From Grad Student to Career Archivist

Posted July 31, 2026 by Laura Kiely

Graduation is daunting. After walking across the stage and popping some celebratory bubbles with friends and family, the expectation is that we all go on to find jobs in our field. I’d like to tell you about my experience job hunting. 

I started applying for jobs in earnest in March, though I had an eye on the job boards before that. The issue is, if you apply too early you won’t be done with your degree by the time they want you to start. However, timelines in public vs academic vs corporate all vary wildly. The job I ended up getting was one I applied for in March, and my first day is in August. Academic hiring takes the longest, and corporate and public organizations tend to hire on a quicker timeline. Keep this in mind when applying, because you won’t be able to apply in May and start in June most places these days. There are often several rounds of interviews and extensive deliberation periods where hiring committees must all align their schedules. Keep an eye on the Simmons Jobline, LinkedIn, Higher Ed Jobs, and local job boards in the state(s) you’d like to live in. 

To keep track of where you applied and when, I highly recommend keeping a spreadsheet of the places you have applied, along with a copy of each job description. If you get through to interviews, the description may disappear, and that job description is the key to asking engaging and informed questions about the organization and the position. Download the pages as PDFs or copy the descriptions into a document and save those descriptions until you hear back from the organization. This will also help you to curate your cover letter and résumé for each job. 

The advice to create a unique cover letter and résumé for each job application is, unfortunately, correct, but that does not mean you start with a blank document every time. I highly recommend creating templates for both. Résumés are a bit easier to customize. You should have a CV (Curriculum Vita) where all of your work experience, classes, awards, and publications are listed and described. I recommend having a main résumé with the most important experience already listed, and you can add in and remove points from your CV to make the résumé speak to the job description. In my experience, there aren’t many tweaks needed between archives jobs, but if you’re applying for a circulation gig you’ll want different descriptions of your work than if you’re applying for an archival processing gig. Keep any résumé to 1-2 pages at most, and assume the second page won’t be read. Hiring managers are moving quickly, so you want your most relevant education and experience right at the top where they’ll see it. 

It’s a lot harder to write one effective cover letter for everything, so I have found I tend to write a new cover letter for each position, though they tend to have a similar structure. This is where your Simmons education will shine. You can talk about internships, coursework and class projects, and how your education has prepared you to take on that particular role. I found it effective to save relevant paragraphs as I wrote in a separate document, and eventually I had compiled a pretty extensive list of descriptions of my work that I could tweak to fit each job description. At the end of each paragraph always tie back the experience described to the job itself! Cover letters are a persuasive essay, and your argument is that you are the best candidate for the job. Keep it to one page, though, no one is reading the second page of a cover letter. 

I will say, the most frustrating thing about this process is the lack of responses from employers. This is a problem across every industry; I think employers and HR software assume a confirmation of application submission is adequate. It is not. This is, unfortunately, something I encountered very frequently. It is difficult to not take rejection personally, perhaps because we are giving employers so much information about ourselves, but it is important to assume no ill will. Getting a job is a numbers game. Perhaps they already pulled the applications even with the portal still up, or maybe your application got caught in a filter, or maybe the HR folks don’t know as much about libraries and don’t understand your qualifications. It happens, and it’s not about the applicant. 

Once you have been offered an interview (because it WILL happen), I highly recommend re-reading the application you submitted and the job description. Use the job description to write down some specific, relevant questions about the position and the organization. I remember an interview I had where I felt my answers weren’t great, but I felt the interviewer’s attitude toward me shift based on the specific, relevant questions I’d asked, and I got a second interview. Preparing in advance of the interview helps you to know what you want to discuss and what areas they are looking for. You won’t be able to script the whole thing, but if you have a few examples in mind you’ll be ready to answer most questions thrown at you. Again, Simmons courses and projects make for great interview answers. I have discussed projects that went well, projects that went poorly and how I navigated the situation, and work done in group settings for many different behavioral questions. The main piece of advice I have gotten about answering an interview question is to make sure the result of my actions is clear. For example, I have described in an interview how I took on a leader-like position in a group, divided up the work, and ensured continued check-ins with my groupmates. This all gestures vaguely to good leadership skills. Adding in the details that our group ran smoothly, had little work to do outside of class, and finished the project on time with a great grade shows that my leadership skills pay off. Always share your results. 

After every interview you must email individualized thank you notes to everyone who interviewed you. I have been on several committee interviews, and I try to write down the names of each person involved so I can go find their emails. They don’t need to be more than two sentences, thanking the person for their time and emphasizing something you discussed with them specifically. However, if you feel you wish to add to a point you made, this is a great time to do so. You can clarify, ask questions, and generally show your continued interest through thank you notes. It’s a lot harder to forget about a candidate when their name pops up in your inbox later that day. 

After four months of effort and at least thirty job applications I landed a full-time job! I am going to be the Special Collections and Archives Assistant at Grinnell College, my alma mater. In my interview I was able to use my coursework to talk through how I structure time and projects to ensure things get done, show my leadership style, and discuss best practices for preservation. These skills, paired with the experience I have gotten working internships and graduate student positions, helped me to land this job. I have heard through the grapevine that it was a very competitive application process, and I know my time at Simmons and the variety of classes I took helped me gain an edge over the other immensely qualified applicants. I am grateful to my advisor, Mollie Metevier, who looked over my application materials to give pointers. Simmons SLIS is full of people ready to help you find a job, all you need to do is ask. 

Happy job hunting, everyone, and good luck!