Oh, hey! Welcome to the community.
Making Mistakes
Students are deathly afraid of failure, and it’s impacting the work that Residence Life does. Remember when Residence Life was about social programming and building connections? It’s hard to believe that the field has morphed so dramatically in just 10 short years. You’re now counselors to your staff and students. Your daily work is determined by prioritizing the most pressing crisis and things that can wait until tomorrow. The field has changed. Interaction logs are far more important than our program evaluations. Residence Curriculums are taking over with a focus on the individual and their learning and experiences. Freshman students are coming to our institutions and have not been allowed to make mistakes. Every playground has a safety net, every sports team wins, and parents/teachers/friends are there when something doesn’t go right, someone tells them it’s not their fault. In many cases, moving to residence is the first time many students are able to fall, and they’re desperately looking for the net that will save them. In the eyes of a freshman, the RA is that safety net.
The New Culture of Residence Life
Being a safety net is not enjoyable. As the culture of Residence Life adapts to the needs of our students, the culture of hiring needs to adapt to the work. What skills are you testing? Jobs in Residence Life are not about fun and games anymore, so why do our group interview processes suggest that? Hiring practices have not caught up to the cultural shift in our field. Over 50% of schools that have completed our hiring survey would like to revamp their hiring processes. In my humble opinion, Residence Life no longer needs to focus their recruitment processes on programming skills and experiences but needs to find a way to test resiliency, the ability to create boundaries in your life, and the ability to persevere. The big question is “How?” It seems easier said than done.
Grit
Grit is messy, uncomfortable, and impactful. We need to assess grit in candidates. Angela Duckworth describes grit as “perseverance and passion for long-term goals. Grit is having stamina. Grit is sticking with your future, day in, day out, not just for the week, not just for the month, but for years.”
One of the issues is that it’s difficult to measure grit in an interview. If we want to assess resilience and grit, we rely on self-reports. We know that interview candidates want to impress you. If you ask, “How do you deal with stress?” you’re not going to hear, “I stay in my room and don’t talk to anyone for a couple of days.” More likely, you’ll hear something like, “I go to yoga.” As with the other questions on your interview, ask scenario based questions. Additionally, ask tougher questions of your references. Possible interview questions may look like:
- What thoughts did you have when you watched a friend struggle this week?
- Is there a story from your childhood that you know built stick-with-it-ness and success in your life?
- Tell me about the last stressful day you had (and assess the candidate’s ability to process and move through challenging situations).
Painting the Picture
Interview processes should reflect the day-to-day work and give the candidate a sense of what they’re getting into. No one likes to feel like they were tricked. A lot of the work in Residence Life is now focused on disclosures, support, and learning. But it’s not all about the tough stuff. Working in Residence Life can be fun and so can your interview process. In order to hire the best candidates, we need to assess the skills that will result in success. Just as we want to see the authentic candidate in an interview, it’s important that the interview process is reflective of the work that will be completed. By assessing the full picture of the candidate, you’ll hopefully see greater success and less attrition with your candidate pool, and you’ll be giving your candidates a more accurate picture of the job.
Thanks for being part of our community. We’re glad you’re here.
