Inclusive Interviewing: Leveraging the Virtual Format to Demonstrate Care for Future Colleagues

In this chapter, we explore positive, humane ways in which feminist principles of empathy and care can inform job interviews in academic libraries and shape the process into a more person-centered, or “whole person” ideal (Lopez, 2022). The whole person ideal authentically considers individuals’ experiences, preferences, and needs so that job opportunities are truly equal for all. In encouraging candidates to bring their whole, authentic selves to the hiring process, academic libraries can preemptively guard against deauthentication often experienced by BIPOC library workers (Kendrick, 2018). It is possible to do this while still hiring for strategic priorities and expertise. We assert that virtual interviewing can ameliorate exclusionary aspects of the hiring process and center people rather than organizations. Just as recruitment is the first step in a new colleague joining the library, the recruitment process itself can be the first incremental step in reforming an organization and changing its culture.