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Friday, July 2, 2010

Job hunting at ALA

The job hunt is fresh on the mind of plenty of newly-minted or newly laid-off librarians.

I ran into a number of new librarians who I've given career advice to which was a nice feeling. I don't think I can consider myself a "real" mentor -- I'm not old enough! But, it still feels gratifying to help fellow colleagues in some way. This year, in particular, felt like a "sophomore" year for me -- I'm not brand-new to the profession anymore, but I am by no means a grand lioness of the library profession, either!

I love, love, loved the "Librarian for Hire" badges being handed out at the Placement Center. I wore one and got lots of positive comments on it. Now, I didn't have any employers ask for my resume and an interview or anything magically wonderful as all that, but I did get quite a number of sympathetic comments from fellow job hunters, and lots of words of encouragement - especially from seasoned librarians who'd survived the major economic downturn of the 70's. More so than ever, I felt a strong sense of community and support amongst my fellow librarians, bloggers and book lovers.

Getting an appointment for the NMRT Resume Review service was quite an adventure and it felt like I'd been dropped into
Fortunately by Remy Charlip.

FORTUNATELY, ALA was offering resume review.
UNFORTUNATELY, all of the spots quickly filled up.
FORTUNATELY, someone cancelled their appointment, just as I was asking about getting on to a back up list.
UNFORTUNATELY, there was someone else already next in line.
FORTUNATELY, (for me, unfortunately for them) they weren't able to make use of the newly freed-up session, and I was able to get in.
UNFORTUNATELY, my resume reviewer was late!
FORTUNATELY, she did finally make it. And, she had a lot of really good advice for me, ways to get my resume in top-notch form.

If you haven't been to the NMRT Resume Review, I highly recommend it. I was saddened to see they intend on charging $5 a person to those who were not able to snag an appointment at Annual. With the unemployment rate the way that it is, that's quite the potential racket, no? I know people's time is valuable, especially senior level administrator's whose advice is most coveted… but preying on unemployed hopefuls just seems dirty to me. Can't experienced librarians be cajoled into volunteering their time on this worthwhile project?

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