Libraries, live--from India?

This article from FUMSI reiterates some of the usual advice--stay visible, save money, talk to people--but one of the things that made my heart stutter: outsourcing library or information jobs to India. It's part of the overall trend: programmer jobs, journalism and reporting, call centres, payroll and healthcare services. Why not librarians, especially in the parts of the field that are (F2F) low touch:

• collection development
• cataloging
• ask-a-question IM services
• website design and maintenance

You wouldn't think that they could pay librarians less for the work they do but some companies may have found a way.

I don't have any friends like that

Think about who's in your network.

Look into my eyes

Jobacle had a great short post on eye contact and I thought I would expand on it slightly since eye contact can have ramifications for interviews, as well as on-the-job customer service delivery.

The Jobacle post has some nice basic rules, but there are some cultural rules to be aware of: not all cultures evaluate the quality of eye contact in the same way as North Americans. There are differences between the countries that make up North America, as well as urban/rural, or native Americans or Canadians, and male to female. I have also met some North Americans (more below) who are pretty harsh when evaluating the quality of eye contact, so if you are interviewing for a North American position, but you aren't from around these parts, you might want to get some tips.

• 1000 Ventures, a business coaching company, has a good article on eye contact in the workplace that takes in culture and psychology. (Ignore the garish colors and forgive some of the typos, it's still a good article.)
• VideoJug has a whole section on multicultural manners that includes advice from Norine Dresser, the author of Multicultural Manners. When I teach a session on interviewing and conversation to my ESL students, we usually start with the section in her book about eye contact.
• Leila's House of Corrections Eye Contact video has some great explanations for women about the appropriateness of eye contact and how the gaze can occasionally be misread.
  

If you have concerns about your eye contact and the appropriateness of your gaze, you might want to have a mock interview that is video taped and see how good your eye contact is. Talking with a person from the country where you plan to interview--and, yes, there are differences between the US and Canada (we're not just cooler)--is a good idea.

As an aside, I teach ESL as a volunteer, and I have heard some disturbing stories from my students about getting hassled by law enforcement (train security and city cops) because of their lack of eye contact. Some of the officers have told these students that they look shifty and deceitful. The cops were quite belligerent with the students, when really the student's culture has told him/her to look on people in uniform with respect--not to mention that some countries have notoriously bent cops and it's a good idea to not attract their attention. I'm surprised that this was an issue, but I had a really upset student talk to me about a situation last year that made me think that people in authority--and this includes librarians and HR professionals--should stop acting like hyperactive rottweilers.

Search all of Craigslist

Though you aren't supposed to be able to, Wired How-To Wiki has come up with a method, using Google's advanced search, to search all of Craigslist at once. You could use this method to find items for sale...or you could use it to look for freelance contracts or job postings, if place is no object in your job search. Very useful if you are looking for sideline work like editing, tutoring or small writing contracts.

This search could also work for nonprofit jobs that are posted on Craigslist, or if you are looking for library jobs that are posted on Craigslist. (I'm not aware of any libraries that use Craigslist to post job ads, but what the heck, cover all of your bases).

New widgets

I've added some widgets on the right hand side of this blog.

• The first is the badge for the Yahoo! Pipes that I built to find Canadian library jobs. It's not perfect, but it might display a post that you have overlooked.
• Below that is the Career Jet widget. Career Jet is a vertical search engine with multi-lingual and multi-national versions. A colleague of mine also played with it and you can do something completely cool: you can look for jobs in your native language (we tried Chinese) while searching results from another country (we searched for jobs in Canada). An awesome way to improve your search if you want to use your first language while looking for jobs in another country.

So remember to look right when you visit this blog.

Discount Bus Lines for Interviews

The NPR Business Story of the Day, Discounts Help Bus Travel Thrive In Some Cities, talks about some of the cheap discount buses that people are making use of when Amtrak or a plane is just beyond the traveller's budget. If you have to pay your own way to get to an interview, and the city you need to travel to is served, this may be one way to keep your costs down.

Companies mentioned in this story:

• Bolt Bus
• Vamoose
• China Town Bus
• Mega Bus
  

What do you value most in a team mate?

When we think of a team, we think of different players on the field, all with different strengths or roles to play in the service of the team. If you have ever played on a team, there are also some team members who urge us to play harder, to try again--and not to spit in our hands when we go to shake the hands of the opposing team members at the end of the game.

Think about how your co-workers or project partners have made you better: did they realize what your strengths were and try to give you projects that accommodated those strengths? Did they try to push you to try something new or help you over an obstacle? Did they give you something personal--like suggest you be kinder, more forgiving, or efficient. Think about it.

Do you have a person in mind who may have improved one of your hard skills and one softer skill? You can treat this question as a BDI question and give an example of your best team mates and what you learned from them. Try not to use names.

Now, one of the ways people falter with this question is that they confess how their team mates keep their bad habits in check. You stay stuff like, he always made sure my work was handed in on time and helped me with my punctuality problem. Uh-oh, you look like a wayward calf that he had to rope--so you're the weak link. You're someone the excellent team mate, who didn't apply, had to coddle.

Candidates also drop the ball on this question when they need something that the organization can't--or is unwilling--to provide. For example, if you talk about how your team mates mentored you as the newest librarian on staff and the interviewer does not think that mentorship is necessary, strike one. This is why a long list of team qualities is bad: you could unknowingly hit some of their pressure points.

Try not to confess to personal weaknesses as part of the team--especially if you're sometimes a poor sportsman. Don't give a litany of great qualities and no examples. Limit your response to one or two examples, explain and shut up.

What is one professional goal you want to accomplish this year?

This question wants to know if you have a plan--and if that plan matches with their job. Suggesting that you want to do research in teaching methods and effective instruction when the position you are interviewing for is collection development and licence negotiation means that you haven't read the job posting. Or that there will be a constant push-pull between the duties of the position and your real desire.

I'm not going to say something like, why are you interviewing for a job that is not part of your professional plans? It's a good question, but if you're an entry-level candidate, you may not know what you would like to do as a librarian--and, well, you need to eat. So, obviously, look at the job posting and see where it is going professionally and hopefully you want to walk a little way with it.

If you were applying to this position currently available at the University of Manitoba libraries, what could be one professional goal that you could latch on to? Well, taking an additional course in cataloging may not be a bad idea. You can also discuss, generally, a conference that you would like to attend that has relevant information. If your capping exercise is related to the position, discuss how you would like to turn it into an e-book and make it available to other librarians, or how you would like to develop it into a course. But look for something that is professionally related to the position that looks like it would be worth their time and investment.

Work from home, make $$$

Everyone has seen those emails--and the classified ads in local newspapers, if you are old enough to remember reading a newspaper--which included advertisements to work from home. Some of it was telemarketing, some of it was shilling pills or other products and some of it was send away for our information package--And the only people who made money on the last were the people selling the information package. Now, you can find work from home or telecommuting positions listed on job boards, as well as "freelance" work specific job boards, such as eLance.

I'm pretty skeptical, but the WSJ decided to see if any of these sites were legit and if people actually made money. On the whole, their article is appropriately critical and gives you the lowdown on the sites, with one exception: these legit sites may ask you to pay a subscription fee to bid on or apply for the jobs. Therefore, you must score a job that at least has the potential to pay your subscription fee--and you must actively bid on work, a time-consuming process. 

Here are some good reasons to use these sites:

1. You have an in-demand skill. Programming, editing and writing, especially if you are a subject specialist, appear to be in demand. But you will have to work hard and stay on top of contracts.
2. You live in a depressed labor market (or just depressed for librarians) but you can't leave. Your squeeze may have a great job, a family member may be seriously ill and depends on you, but there are few prospects for in this area. Instead of keeping house or house keeping in another city, consider the freelance route--if you can meet the first criteria.
   
3. You have freelanced before and can make it work. If you have not freelanced before, you may not be prepared for just how uncertain the pay check is and how freelancing moves in cycles, from hyper to hand-to-mouth. If you are considering freelancing but have not done it before, don't do it unless you have another income to pay the bills. 
4. You have explored F2F freelance work and you want to expand. If you are already an established freelancer but have not sought contracts online, you may want to expand into new markets. 
   

I'm pretty sure that you are smart enough to not believe the promises of instant wealth, but online freelancing could be a way to supplement your income while looking for a library job, or if you are currently under-employed in the field.

If I remember one thing about you, what should it be?

Before you answer this question, take a good hard look at the job posting for the position that you are interviewing for. Now, here are your two choices for preparing your answer:

• Desired skill that they want that you have. Take a moment to reiterate that you possess this skills, whether it is teaching, program development or reference experience, stress how you can fulfill this need.
• Desired soft skill that they want. Do they want team players? Collegial? Committed to learning? Do you have any of those traits? How can you show them and why do you think you could demonstrate them here. Do not underestimate the power of a soft skill: if this is an entry-level position, all of the candidates should possess the requisite hard skills for the position. Therefore, the question is one of "fit": whose personality do we like best?

This is not a plea for a job time. This is stressing how you fit, either personality-wise or skills-wise.

And though some interview books may suggest that you talk about how this job fits with your career path, I would advise against that response. You want them to remember you not for what you will get out of the job, but for what they will get out of you.

Your attitude sucks

Inspired by 21 Keys to Magnetic Likability by Marc and Angel Hack Life

Now, we can't always be Pollyanna, but there are some people who definitely act like someone urinated in their cornflakes every morning. And they're just no fun to work with. They are also a difficult hire because they look combative or stubborn.

You know who you are: you answered a question about using the catalog and answered by redesigning it with tags and a mashup, or you told your interviewers that since story time numbers are down, they should do reader's advisory for manga, or you helpfully explained why undergrads are incapable of understanding RefWorks--and here's how you would fix undergrads. Your beliefs--and maybe you're right about tags, manga and undergrads--are not the tools you need to answer the question. A concrete example, with some proof please, is what they are looking for (#13 and #14).

When people are smart, they can be likable, but they often struggle with #13 and #18 because they are so damn smart--and so sure they are right. Try to adopt a more moderate style, not giving in, but making the delivery better with kindness and evidence.

Hiring is hard work (from Business Week)

Jack and Suzy Welch have a column in the back of Business Week magazine and last week they discussed some of the difficulties of hiring. They are reminding employers--and yes, job seekers--that there is more to the candidate than good paper and charm. Here are some of the other qualities they look for:

• Good references. Note to self: Did you check with your references and make sure that they are available to take calls?
• They have good paper but do they give good face? Note to self: your resume may look good, but if you didn't do some interview prep and got feedback on your attitude--too aggressive or too humble--you may not be portraying yourself in the best light.
• There are some jobs where they are desperate to hire. Note to self: what can you do that others really, really want? In libraries, licensing, dealing with e-books, developing distance programs and services. Are those skills coming through in paper and in presentation?

Of course, these check points are huge and they involve looking at your resume as well as evaluating how you answer questions. If you aren't sure how to do it, you should get some help.