Library Day in the Life Project

The Library Day in the Life Project is a great way to find out what certain types of librarians do all day in their libraries, to research career options and to prep for interviews, so you can ask more sophisticated questions about duties and expectations.

A plea for subject lines

This post on BNET about how to annoy your colleagues with email put me in mind of some email problems that I have experienced lately. Well, not my problem really: other people's problems.

• Sending email with no subject header or a re: subject header. It screams: I'm a virus, I'm a virus. I have set my email to kick these suckers out of the queue, straight to delete. If you send your job applications like that you have just sent them to the electrical shredder. Ditto, if you did this to follow up on a request from someone you met at a networking event, or to ask your former bosses to give you a reference. It doesn't matter if they recognize the email address. Prudence says, turf it. If you think your bosses will remember your name and email from when you worked there, that was your corporate email. They aren't going to know gobbledygook at google.com
  
• Vague subject lines are just as bad, since those have been hijacked by spammers. About our conversation last week is terrible, and I might delete it since I think that one has been used by people trying to sell me Viagra. About our conversation at CLA is a bit better, until bots start using acronyms and abbreviations, hoping for a bite. Use a specific subject line, such as a short paraphrase of the topic discussed, and then use We discussed this at CLA, in the body of the message so I remember who you are. 
• If you are applying on a job posting with a reference number and job title, use both. Some jobs titles have multiple competitions with different numbers, so use both to help with filtering.
  

What if I sent the email message out with no subject line by mistake and it is due right away: do I resend? Oh, no, multiple copies of items with attachments from the same address doesn't look like spam at all. If they're going to open it, sending it once to the appropriate person (assuming you got that right) will take care of the problem.

Fill out subject lines first, job title and number, and then cut, paste and attach your messages and documents into the email. Don't leave a subject line blank, but if you got everything else right, don't punish yourself for that small mistake, but make it easier on the HR person to sort you out.

Recovery jobless and pay-less?

Translation: if you drop wages, who's going to buy your stuff?

If you're still doubtful about "downward mobility", you can find more information Bill Moyer's Now, Downward Mobility (The Family Budget Calculator that the article cites has moved, and the data hasn't been revised for this year). Think they're a little excitable, according to the Economic Policy Institute, "The most recent data show there are now nearly 6 workers for every single job opening in the country."

Salary negotiations where you think you are going to get paid what you are worth will be a thing of the past. And most workers will be worth-less.

The He-cession

A colleague of mine sent me an article about how women, especially older women, are doing surprisingly well, despite the recession. What's interesting is that, according to the article, women are finding work in battered industries: finance, real estate and insurance. They are also becoming self-employed--not always an indicator of improvement for standard of living, since some entrepreneurs don't make more than what they did as salary workers, and they usually have to pay their own benefits and pension.

But it is good to know that there are glimmers in some areas.

From Canada's He-Cession from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

In the U.S., they’ve begun calling the recession there a “he-cession,” because 80% of American workers whose jobs have been wiped out are men.

In Canada, we’re experiencing a he-cession of our own: 71% of Canada’s unemployment victims in the recession thus far are men. Canada’s official unemployment rate for men in June was 9.2%, compared to 6.8% for women.

Career Experts Complaints

I came across this post from one of the people in my LinkedIn network and I felt that it was important enough to post a link to it, just because the scam site looks so credible.

You can also search scams on the Scam Slammer site, a valuable service for any of your clients/patrons or for your own use.

LinkedIn webinar for Career Services

LinkedIn has prepared a webinar for Career Services professionals about using LinkedIn and how to use it to help students, teach about networking and use it for research. I've been a long time member on LinkedIn and I found the tour to be very useful and easy to follow (so you don't have to take LinkedIn 101 first). Lindsey Pollak, the author of Getting from College to Career, was the presenter and she did her homework: she had spoken with career services professionals and had looked at how they had used LinkedIn (sometimes, presenters just do a surface presentation and don't understand how career service business rules work, but she was well-versed).

LinkedIn has also opened a Career Services Professionals group and you have to attend the webinar to gain admittance to the group. Librarians that are offering career services or career information in a job centre, or if you work in the academic library with all of the career and business reference material, should consider attending one of these sessions.

Cross-posted at co-agitating

An excessive need to be me

HBSP has an interesting blog post from Marshall Goldsmith about the excessive need to be yourself. After reading it, I would also argue that there are some people who don't know themselves, but are just behaving a certain way because they thought it was the right way.

But it is true that the excessive need to be you (with little self awareness) can be undermining. You see it when people do interview prep. They balk at the question, Tell me about the last time you had a conflict at work and how you dealt with it, and in response they assume namaste and blink their saint's eyes at you, and say I don't have conflicts with people. Well, you're about to have a conflict with me because I think you're full of baloney. Tell me about how you're going to deal with that. (And for god sakes, read a peace studies or peace education book, since they acknowledge that conflict has a role in creating peace. You're just being evasive, there's a difference.)

There are lots of stereotypes that we buy into because we think they make us better professionals--and they can vary from profession to profession. The manager in the post didn't want to give recognition because it just wasn't part of his personal makeup--or what he believed hard driving managers did, according to his stereotype.

So what are your personal stereotypes, the one's you hold about your identity?

Letterman and Spacey talk Twitter

It's a Boomer confab over Twitter, but Letterman does have a point: how many people think Twitter is a waste of time?

Student fails to find job using Twitter and Ebay

Student fails to find job using Twitter and EBay, but the Chronicle reports on it like it's an early sighting of the Second Coming.

Innovative ideas, including posting to celebrity Twitter feeds--though one may call that spam, not so innovative-- but demonstrates my argument that employers have to be looking where you are posting. Works other way for employers in "talent wars".

Little Gordon

Warning: if you are on a public or work computer get ready for the little blond boy with the potty mouth.

If you have seen Hell's Kitchen or Kitchen Nightmares, you will get the joke in these videos from a job board in the UK, Caterer.com. The videos have been a huge boost for the job board.



Little Nancy Pearl, maybe?

Spied on ERE.net.

Dice launches Dice Learning

Dice is a job board for techy oriented positions--usually (but not always) programming--and they have now launched a learning portal called Dice Learning that will connect users with course offerings in technical skills--networking, security, PHP, for example. The courses are prepared by third-party providers, and it doesn't appear that you can register directly from the site; you need to ask for more information. (see the comment below: apparently you can register directly from Dice Learing)

They have webinars, seminars, and e-books. You can also find courses for certification, like CISCO or Microsoft. You can select from instructor-led courses or choose by state to find a course in your area. There was a dearth of free courses (I'm a librarian, I can use dearth in a sentence); even the skills assessment costs $2, but I was able to find a free course which will be offered on August 11 called Enhance your skills, which attendees can use to see what IT employers are looking for.

Dice Learning and Dice are mashing up the job postings on Dice with the courses on Dice Learning, so you can take courses in an area that matches the desired skills set. You can also rate courses that you have taken or make comments. You do have to have a profile with Dice to interact on the site. I think this type of mashup is very innovative and can help people who are trying to upgrade their skills or get into the labor market.

Spied on ERE.net

Identity theft and job searching

Careersthatdontsuck.com has a post today about job seekers that have had their identities stolen. I didn't realize that the numbers were so high:

The Federal Trade Commission’s February 2009 report revealed that 46,950 were the victims of employment-related identity fraud.

The bottom of the post has 5 tips on how to avoid identity theft when responding to job posting that look good but aren't true.