In this episode of Roompact’s ResEdChat, join our host Noah Montague and guest DJ Harris-Sumrall as they talk about the job search. Whether you love it or hate it, the sometimes dreaded job search is a part of every Residence Life Professional’s story but what does it really look like? In the changing landscape of higher education, how people job search and how people experience interviewing is changing as well. Listen as Noah and DJ tell stories, discuss interview prep and give advice, and also think about how to center the self in the job search as well.
Guest: Dj Harris-Sumrall (They/He)
Host: Noah Montague
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Roompact’s ResEdChat podcast is a platform to showcase people doing great work and talk about hot topics in residence life and college student housing. If you have a topic idea for an episode, let us know!
Transcript:
Noah Montague:
Welcome back to Roompact’s ResEdChat podcast, a platform to showcase great people doing great work and talk about hot topics in residence life and college student housing. My name is Noah Montague, and I use he/him/his pronouns. Today I will be your host. If you’ve been listening to my episodes or watching my episodes a bit lately, I like to say that I am a storyteller by trade and the stories that I happen to choose to tell center the student and the college experience. But with that, today we’re actually going to be taking a little bit of a step out of the halls per se and talking about that how as in how we even get into the halls begin with, how do we even get into the field, into these jobs? How do we do the work that we’re doing?
With that, we’re talking about the job search today. Whether you like interviewing, you like traveling, you like spending hours on hours trying to find the exact right school to fit your needs, or you even hate the prospect of it, we all have to go through that job search at some point in our careers and in our lives. And because of this, it is so crucial for us to talk about what this actually looks like and have that honest conversation about our experiences in the hope to help other people going through that same thing, which makes me all the more excited to welcome today’s guest to talk about today’s very topic. So I’m going to turn it over, DJ, to you to introduce yourself a little bit.
DJ Harris-Sumrall:
Hi, I’m DJ Harris-Sumrall. I go by they/he pronouns. I have currently left the field of higher education and residence life and housing for a little bit just for some family little fun things that happened. But I’ve worked as a hall director in adjacent roles at three different institutions in the past and working on trying to get back into the field and just going with the little ebbs and flows that goes with it.
Noah Montague:
That makes sense. Awesome. Thank you so much for that. I think that that for me was where I was so excited about getting to have this conversation with you in that you’re reentering it right now. So you get to talk about that experience of what has it looked like and what it is looking like right now too.
DJ Harris-Sumrall:
Yeah.
Noah Montague:
So that makes me excited about what we’re going to be talking about today. But I guess, to get into that, and you’ve touched on this a little bit in talking about yourself and your experience a little bit so far, but DJ, could you tell us a little bit about what job searches have looked like for you in the past or right now?
DJ Harris-Sumrall:
Yeah. So in the past, when I was starting to look, fresh out of college, was an RA in undergrad, had no idea where to even start looking, so was planning on going to things like OPE and TPE, that kind of fun stuff. I put in my applications to a couple schools, and typical first-time hall director, you get nothing. So I just put in my application one day through OPE. I was like, “Okay, I guess we’re going.” And got reached out and ended up being an emergency hire out of school. I’m like, “Okay, this is intimidating but kind of fun.” And that’s how I got into it the first time around. And then from there, it just was more natural after you gain more experience, like any fields, where you start gaining the experience, it’s easier to get a job somewhere.
But right now I’ve been out of the fields for about two years right now just because I had to move home for some family stuff, and trying to get back into the fields, it’s hard. People are hiring, but because there’s such a higher ed crisis, I like to call it, from what I’ve heard from some friends, that everywhere is hiring but nowhere is hiring or there’s so many different budget changes happening in every department. You never know if that posting’s actually going to stay live or not. I’ve applied to a couple different places, and the posting is there for a week, and then they’re like, “Haha, nope, sorry, we had to cancel it.” I’m like, “Oh, okay, that’s understandable.” So right now it’s been a little bit more challenging trying to be able to find places. So higheredjobs.com, that’s been my best friend lately.
Noah Montague:
Shout out higheredjobs.com, not sponsored, but we do love looking for a gig on there. I never experienced OPE or TPE, but I have a lot of colleagues who really did enjoy that. And it sounds like, from your perspective, that really was your entrance into the field.
DJ Harris-Sumrall:
Yeah. For my emergency placement, I never even made it to OPE. I had signed up, was planning to go, and then got a random call from this department. They’re like, “Hey, you want to come interview with us? We saw you on OPE.” I’m like, “Yeah, sure.” And then TPE, I did that while I was at my last institution, more looking for places closer to home. But yeah, both of them are great experiences.
Noah Montague:
Like I said, I didn’t do either of those, but I’m blanking on the verbiage of it, but there was a program like them that I was involved with when I was in grad school. And I did get to your own point, several calls at that point like, “Hey, would you like to interview with us? We see you on this website. We need to fill roles. Are you interested?” It doesn’t feel like that is happening anymore.
DJ Harris-Sumrall:
No.
Noah Montague:
The job search is definitely different now. Myself having just actually… I just actually got a promotion as well, which is very exciting, having gone through that job search. Being an internal candidate, it’s an entirely different conversation as well to do that step up, and there’s different pressures. But I think, for me, the job search has also been very interesting and my experience with it has varied. I’m from the Northeast originally. I work in the Midwest now, so the change and the travel involved in that job search, I don’t think that we talk about that enough.
I work with a lot of students who end up going into student affairs just in the habit of the leadership program that I oversee. A lot of them end up being, “Wait, I love this work. How do I keep doing it?” Something that I always talk to them about is, “If you’re applying to 10 schools in different places around the country, I need you to be prepared to then have to go to those 10 schools.” That’s an interesting thing I think to wrap one’s head around because when I was looking at master’s and at grad assistant work, I ended up flying all over the country to six, seven different schools because I wasn’t conceptualizing that I was going to have to go to all of these places to actually figure out, “Okay, is this where I’m going to go? Is this how it’s going to look?” But the job search is definitely very different now, and I felt it be different to your own point, like the job being posted, but does that job actually exist? I’m seeing a lot of that too.
DJ Harris-Sumrall:
Yeah. Definitely building on your point, last time I started interviewing, they’re like, “Oh yeah, we’re going to fly you out here.” I’m like, “Oh, okay, cool.” For me, I started in the field more closer after COVID where there still was a lot of weird budget things going on, so a lot of schools had moved over to more virtual on campuses. So the idea of flying out was kind of weird. When I was originally looking at doing grad school versus just diving into the field right away, all the schools were doing complete virtual stuff. Nothing was in person still at that point. So for me, interviewing, it’s been an adjustment, because in my current role that’s outside of higher ed, I have to make sure I have PTO for that kind of stuff and like, “Okay, hey, I’m going to be out of state for a couple days possibly.” It’s just kind of different.
Noah Montague:
Yeah. That’s something that I don’t know that I’ve really even considered because my most recent job search was internal, so I wasn’t looking at online. I was here already. So the question of, is this going to be an online interview? Is this going to be an in-person interview? And can I even fit this into my life? It is a question that I think that is important for us to be asking and that I didn’t have to in that particular job search. But I think that kind of builds pretty well into the next question I wanted to ask you about, DJ, is in your mind, whether they’re brand new to residence life, whether they’ve been at it for a while, or in your case, returning to it, what should people be thinking about before they even start applying to these jobs?
DJ Harris-Sumrall:
Yeah, I guess one thing for me that’s been more important for my search is, where can I see my family going? My husband and I, certain places, yeah, that’s fun, let’s go there, let’s do it. But there’s also certain places that’s like, “Okay, I’m not sure that’s our area to go to.” So being more conscious that that kind of stuff is something that’s important. Or I know this one sounds a little weird, but for some people, if you have pets or ESAs, is that school, in the area, is that a reasonable place for you to even look at?
I have a dog, and he goes everywhere with me, but I’ve avoided working in bigger cities because he’s not a big city dog. That dude could never. But also just thinking about random stuff like that, but also then thinking about more like, “Okay, if I want to stay in higher ed, do they have a master’s program I can work on?” Because I don’t have my master’s right now. Or I would love to get my PhD or EDD at some point. I always like to joke and say I’d be the most educated in my family at some point. Do they have a program? Or do they offer that kind of stuff? Or another-
Noah Montague:
Or do they offer support and even getting a degree like that?
DJ Harris-Sumrall:
Exactly. That’s a whole thing. And then thinking about do they offer relocation packages? There’s so many different random little things that you don’t always necessarily think of, but sometimes they’re kind of taboo to ask about because you don’t want to go and ask that. And then everybody say, “Nope, you’re not going to get an interview.” Because we look in some of the Facebook groups, if you’re in those, and they’re very quick to say, “Don’t ask these questions.” But for some people, that’s how they make it to the jobs, that’s important questions to ask.
Noah Montague:
Mm-hmm. I think for me, and going off of a lot of what you just said, I have a mentor that I talk to here and there, Dr. Jamie Washington, who is amazing. I had a great opportunity to speak with him at a conference recently, but he spoke about his generation of student affairs practitioners versus now and there being this big shift in, no, what is best for you as a human and your family is worth considering in your job search. And that is a shift. I think that that’s an interesting conversation in what you’re talking about in those being things in Facebook groups that are coming up and, “Well, don’t ask about that, don’t ask about those things,” because the folks who are doing those interviews are from a different generation of student affairs practitioners. And that’s no shade to anyone. I think it’s just important to think about that, because for me, my partner and my kid come first. I have to pick a place that I think that they are going to flourish and be safe and be comfortable.
I love that you mentioned your dog as well like, “My dog will not thrive in a city. She is a small town dog.” Because of that, thinking about what is important to me and my life and what I need to be successful and happy and healthy, because the job of residence life professional is to support students through them learning how to be successful and happy and healthy. And if we’re not prioritizing that, then we can’t properly do this work. So I think that that is important to be thinking about in a job search before you even start looking, is what do you need to be successful and be able to do the job to the best of your ability?
But I also think a little more feasibly, or not feasibly, but functionally, in thinking about… This is a weird one, so stay with me. I can’t work at a non-Google school, and that’s a me thing. That’s a thing that’s important to me to think about. What technology do I work well with, and what am I familiar with, and what is going to help me be successful? But I think that learning about a school, learning about the area that you’re going to, those are all things that people should be thinking about before they even start applying because if you’re not looking at where you’re going, you’re not thinking about, “Okay, can I be successful in this place?” Because we’re tied to living where we go. So I think that that is a thing that is crucial for residence lives to have to be thinking about.
DJ Harris-Sumrall:
Yeah. That’s also something my mentor, Dr. Amari McGee, all brought up when I was looking the first time. She’s like, “Okay.” She’s like, “At that point it’s just you, your cat, and your dog. You can go about anywhere, but still think about these things.” And then she gave me a laundry list of things to think about. And then when I married my husband, she’s like, “Okay, now that you’re looking for that, here are more things you should think about.”
Noah Montague:
You have new things to consider now.
DJ Harris-Sumrall:
Yeah. Yeah. She’s like, “There’s so many different things. If your husband wants to go back to school, do they offer that to your partners?” That kind of stuff too. I’m like, “Oh, I guess I never really thought about that.”
Noah Montague:
Yeah. It’s interesting to start thinking about it as well. It’s also exciting in a way to get to do that kind of stuff. I’m a rare human that doesn’t mind a job search, but it’s also, I’d rather not do it at the same time.
But anyway, with that though, thinking about the actual search and the interview in and of itself, because we’re talking a lot about finding a place we want to go to, thinking about what’s important to us, and then the actual interview comes should you be in that space to be able to get into that part of the process, how would you suggest that candidates prepare for questions? Particularly thinking about… We’ve talked a little bit about the state of higher education right now and changes we’re seeing. I know that I’m seeing a lot of things in student development, crisis management, and supervision being those main talking points. So how would you suggest candidates prepare for questions around those different areas?
DJ Harris-Sumrall:
One thing I would definitely say is research the school ahead of time. Research more than you think you need to know about the school. One of the schools I worked at was a major research institution, very high intelligent kids. And I’m glad I did a lot of research into that because I was able to talk about my crisis management in those interviews, because I guess it didn’t dawn on me how much crisis management you’re going to do based off your student population. We worked with some of the brightest kids in the country at that school, and I did a lot of crisis management because they’re burnt out. They are overworking themselves, and it just is a lot. That was something my director of housing said at the time that I did a really good job talking about, was crisis management.
There was another school I had worked with and interviewed with that they were going through some major departmental changes where they didn’t know what the next day was going to look like for them, and programming was their big thing. So I really just kind of was like, “Okay, this is the stuff I want to do.” I want to put on a drag show for drag queens. And that was stuff we talked about. Just being honest, be your authentic self with them, but also know what you’re talking about when it comes to stuff. Don’t just go in and say, “Oh, this is what I want to do.” No, be honest. Have fun. Especially if you’re in a crisis management part and you’re going to ask questions about those, no one wants someone that’s just going to be a door. No one wants someone that’s just going to stand there and do nothing. Have fun with it.
Be your authentic self in the interview so then they can see that that’s how you’re going to be when a student’s in crisis, because no student that’s in crisis is going to want to talk to someone who doesn’t care. If you’re not going to be that fun hall director that like, “Hey, you should come to my program stuff,” or in student development, even having students come talk to you about life stuff, no, just have fun with it. Be yourself and just let people get to know you.
Noah Montague:
For sure. I like to say with my students and the RAs that I train, because I also am very privileged to get to train staff on crisis management in my current role, and you better believe I talk about that in interviews when I have it, but something I like to say is that if you are approaching a situation caring and showing students that you care, you’re already doing 90% of this job.
DJ Harris-Sumrall:
Yeah.
Noah Montague:
I think that that care goes so underappreciated and underacknowledged, because in interviews, it’s one thing to be like, “Yeah, this is my experience. The end.” It’s another thing to show them how you care about student development. It’s another thing to show the interviewer how you care about crisis management. For me, that comes through examples. It comes through, “In this space, I did this thing with this student and this is what I learned from it, this is what they learned from it, and this is how I would implement it into this position.” To your own point, understanding the job, understanding the school.
Before I apply for any job, I like to look into what other offices exist on that campus as well. So I can already have an idea of where I might send a student in a crisis, where I might send a student in a situation for development. Does the school have an office about diversity and inclusion? Do they not? And that also might be something I look for in, do I want to work at this school or not as well? I think that goes back to all of those spaces of giving those examples and knowing, for a lack of a better way to put it, knowing what you might be getting yourself into, and your honesty and your point of showing the interviewers who you are because that is how you would approach the things they’re asking you about. And that’s where, for me, that comes and that matters.
DJ Harris-Sumrall:
Yeah. One thing, building on that, that I actually asked in one of my last interviews was, I had an institution that our first month, they took us to every single office on campus. They took us to all the academic buildings so we could see everything. It was a smaller institution, but it was still a lot of fun. I got to know people in other departments. So I was interviewing with a school not long ago and I’m like, “Okay, hey, do you guys do this?” And they said no. They’re like, “We don’t really interact with other departments outside of our division.”
Noah Montague:
And that tells you a lot about the institution.
DJ Harris-Sumrall:
Yeah. It’s like, “Okay.” So I was asking some questions about what do you do if there’s a crisis, or if we have a student that’s a military student that they need some extra support, do you guys work with the military office? It was kind of shocking to hear that that’s not always something that a lot of schools do.
Noah Montague:
Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think asking questions like that gives you that further understanding of, will this be a fit for me? But it also gives an understanding of what resources are available to help you do the job that they would be hiring you to do.
DJ Harris-Sumrall:
Exactly.
Noah Montague:
I think that that’s important to consider. We’ll talk about questions and what to answer, what to ask in an interview here in a minute as well. But yeah, no, I find myself thinking about all of that when I enter these spaces because, again, it’s one thing to tell them what you did and it’s another one to show them how you do it and how you would do it. I think that is how I like to approach interviews in general.
DJ Harris-Sumrall:
I definitely love that STAR method for those.
Noah Montague:
I love me some STAR method. And it works. It really does.
DJ Harris-Sumrall:
It does.
Noah Montague:
Even on a personal level, it helps you understand what you’ve done, and it helps you understand what’s important to you as a professional as well. So I can’t advocate for the STAR method enough.
DJ Harris-Sumrall:
Yeah.
Noah Montague:
Listeners, if you take anything away from this one, that might be my biggest recommendation. But thinking then about, DJ, that you’ve talked a little bit about that you’re in the job search right now and we’ve talked a little bit about some of the things that have come up in that space. What is something that you think has surprised you about reentering the job search? Or maybe what has been challenging, what’s been easier than expected? Tell me a little bit about that.
DJ Harris-Sumrall:
Yeah. I guess one of the things that I was a little bit more shocked by is, if you’re in those Facebook groups or something like that and you’re posting like, “Hey, do you guys have any advice and stuff like that?” there’s kind of a taboo against it some days about people that left the field and are trying to get back in. I’ve noticed that it’s from some of the people that are just burnt out and don’t know what else to do. And it’s been kind of intimidating some days to try to get back into the field. It’s a little scary because it’s like anything that’s negative. It’s very vibrant, it’s right in your face, but also it’s just like, when you meet the people that are in the field and you get to connect with them and you’re fortunate enough to get those interviews and meet the really cool people, it’s just like, “Okay, these are the people I want to work with. These are the things that I really want to connect with.”
One thing that I’ve found shocking with all this is, schools that have all those people, they either get all the applications or none of the applications. So it’s like, sometimes you’ll get through the process and then you’ll be a finalist or something like that, and then they’ll say, “Hey, I’m really sorry. We found someone a little bit more qualified than you.” Or just sometimes they’ll ghost you too. I didn’t realize how many times you’ll actually get ghosted in this. I had reached out to one of my friends that’s still in the field. I’m like, “Hey, have you heard anything from any of these schools that you were applying to?” And she’s like, “No, I got ghosted.” That’s a really big thing lately.
Noah Montague:
Mm-hmm. I’ve been talking to several of my grad students over the last couple years now entering the field post-grad school and just new professionals entering it, and how normal, or maybe normalized might be a better word for it, how normalized it has become to never hear from an institution you applied to. I think that that is very interesting that we’re in that space. It has like having… Oh, this is my 10th year in the field now, and I’ve experienced a bit of that over time and not hearing back, but it definitely is on an uptick in applying and never hearing or applying and hearing months later. I recall a job that I applied to that I heard back a full calendar year later that they filled the position. I’m like, “I hope that you have by now.” I think that that is an interesting thing to consider as we’re entering this field, to a point that you made of there are so many residence life and student affairs jobs, and at the same time it feels like there aren’t. That’s an interesting space to be in.
I think, for me, something I’m thinking about a lot in that I just finished a job search myself is how bills and how government changes and how things are impacting job searches around the country and what questions are allowed to be asked, what we’re preparing for. And that makes it a little bit more interesting to figure out that this is going to be a space that I feel comfortable, that is going to be supportive of my identities, of my experience, when neither party can really ask those questions anymore. I think that that is one of the interesting things I’m noticing that’s surprising me a little bit more and then I’m navigating myself.
DJ Harris-Sumrall:
Yeah, no, I definitely have noticed that quite a bit in the process.
Noah Montague:
But the questions are different now.
DJ Harris-Sumrall:
Yeah.
Noah Montague:
Mm-hmm. I’m seeing a lot more how do you go about building community, how do you go about building a community related questions than I’ve seen previously.
DJ Harris-Sumrall:
Yeah. I’ve worked in a lot of living learning communities over my time, and I’ve talked about those quite a bit while I’ve been interviewing in the past. I feel like that’s what’s helped me in the past too, is because I always like to say post-COVID community is not a big thing anymore for colleges. I remember I started undergrad pre-COVID. I was a desk coverer. I like to joke that resident that never left the front desk because I was always talking to people, or my RAs used to joke that I lived in my lobby. That was me. And then when I became an RA, that all changed. No one was there because of COVID. I’m like, “Okay, that’s cool.”
And then becoming a hall director, most of my buildings had little lobbies or little pods on their buildings, and the only ones that really had people there was the living learning communities. Mainly, frankly, it was my rainbow pods, or as I like to call them, the gender-inclusive stuff, that had the more inclusive stuff. My tech ones or other living learning communities I worked with, they really didn’t have people out in there. So I’d always talk about like, “Okay, these are what I did in these communities. This is what I wanted to try in those communities.” But also, it’s just like, are the students actually going to listen to that stuff too though?
Noah Montague:
Yeah. I think that comes into play in the job search for me as well in what is the student population that I would be serving in this role. Thinking about, one, is that a population that I feel like I’m the right person to serve? But also, is what I know how to do going to work in this space? And how would I adjust my approach if it doesn’t? I think that that honesty is also kind of important in an interview of, yes, I am going to be doing something new in this role. This is what I’ve learned from what I have done and this is how I would try to implement it here. I think that, again, that how is such a different answer than this is what I’ve done at the end. I think it goes a lot further with the interviewers in my experience.
But I guess then, DJ, to start wrapping us up and bring it all back, we’ve gotten pretty broad in conversation. I want to bring it back a little bit more close to home. What might be a piece of tangible advice that you have for new professionals entering the field or applying for their first job in residence life? What would be a piece of advice you’d give to a person in that situation?
DJ Harris-Sumrall:
Yeah. I guess I would just say be your authentic self. There’s such a misconception that you’ll hear from some of the older professionals that you have to match what the school wants you to be. If a school doesn’t want you to be who you truly authentically are, they’re not a school you should work for. You need to be your authentic self so then when you’re working with the students, you’re bringing your best self forward, and then you get to serve the students in the way that they need you to. I’m a firm believer that all higher ed roles can’t exist without students, because it’s the truth, they can’t. So just being your authentic self so the students feel like you’re someone you can work with is really important.
Honestly, another thing I always like to mention is just ask the questions if it’s an appropriate question to ask. Even if it catches them off guard a little bit by saying, “Hey, what’s your guys’ take on this kind of stuff?” Be comfortable asking that. I asked a question one time like, how do you work with students that have mental health crises? It wasn’t in a part of the interview where that’s typically asked, but I wanted to know because that was something that was really important to me. Those are the kind of questions that I want to ask at every level. Just be comfortable asking those questions and be your authentic self.
Noah Montague:
Yeah. I think I would completely agree with all of that. I want to second the idea of asking the questions that you want to know the answer to. I think that that is an underrepresented, important part of the interview process of, if you want to know something that is going to help you make the decision of taking this job or not taking this job, ask that question, because you’re not the only one interviewing. You are interviewing for a job, but they’re also trying to figure out if you’re a good fit for the job as well. And you are trying to figure out if they’re a good fit for the job. So all of that has to come into play, and if there’s a question that you want to know an answer to, it’s important to ask it.
So with my own recent job search… In my current role, I teach, so I get to teach an educational leadership class, and I absolutely love that opportunity, and that’s a unique opportunity to my living learning community. So in my interview, I asked about opportunities to teach and whether or not I would still be afforded that opportunity as I move up or what that might look like because that’s an important part of what I’m currently doing. To a point that you’re making, I think that it’s interesting how taboo in some spaces it can be to ask questions like that because you’re asking for something in an interview. But I think it’s important to remember that piece of you’re also trying to figure out if this is a good space for you. And for me, teaching is something I needed. I wanted to keep having that opportunity, and if that job wasn’t going to give that to me, I might have needed to look somewhere else. So that was an important thing for me to be able to ask.
The last piece of advice that I would give is that it is okay, and to listeners, I need you all to hear me, it is okay, and I would highly encourage you, to advocate for your salary.
DJ Harris-Sumrall:
Oh, yes.
Noah Montague:
Please negotiate your salary. If they say your salary is not negotiable, then think about other things that might be. Think about apartment set up. Might that be something that is negotiable? Think about what is the pet policy? What is the partner policy? What is the relocation budget? There are things that can be negotiated that if you are getting offered a job, it is appropriate. Every job search I’ve been a part of, they want you to negotiate it. So I would highly, highly, highly recommend that we all continue to do that because we deserve to be paid what we’re worth, number one. Number two, we deserve to be in a place that is going to want us to the point that you keep making as well.
DJ Harris-Sumrall:
Yeah.
Noah Montague:
But with that, that just about wraps up our time together today. DJ, thank you so much for joining me. I hope you had a good time.
DJ Harris-Sumrall:
Yeah, thanks for having me, Noah. This was great.
Noah Montague:
Of course. Thank you for being here, and thank you all for joining us on today’s episode of ResEdChat. If you have an idea for an episode or a topic or a person that you’d like us to have on the show, please let us know by reaching out to Roompact. But for now, keep taking care of each other, and I’ll see you all next time. Bye-bye.
