External opinion on the US Recession

Knowledge @ Wharton offers a summary of a speech delivered by Pedro Aspe, a former Mexican Secretary of Finance, about the causes of the recession and a brief analysis of the bailout and its fallout. I liked the perspective since it came from outside of the US and offers a slightly different--though no less critical--perspective.

Picking Plums

Every four years, in time for the arrival of a new administration, a copy of the Plum Book, "or list of the best Executive Branch jobs", becomes available. Many of the positions are filled by appointment, but some are open if you apply through USAJobs. Since civil service is one of the areas that is predicted to increase their hiring, this might be the time to explore some options in government employment.

And, yes, the Library of Congress does have positions listed on the Plum Book. But you can also search on USAJobs for current opportunities.

For more on the Plum Book, the AP has a brief article with links to related plummy write-ups.

Spark, Episode 55, Work 2.0

CBC's Spark Episode 55 is all about Work 2.0 with interviews with the CEO of Zappos and how to use 2.0 tech to be "transparent", Dan Tapscott on the Net Generation at work and who is using 2.0 in business.

Turn to your friends

Drawing inspiration from Tropic Thunder, Career Diva has a post on turning to your friends in a workplace crisis. Her thoughts are pop-y and timely, but this is a really old career idea: the strength of weak ties.

In 1973, Marc Granovetter wrote an article, The Strength of Weak Ties, where he explored how a group of people found work in Boston. Based on his research, which he later turned into a book called Getting a Job, he suggested that people can use their social ties for different results when finding a new job. First, the type of tie you use is important:

• A strong tie, like a family member or person who has a deep connection to you, can help you find work, but sometimes in a different industry (mainly because they are in a different industry, and hear about different opportunities and because they might not know what librarians, for example, do for a living) and they are highly motivated, because of their close connection to you, to help you find work. 
• Weak ties, on the other hand, are your acquaintances, people who you have a looser connection to, maybe even friends of friends, who are usually in the same industry, and who hear about more relevant job opportunities, but who have less incentive to help you because they are more distant to you personally.

So close=more love, but less relevance, and weak=less interest, but more relevance.

Now other people have explored the weak tie theory--especially when examining social networks--and they have drawn some conclusions, such as college students aren't so good at activating weak ties because they don't have a broad network of industry contacts, and they tend to turn to family and friends for assistance. Others suggest that activating a weak tie can keep you within your industry, whereas relying on a strong tie can help you transition into a new industry.

But the one thing research agrees on is that no matter how weak or strong the tie, you have be vocal. You must say: I'm looking for a job, do you know of any openings?

Here is how you can start activating your ties:

• We are not all in competition with one another. You may be surrounded by library students who are all going into the job market at the same time, but you are not all competing for the same positions. Some of you want to be children's librarians, archivists, media specialists, corporate librarians, so you are all part of the industry of knowledge work, but not all competing in the same sectors. But you need to start an exchange of postings and job information. To do that you...
• Need to speak up. This is time to talk about careers and how to find them. It is also the time to get in touch with former co-workers and supervisors and go to coffee. The holidays can offer great opportunities to mix and mingle, but you have to talk.
• It's time to bring in the experts with exposure to industry, and a variety of sectors. If there was ever a time to form a job club in your library school, get in guest speakers who can talk about resume writing, interview skills and finding internships, it's now. Panelists, speakers and librarians invited to parties should represent all types of library work, and should also include a generous helping of self-employed librarians. These guests should include new and established librarians, since new librarians can talk about how they recently found their jobs and established librarians can open the channels of communication to their library contacts.

 If this sounds suspiciously like networking, you're right. But what do you do if you aren't good at networking?

Retail holiday jobs

Though libraries are not retail establishments, some librarians and library students supplement their living expenses by working in retail. NPR's Business Podcast of the Day explores the downturn in available retail jobs.

Many libraries are located in malls, which also means library traffic visits could be down--unless people are using the library to look for work.

Applying to graduate school

One of my co-workers was quoted in an article about applying to graduate school. Since applying to a graduate program is a necessary step in becoming a librarian, I thought I would give a good link and a bit of Google juice to my co-worker.

Where has the money gone and what will you get in return?

Yahoo! TechTicker is wondering where the bailout money is going and what taxpayers are getting in return: Bail-Outrage: Misuse of Funds, Lack of Transparency a National Disgrace

After all, if you don't know what you traded the cash for, how can you reclaim the value, when, as people are arguing, the markets "surge" and repay the taxpayers?

As librarians, who should rightly be concerned with freedom of information, Bloomberg has filed a federal lawsuit to find out who got what and what for.

Finding a master resume writer

A friend of mine passed this article along, Finding a Master Resume Writer, and since I had linked to Jobacle's quest to test resume writers, I thought I would also post this item.

I don't think that anyone really needs to hire someone to write their resume, but if you are pressed for time, and convinced that you really can't explain your career on paper (and not many people can) you may consider hiring a professional resume writer.

Professional development for librarians

Once you've left library school, where do you go for additional professional development, especially courses for library skills development? If you're already in library work but are getting that creepy, uh-oh, was I supposed to know this? feeling, this is a Sign that you need some PD.

Professional development can help with transitions: if you are an academic librarian who wants to leave the academy but not the library, you can take professional development to help you transition to public or special libraries, or into self-employment. It's harder to get your employer to pay for that type of development though, so you need to look for reasonable-cost options, or know that the investment you are making is the right one for your career. This post explores PD options for people who have their Masters, though there are many great programs for skills-development for people who work in libraries who don't have their graduate degree.

You can start with Web Junction, which has a wide variety of professional development options, from technical skills, like XML, to customer service skills. You can also try Simmons School of Library and Information Science. I mention these two because I have personally taken classes from them that I have liked, they were affordable and I was able to take them at a distance.

Your state or provincial professional library association may also be of assistance, but I have not found many online courses, or courses that include a certificate for completion, from my local library association. This is an area that I think requires further exploration by regional library associations. The ALA does offer a professional development centre that you can use to begin exploring options and rounds up some of the professional development options offered by different ALA divisions.

I could mention conferences, but the problem with conferences is that you can say you went and talk about what you learned, but you didn't get certification (as far as I am aware) for attendance at sessions. Sometimes skills-building professional development requires a certificate. Some employers won't pay for training unless a certificate is involved, or at least a demonstration that these skills are necessary for your work at their library.

We all could use a refresher, or exposure to new ideas, since libraries are just one of the many industries that are subject to dynamic change, whether technical change, or the librarians need to acquire new soft skills to deal with their day to day work.

Gladwell on meaningful work

WowJobs Canada Salary Search

WowJobs is a vertical search engine for the Canadian marketplace. It has already done cool stuff like search for results in Craigslist, but now, based on the information in the job postings that it skims, the search engine can provide a salary search.

 

As shown above, you can also compare salaries between types of jobs or by location. I went Canada-wide to get an idea of the basic salaries, but you can--and should, if you are asked to provide a quote--search geographic-specific.

Where do they get the numbers? From job postings that supply salary information. It is not clear, when a range is used, if they use the bottom of the range or the top of the range to create their calculation. Not every job provides salary information, so it isn't taking data from all of the postings that the engine has scraped. To ameliorate this issue, WowJobs is supplying a confidence level: how sure are they that the numbers are accurate? and including this with the results that you receive for your search.

This service is currently in beta, so we can expect more improvements as they get more sophisticated with the enormous amount of raw data supplied in a posting. Maybe they'll run a map mash-up that will let us see where particular jobs are concentrated, based on their historical data? For example, more postings in Toronto in June or October?

You can use this search engine to supplement the salary information that you find from other professional library sources.

GlobeCampus

Many newspapers are moving their University ranking special reports online: GlobeCampus, from the Globe and Mail, is another runner in the rankings race. If you want to know a bit more about a campus--but not a whole lot more--you can take a look at one of these ranking and reviewing services.

Tomorrow, GlobeCampus is sponsoring an Online Universities Fair, complete with webinars and advertisers. It is one way to explore campuses without leaving your desktop.