Videos TGIF

I had a personal emergency yesterday, so I didn't have much time to think of a stellar post. Instead: video Friday. TGIF all.

The book trailer for Johnny Bunko, the book I reviewed yesterday.


Johnny Bunko trailer from Daniel Pink on Vimeo.

And a little workplace humor, online identity vs F2F (first seen on Jobacle). Beware profanity, so don't be checking this at a public terminal.

Adventures of Johnny Bunko

Johnny Bunko is stuck in a dead-end job at BOGGS, hopelessly examining spreadsheets for minute errors and doing things that he hates doing...but doing the things that his parents, advisors and career books told him to. One night, slaving late over spreadsheets, Johnny goes to a mysterious sushi house and picks up some chopsticks that, when opened, release his Elfquest style guide, Diane. Diane has a plan and enough mojo to get Johnny where he needs to be to experience her six steps to career fulfillment. If Johnny can pay attention, follow them and not implode at BOGGS.

Described as the "last career guide you'll ever need", I was pretty skeptical since I read quite a few career books. Actually, it is the last career guide that you'll ever need, provided that you follow the book's extra suggestions, and well, actually try to experience the advice. I really liked the 6 steps and I think that many people, especially people in service careers, will really appreciate the last step and it will help them give meaning to their plans. I also loved the manga aside jokes and, as a manga reader, I liked the OEL feel of the book with the Japanese sound effects and references. If you're looking for something to give you some direction and you don't care what colour the parachute is, pick up some chopsticks and visit with Diane and Johnny.

Go verbs!

When you're writing your cover letter, you have to rely on the power of verbs to tell your story: what you have done and what you can do. Verbs tell us about abilities and, when used effectively, can provide power for your cover letter.

For example, when applying to this post at McMaster:

I am an effective team player and collaborator on projects, including a proposal for an immersive worlds project.

Too many nouns. Yes, they are in the job description, but you haven't explained what you have done. Collaborator also has some not nice connotations, so watch out for nouns that can have a sinister, or slightly silly, sound.

Try:

For my capping project, I developed a conference in Second Life, a popular immersive world, to introduce librarians to the environment. During the project launch, I trained the initial team of conference volunteers and managed the Help Team which monitored participants and dealt with in-world problems. I also compiled the evaluation data and presented it to the conference organizers.

Yes, the first is stilted and simple and the second has more information, but the verbs are powerful: develop, train, manage, monitor, compile and present. Though the nouns are all present in the first, they don't really explain what you did on the project.

Sometimes, we give up on verbs because they take up so much space because you have to do something with the noun, instead of just, noun, like the toot of a horn. However, verbs do appear in job postings, so you are hitting the keyword high notes, or nouns have a verb form that you can capitalize on. Do more in your sentences: it just gives your paragraphs more power.

If you need help finding so-called action verbs (aren't verbs about an action?) you can use this list from QuintCareers or just do a search in Google for verbs for resumes.

What's my name again?

I used to work with a woman nicknamed Rusty who wanted to legally change her name to Rusty. It suited her tuff image. I don't think she put it on her resume though. (I have a better story about that but a family member would probably post a comment about a Christmas tree and underwear; let's not go there).

Many people have more than one name: they are changing their name, getting married or divorced, transgendered, finally fulfilling a lifelong dream of having geeks shout out, "Is it your day off, Ferrous?", or they have an "English name". How do you explain this if your interview coincides with the transition?

On your application documents, you place your current legal name.

If you are getting married, or divorced, and have not completed the name change, it is too soon to start describing to these people, who may never see you again, all of the hyphenated perambulations of your name and what you decided to call yourself, in six months. We watch you guys all the time on Slice and we prefer you behind glass. What is your current legal name?

When you go to the interview, you invite the employer to use your nickname or "English name".

A diminutive, nickname and English name are different:

• A diminutive is a shortened version of your name: Chris for Christopher or Christina. There is no false intimacy with a diminutive so it is ok to use in the interview but not to put on your application documents, since it is not your legal name.
• A nickname is used in intimate situations: you're my friend so you have permission to call me by that name. When you start work, tell them your nickname if you always go by that. Howdy Ferrous, welcome to the party.
• An English name is different and can be given at the interview. It is used for two reasons: one, you have a hard time controlling your wince when an English speaker garbles your name. Two, it is really hard to have people address you by your first name when you are accustomed to an honorific attached to your name, such as Asuka-san, Asuka-sensei or Asuka-chan, depending on the circumstance. An English name lessens the feeling of encroachment. But, it is not your legal name: wait until the interview and introduce yourself with your English name.
  

Geography of a cover letter

Though it's late to be looking for work for the summer--but not the end of the world! Don't freak out--knowing how to write a good cover letter is a gift that keeps on giving. You will have to write thousands of letters--and emails--in your working career, regardless of whether you stay in libraries or not. You will need cover letters to apply for work, for grants, for positions with the professional association and to shop your work out to publications, just to name a few uses for cover letters.This week, let's talk about how to write cover letters.

• A cover letter is a business letter writing audition since if you are hired you will write plenty of correspondence for the library. Clean simple business format, no Harry Potter fonts, are important.
• Your contact information goes at the top. You can use the headers and footers feature to include your contact information, creating a letterhead that you can also use on your resume.
• The address of the person that you are writing to.
• The date you wrote the letter on.
• A salutation: Dear Ms. Manners. If you are not sure about gender and there is no time to call, Dear Kim Manners is fine. You can also use Dear Hiring Manager if there is no name attached. Try to avoid To Whom It May Concern cause it sounds like you will be asking for a ransom.
• Your first line is a reference to the position and any numbers attached to the position so they know which pile to put your stuff in. (You can send one letter for two postings, since they may be willing to photocopy and place in two separate piles, but you can make it easy for them and send two letters and two resumes. Trust me: if they have two jobs, other people may be handling the screening and interviewing, so someone is going to make two or more copies.) You can also tell them where you saw the posting, since this posting could have been sent to several services which all may have different rules about amount of text allowed or a cost involved depending on the size of the ad.
  
• The content depends on you and the posting: how do you relate to the position you are applying for and what projects, from work or school, can you briefly reference that show your suitability in relation to the position.
• Sign off with the best way to get in touch with you. One way. If it is email, go with email. Don't tell them: I am available every day after 4pm until 5:45 and then I am in yoga, you can reach my voice mail or email or Facebook me during yoga, unless you are really serious about the interview and I will interrupt my Kurmasana to speak to you. Have some faith in the universe: they will leave a message and you will respond.
• Business letters are usually completed with Sincerely or, if you want to mix it up a bit With regards.
  
• 4 hard returns. This is for your signature.
• Your name, typed out without nicknames.
  
• Encl. (2) meaning your additional pages.
  

Hike up your boobs career advice

The Brazen Careerist does it again: suggesting that we take career lessons from Eliot Spitzer's call girl, Ashely Dupre. I have a love/hate relationship with the Brazen Careerist: some of her advice is just plain common sense and some of her wise pearls are barely fit for swine. Usually, this is when she veers into life coaching, as opposed to career coaching, and suggests that we get a bra with better support instead of a strong support network.

Yes, this young boobalicious girl made lots of money--possibly lying about her family life, sleeping with men and posting some songs on her MySpace page, like an American Idol wannabee--but should we take career lessons from a naive young person who appears to have "pillowy" as her only career skill? (If she did a version of If I only had a brain, I swear I would download it). And we are supposed to take a page from the book of someone who her mother described in the NYT as: "...a very bright girl who can handle someone like the governor...But she also is a 22-year-old, not a 32-year-old or a 42-year-old, and she obviously got involved in something much larger than her.” I admire the very bright part, but not the swept away, chewed up and spit out part.

Since Ms Dupre is probably the only one who will come out, money-wise, better than she was when she started, perhaps we could take advice from her. That is, if our lives were all about money.

Who's Your City?

Relocation may be one of your work search options, but where should you live? Richard Florida, author of Rise of the Creative Class, has just written a new book, Who's Your City?. According to reviews (because my own copy is still in the mail) certain cities facilitate certain lifestyles and careers. On his website for the book, there is a cool little tool called Place Finder that you can use to find out if you should stay where you are or move to the new city (or four) that you can play with on the scale and answer different questions about. Obviously, if you have lived in a certain city you can make better guesses about the cultural life or your ability to "be yourself" and natural beauty may mean nothing to you since library stacks are the only fauna librarians need.

Row together

Have you ever been a member of a team that failed to complete a project or finish the task? Could you describe why the team failed to meet its goals and what you would do differently in the future?

Yes, you can use a classroom experience for this question but do you really want to confess that you failed cataloging in the middle of your interview for a metadata librarian position?

Begin by explaining a bit about what the project was and the goals for the project. Who was the audience? Was there a deadline? Did you have a budget? The criteria for the project will help you explain the failure: what broke down?

Projects usually fail for either time or money reasons, and with both, a larger failure. Once you have explained the project and decided why it failed, explain the situation but it should sound as though lightning struck, or take responsibility for a minor complication. People blow this question by:

• Suggesting that co-worker incompetence led to the failure. You don't look like a team player, nor do you look smart enough to tell people to stop rowing on the same side at the same time.
• You were WAY, WAY over-budget. Math much? Sometimes, costs are really outside of our control, but managers have to trim the fat on items. Why did your project need two demonstration laptops instead of one, especially if only one presenter traveled?
• Your project is still not finished and it's REALLY late. A project is not a failure until it is done and you can measure the results. There are few projects that are never-ending (How to Deal with Resource Challenges in a Library), or cyclical (How to Use RefWorks) or finite (Instructions on How to Use the Catalog). What type of project are you describing and is it really done?
• No one used it. Some projects fail because they aren't used (you thought it was a great idea, but...) and you can't find this out without promotion or evaluation. Failures in promotion are good examples about what you learned about increasing your user base, a concern at every type of library or for every type of librarian.

Remember those rules above and explain how the problem--just one is fine, don't sound like the sky fell--was resolved, or explain, hypothetically, how this experience changed your ideas about project management.

And I'll form...the Head!

Can you explain your role in a previous project that you worked on that required the efforts of a team to complete?

Yes, you can answer this question with a class project but work experience is preferred. This question wants to find out a few things about you:

• Are you a leader or a follower?
• Are you a bully or a consensus-builder?
• Did you complete the project on time and within budget?

I'm not going to kid you: very few librarians get to be leaders right out of the launch bay, but, supposedly, this question is looking for leaders. You should show that you know when to lead (you know what you are doing) and when to follow (you have another role you can do better), a concept I was recently introduced to as kinetic leadership. In a kinetic team you are the leader when you have the skills and you are the follower when the current leader needs a plan executed. Show that you know your role and that you contributed what you knew, not that you were a Schrute constantly undermining your colleagues.

You should also not come across as too bullish when a lighter, china-smoothing touch was needed. It is also important to explain if the project was completed on time and if you spent all of your money without exceeding a limit. If you missed either mark, can you account for it? Explain how, in a future situation, you would not need elasticity in time or money.

This question wants to know about your management skills, both when managing and managed and if you can deliver the desired package.

How to pick a career book

Because I work in a library with a specialized collection--career advising and counselling, a subsection of business and organizational management--I can tell you a little bit about the career books genre. There are four different types of book in this genre: profiles, samples, advice/coaching and instruction.

• Profiles: are books that describe a potential career and give a day-in-the-life snapshot, as well as a "how do I get this job" map. Profiles are the most useful if you don't know what a person in specific career path does, such as you want to be a proof reader, but is that as cool as a copy writer? Profile series include books from McGraw Hill, such as the Careers for or the Opportunities in series. The best examples of occupational profile books are in the series Career Opportunities in from Facts on File. You can also look at occupational profiles from NOC (Canada) or ONET (US) , but these are far more general than the industry or sector information found in the print resources. JIST makes a good series on Top Careers based on the data from BLS.
  
• Samples: are just that, lists or samples of types of information. Most often you are looking for resume samples, or lists of interview questions, just so you can have some minimal guidance. Samples are most useful if you just need a clue. Many sample books, such as Best Canadian Resumes, will also include some instruction as well as the samples.
• Advice and coaching: You're a comeback mom who wants to return to work, or you want to be self employed and need some intrepid, peppy heroism, or you are a new grad who keeps falling asleep at your desk at 3 o'clock like an overclocked kindergartener since your employer cruelly makes you stay awake until 5pm. You need an advice or coaching book. Advice and coaching books include information on career management within a holistic, life context. What Color is Your Parachute is an advice or coaching book, and Brazen Careerist is an advice/coaching blog.
• Instruction: can't network, your public speaking technique is sweating silence or you need to interview like a top MBA? You are looking for an instruction book, a coupling of advice and samples that avoids telling you what to do with your eggs.
  

If you're a librarian recommending a career book, it isn't enough that career is in the title. Ask: do they need advice or do they need a sample? Some career books have agendas, religious or political, that your reader may not have on his agenda. The popular books are also usually written by middle class white people who know a lot about middle class, college educated whiteness and not a lot about the culture of the person who you are recommending the book to. Some of these writers love being your Aunty Agony (read about the egg thing if you don't believe me). So suggest with caution and ask yourself what you need before you buy: instruction, direction or advice?

Too technical

If you show up for the interview and the whole Best Buy handheld devices section slides out of your briefcase, can you look like a tech addict? If HR googles you and discovers your blog, your Flickr stream, your Facebook, your MySpace, your tweets, before they find your capping exercise/thesis, could you look too techie, and too troublesome?

When I had my first internship placement, I got a mid-placement evaluation and my supervisor said that I tended to use the Internet too much. Now, this was the early days of the millennium, and there was still a lot of suspicion about the Internet and its non-fun/non-porn value for libraries, but I did listen to her and repented and used more print resources. (I wonder how much of that stuff is only accessible as a database now?) But I think, to her, I looked like too much of a techie, too quick to look for the power button before the table of contents. I wonder if tech savvy is not read sometimes by HR as tech savagery: we look too high maintenance, like a temperamental wireless router.

I have thought of my technical skills as a benefit, since I am not afraid of any new items that we want to introduce, nor any project--and there are more of them lately--that require some knowledge of the internet and its many languages and gestures. I am also aware of the eye-rolling when I gush over my blackberry or get excited about extra USB ports and I do try to tone down my excitement. But it does make me think: Are too many internet or technical skills a deficit?

Citizen journalism

I don't think this is her dream career, but Shelby Monroe has left her library jobs to become an embedded journalist in Iraq. From the article it appears that she has done this very much on her own nickel, an example of a citizen journalist. Her blogs are Spirits Up, Heads Down (2008) and 101 Days With The 101st Airborne Division: The Sequel.

There are plenty of other, less dangerous ways, to become involved in citizen journalism, if you have a call to write and report on the news in your neighbourhood. The Independent Media Centre, though strongly political, is one of the early examples of the movement in North America; citizen journalism is also extremely popular in Asia, with OhMyNews (English site, Korean is here) or JasmineNews. Citizen journalism may take off in other areas, with services such as Backfence or the EveryBlock service, the outgrowth of Chicagocrime.org.

Of course, any of these efforts could just devolve into a Twitterous-tumult of JuicyCampus postings, more hurtful gossip than news, but alternative community newspapers could also piggy-back on the success of Craigslist and it would be wonderful if the library, or librarians, were the hub of the movement.

You can follow Shelby Monroe and become an active correspondent or you could offer services, such as how to write programs or editorial services to citizen journalists, whether at the library you work at or as a freelance editor since we all want to look good in print.