMATION
I N A LIBRARY ENVIRONMENT
How Library and Information Science Entry Differs
How do we superimpose general organizational entry considera-
 HEIMIHUMAN RESOURCES SELECTION 27

tions onto the complex labor pool for library and information science
positions? First, we need to delineate how this labor pool differs from
the general labor pool to which most of the organizational entry litera-
ture is directed, and how library organizations differ from other large
organizations vis-8-vis their approach to career development.
As described in section one, a very small percentage of new gradu-
ates consciously target their graduate education for “a technical services
post in a major academic library” or a “youth services position in a
suburban public library.” Unlike the MBA graduate who prepares
generically for a “management position in a large corporation,” and
looks to the employment market in terms of organizational status and
long-term security, the typical MLIS graduate is far more constrained by
external factors such as mobility and perceived availability of career
development within an organization. While the large corporation
accommodates this generic approach through the transition stages out-
lined in section two-that is taking the best raw talent and reassigning it
to posts where skills and organizational needs mesh-library employers
recruit for a specific position and thus limit the chances that a new
employee will develop innate skills.
Compounding this is the fact that top positions in library and
information science are rarely achieved through excellence in one
organization. Recent studies have shown that high achievers in aca-
demic librarianship exhibit mobility and, in fact, must plan to move
several times to different organizations if they are to be appointed to top
administrative levels (Anderson, 1985).
This is quite different from other types of organizations that con-
sciously work to develop career ladders within an organization and thus
may be more inclined to invest larger amounts of organizational re-
sources in employee education and assignation.

A Functional Approach to Library

and Information Science Entry
Each individual library administration must certainly develop its
own entry process comprised of the components already described.
However, the field must take a more concerted stance vis-8-vis some
aspects of this process because a given library is not just recruiting for its
own needs but for the needs of its entire type of function. Taking this
view, which is based upon a more realistic understanding of the poten-
tial new-entrant labor pool, there are different explications that might
be used to describe some of the stages in Phillips’s model. Some of these
that consider entry are suggested later-not from a specific library’s
vantage, but from the vantage of the field as a whole or at least from that
of a type of library or function.

Recruitment. This aspect of employment has long been viewed to lesser

or greater degrees as a profession-wide responsibility. Recent shortages
28 LIBRARY T R E N D U S U M M E R 1989

for many specializations such as technical processes or youth services

have combined to create profession-wide concern (Heim, 1988, pp. 7-9).
This concern has manifested itself in the establishment of recruit-
ment committees within the American Library Association’s various
sections as well as through ongoing programs of the association’s Office
for Library Personnel Resources. In response to this concern, the focus
of National Library Week in 1989 was the “information professional,”
with the intent of demonstrating the importance of librarians to infor-
mation provision as well as the viability of information service as a
career.
The “recruitment” process must necessarily include recruitment to
the field as well as from the field. Although most employers are looking
to fill a specific jobopening, they must keep in mind the reasons that the
candidate pool may be disappointingly small. Foremost of these reasons
include low salaries. New college graduates today are more oriented to
economic rewards. If entry-level salaries continue lower than salaries
paid to teachers (who require only a baccalaureate degree), it is unlikely
that new graduates will choose to enter a masters degree program
without better economic incentive. A first step in achieving a larger
labor pool is to raise salaries to a level wherein the library and informa-
tion science profession can compete with other professions. While
individual libraries may choose to raise salaries to be competitive for the
new mobile graduates, this is a matter of libraries competing against
each other and does not address the systemic problem of the field’s
overall unattractiveness due to low starting pay.
As a library and information science education program dean, this
author receives many requests in the course of a year to consider curricu-
lar changes. These requests usually come from committees of profes-
sional associations. Typically, model programs are proposed for
discrete specializations such as map librarianship, media cataloging, or
service to the young adolescent. The reason that many specializations
cannot receive attention has already been alluded to-few students enter
programs with clear career goals. Certainly one reason for the requests
to provide curricular exposure to specializations is that the requestors
surmise that curricular exposure will lead to career interest. Unfortu-
nately, this remedy cannot be all things to all areas in which shortages
are occurring. Students must have a sense of what the specialization for
which curricular change is requested can lead to-that is, what are the
long-term career options of map librarianship, media cataloging, or
service to the young adolescent?

Pre-employment education. The Phillips model views the period

between the job offer and organizational entry as a time to begin the
socialization to the employing institution. Certainly this holds true for
an employing library, but in a broader sense it is time to socialize to the
larger profession as well. Given the shortage of new graduates, we have
 HEIMIHUMAN RESOURCES SELECTION 29

found that some entrepreneurial employers are visiting campus and

making offers very early to excellent candidates. With a longer pre-
employment period, the new employee can turn some attention to
accommodating the specialization for which they were hired. In three
very different cases this year (health sciences, youth services, and public
library/technical service) students hired early were supported by their
future employer to attend local conferences in the area of specialization.
This author also noted that these students are developing papers and
independent studies in connection with their future work and, in one
case, was taking adjunct courses that will be of use on the job.
Orientation. There are a number of excellent books and articles slated
particularly to library orientation for new employees (Dewey, 1987;
Creth, 1986). However, these tend, as does Phillips, to focus on
organization-specific orientation. Clearly, in very small libraries, there
may be n o mechanism for internal career development. Obversely, in
very large libraries, the mechanism for career development may well be
through identification of a job in another similarly sized institution at a
different level. Part of the orientation process should be a discussion of
career issues that may not directly affect performance in the employing
institution.
Also, given the “isolate” nature of specializations, individuals
should be given some sanction to initiate interaction with specialists at
other institutions. In a large academic library, the new cataloger
assigned to Slavic cataloging should be affirmed in seeking and sustain-
ing contact with Slavic experts at other institutions. In a small public
library, the lone youth services specialist should be encouraged to meet
on a regular basis with those at other libraries engaged in similar work.
Educationltraining.Most libraries are unlike large corporations where-
in individuals may spend orientation time learning about the organiza-
tion for an extended period. In libraries, many employees are given only
a brief time for institutional orientation and are then expected to assume
the responsibilities for which they have been hired. T h e carefully
planned in-house education and training program advocated by Phil-
lips has been formulated and is in place at many libraries (Creth, 1986;
Hunt, 1983) but is not usually provided as partof theprocess of identifi-
cation of the right person for the right job. Except at the largest libraries,
individuals are hired for specific posts. One possible change for organi-
zational entry in libraries-at least larger libraries-might be employ-
ment of excellent graduates with n o specific job in mind but later job
placement once an individual’s strengths are assessed. This idea is not
new (the Library of Congress Intern Program is a case in point), but
broader acceptance of such a practice might be a workable alternative to
job specific employment.
The profession is actually well positioned to foster intra-
organizational adaptation through mechanisms such as the American
30 LIBRARY TRENDYSUMMER 1989

Library Association’s divisions which provide functional or type-of-

library career development through annual program meetings, oppor-
tunities to serve o n committees with like-minded colleagues, and
extensive journal publications. However, all of these opportunities are
not available to all professionals due to cost or local barriers, and thus
the pool of candidates adapted to the larger organizational culture may
not be as large as employers would like. This, in turn, causes problems
for recruitment to positions at higher levels.

Promotion/assignment. As was noted under the “Education/training”

stage, few libraries provide a n extended training period at the end of
which a n individual is assigned a post that best suits their talents and
abilities. This may well be a n area of human resources management for
libraries in which work must be concentrated.
What would be the best situation for employers’ seeking to fill
library and information positions? Ideally, the field would attract large
enough numbers of new entrants that employers would be able to
delineate specific career preparations and would thus have a broad field
from which to choose. Realistically, the small number of entrants and
constraints already outlined, such as low salaries and unfocused posi-
tion expectations at time o f matriculation, means that students are
unlikely in the aggregate to identify specific careers at the outset and
consciously prepare for them.
So what compromise can be reached? This author suggests that, in
the short-run, employers an’dnew entrants connect earIier in the educa-
tion process-perhaps mid-point-and thus enable some pre-
employment preparation to take place. In the long run, when at long
last the world values the skills of information professionals to the point
that salaries and career ladders are widely available both within and
without the organization, we would see increased numbers of graduates
and organizational structures that can accommodate their skills and
aspirations.

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Frild, H. S., & Gatewood, R. D. (1987).Matching talent with the task. Personnel A d m i n i -
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