A little off the sides, please

According to this post in BNET, some companies are making the decision to cut back on labour costs, but not cut back on the labour. Cutbacks include working a four day week, cutting back on benefits, asking people to take their holidays or a furlough (a furlough means to grant a temporary leave of absence; a layoff is a temporary suspension which rhymes with "you're fired"), all in an effort to keep staff.

In academia, administrators have asked professors and administrators to take a pay cut--or imposed, not asked--and frozen salaries and plans to make new hires. There's even an article on the BBC magazine about the Prime Minister asking that public employees voluntarily contain their pay raises to keep inflation down, and an argument as to why it might help the economy. But when it comes to less money, should you? And how do you know if you can?

When the economy was boiling, we were asked to figure out what types of salary would be fair, and people wanted to know how they could negotiate. In industries with lots of competition for jobs--i.e. academia--we told clients: make a budget. Your needs, please debt repayment and some realistic savings are your minimum. You can't accept anything less.

You need a budget: for salary negotiation, whether up or down in these economic times, to understand where your money is going and to make some rational decisions about what you can and cannot afford. A budget can help you in both good and bad times, and now, just like writing your resume, it can help you in the job search since it can give you valuable information about the position, or positions, that you are eligible for with your financial responsibilities.

So, again, look to the free options on your campus, get your student budget and your proposed graduate budget in order and figure out what you can do to start living a lifestyle that doesn't allow your money--which includes your job--to make you into a prisoner.

Resequencing the Monster

ERE takes a critical look at the Monster remodel, celebrated in commercials and the salvation of unhappy workers everywhere. But no one has ever satisfactorily answered the question for me: can you really get a job from Monster?

I used job boards, including Monster, in the last days of the previous millennium, and I got one call back--for a job selling insurance, though my post clearly said "Librarian". I also told the pushy interviewer that I wanted to be a librarian, not an insurance salesperson. I even asked if they had a library, and he said no, but this job was just as good. If I had been an insurance salesperson, I'm sure it would have been. Like a military recruiter, he was determined I would be candidate fodder, until he went, "heh, you don't live in Jersey", and hung up on me.

That is my sole experience with the Most Wanted of Job Boards: one call for a job that I was completely not interested in and had stated so on all of my documents submitted to the site.

Now, I am completely happy with my experience on niche boards. It's how I got my current full-time job, and all my fill-in-the-lines gigs, but I wonder: has anyone, ever, gotten a job on Monster. All job seekers, not just librarians, send me an answer.

What's the worst that could happen?

I have posted some doom and gloom here before, but I am not going to do that today. I'm going to ask you one question to make yourself feel terrible, think about it and then fix it: if you don't have a job once you graduate, what is the worst that could happen?

Not that you are unemployed. That is the experience of many and will happen more than once in your lifetime. Think: Will you not be able to pay your rent? Will you lose your car? Will you not be able to pay your line of credit, student loans, credit cards? Will you not be able to eat? What is the worst that could happen?

Once you know the answer to that question, take some steps to fix that problem, right now.

If the worst that could happen is you will lose your place to live, what can you do to stop that, right now? Can you have the discussion with your parents or a sibling about moving in with them? Can you get a roommate? Though the cost of moving might eat up some of what you will save on moving to a cheaper place, can you find less expensive housing? Some of you may lose your place to live once you move out of campus housing, so what steps are you taking to deal with this issue?

Now, once you have some ideas, who can you talk to about fixing that problem. Open up the discussion about the basement bedroom with your parents. Get the forms for remission on your student loan or interest free status, now, fill them out and put them in an envelope ready to be mailed or processed. Use the services on your campus in regards to debt repayment, budgeting, or talk with someone at your bank--just pick up the brochures--that give you the information you need to deal with the problem. Don't freak out during finals about where you will be sleeping in a few weeks. Take care of it now.

If you can fix the worst of your problems, you will have time to invest toward your other problems and your job search, not to mention less aggravation for your grad school induced ulcer. Dealing successfully with one problem gives us a boost in optimism, a belief in our own self-efficacy and a feeling of relief. All of those can help your mental outlook.

If you want to feel optimistic or prepared, take hold of some of the problems in your life, which you directly control, like where you will live, sleep, eat and pay, and come up with an actionable plan, or solve them entirely.

Simply Hired Trends Graph

Simply Hired now has a trends graph that you can use to look at the ups and downs of the number of job postings for your occupation, based on the numbers available in their search engine results.

Generalist Librarian, Reference Librarian trends

Generalist Librarian jobs | Reference Librarian jobs

You can compare various titles, as shown above, to see what has increased, decreased, or what the fluctuation looks like. It can also give you a glimpse into when most of the jobs you are looking for are usually posted. Actually, for librarian, it looks like jobs are posted all year round, with very few extreme high-low periods, unlike, say camp counselor.

What I found most valuable was using it to discover how jobs are listed, i.e. jobs with similar skills and what the preferred title is for the job posting. This may not come as a surprise for anyone, but I found that I got more relevant searches if I used a number, as in Librarian 1, than if I just searched for reference or generalist, though those searches also returned relevant results.

The percentage of matching jobs refers to all of the results harvests by Simply Hired, which indexes lots and lots of jobs, so don't freak out because the percentages are low. This tool is only available on the US version of the site.

This is Agent Scully, and I'm Agent Mulder

Update: According to this post on Careers that Don't Suck, the overwhelming response to the FBI hiring initiative temporarily shut down their servers. If you were interested in this opportunity, try again later on in the week.

According to this article in Reuters, the FBI plans to fill almost 3,000 positions in a wide variety of professional fields, as well as special agents. I couldn't get into the job postings (said the servers were down) to check for other positions beyond the special agents, but the FBI Careers site is up and slightly active--you can apply for positions, but you can't see all of the occupational profiles--though that may change in coming weeks.

If the front-lines of law enforcement doesn't appeal, librarians have many of the necessary skills to work in intelligence and data management careers, possibly in some of the computer careers. This employer may not be for everyone, but, in general, the government may be a good choice for the graduating class of 2009, since NACE has indicated that government hires will increase by almost 20%.

It's not as cool as when Jennifer Garner helped recruit new CIA members, but a job with a badge has its own cachet for some, as well as the public service and all that.

Get it proofread

Now that you have finished your resume, get it proofread.

There is a difference between editing and proofreading. An editor will look at the content of your writing and may make changes to your ideas, your style and may cut or ask you to add more to what you have written. This is good and useful, but many people don't know of someone who has enough skill to edit their resume since they aren't professionals in the same field, or even HR representatives who see lots of resumes--even then, the HR person may know nothing about libraries and can make weird changes.

Proofreading looks for errors in the text and corrects them. A good proofreader will find your grammatical errors, such as forgetting a plural, messing up a tense or subject and verb agreement, or for librarians who learned English as foreign language, missing or adding articles, or incorrectly using noncount nouns as countable nouns. The proofreader can also look for errors that the spellchecker missed, such as pubic librarian, or confusables such as principle researcher--unless you researched principles, but weren't the principal researcher. The proofreader doesn't change the idea behind what you wrote, but they make your ideas come through clearly and error-free.

Don't skip this step: grammatical and spelling errors are still high on the list of why employers reject a candidate for an interview. Proofreading is the last important step in putting your resume together so you can confidently submit it to employers.

If you must make a resolution

Jobacle has pre-packaged the top 13 resolutions that you are probably going to make anyway to help your career.

At the end of this week, you should have completed number 1, but 13 is ongoing. I also recommend using a goal monitor, such as 43things to make sure that you are keeping track of your goals. It is also really fun to take a look at other people's goals and see what you have accomplished.

Make a prediction

If you have no time left to tie up lose ends, or feel you're all in knots, try something else: make a prediction for the new year.

• Take a piece of paper and write down one prediction. It can be personal or professional--or a prognostication, whatever. But you should care about it, it will mean something to you if it came true. You can write a sentence or a paragraph, but it can't be written in past tense--this is about something that will happen in 2009.
• Put your prediction in an envelope, seal it up and put it away. 
• Open it up and read your prediction on December 31, 2009. 

I was going to post something about wrapping up the old year, maybe referencing NPR about how bad 2008 was, but I want people to articulate their hopes about the new year.

Gimme a verb!

For your highlights of qualifications and your list of job duties that explain what you did in each position, you need to write in a telegraphic style with verb-led phrases. You can use a telegraphic style because you are not using passive sentence construction--nor, using the royal we--so the subject of the sentence, you, is clearly acting on specific objects.

Now all of the griping and moaning that I hear from educated people about how they don't like this style, that it sounds artificial, I have one phrase for you: get over yourself. Go read an academic paper and tell me, with a straight face, that it sounds like unprepossessing, plain English prose. Go on: I need a good laugh.

All writing, from academic papers to writing in a diary, has its own conventions. The ability to fluidly recognize and utilize conventions can help you grow as a writer and communicator. The resume is another chance to show off as a writer, and you do that by properly displaying the conventions of that writing style.

The verb-led telegraphic style is a convention within business writing. This style manifests itself more often on resumes, but you'll find it in other places, such as abstracts or executive summaries, and because it is a plain style, no subject but not passive, all action, it is pretty easy for the reader to discern what you did.

So spare the reader and get some verbs to make into telegraphic points for your resume. You can find some verb lists on QuintCareers, this list from Complete Idiot's Guide to the Perfect Resume, or search in Chimby, the career advice search engine, for action verbs.

Irresolute

I know some people may be making resolutions--lose weight, quit smoking, get a job, amongst others--but I know of other people, like me, who don't make resolutions. I actually gave up on resolutions not because I didn't keep them but because I discovered something better that makes me happier: tying up loose ends. And the end of the year, or before a new period begins, is a good time to do it.

Here are some examples of things you can take care of:

• Respond to an email. If someone has sent you an email that you have not responded to, or that you just remembered after reading these words, take a few minutes to send them a happy new year message, and maybe arrange to meet up with them in the new year.
• Get your calendar in order. A few days ago, I put all three of my calendars, my work, my home and my PDA in order with basic dates like mortgage payments, deadlines, classes that I have to teach and upcoming conferences. I know that they aren't complete, but I won't have to scramble to find the basic dates each month.
• Is there a book on the shelf that you haven't finished? Finish it before you go out tonight or while you wait for the apple to drop. (Once I finish here, I have about 3 hours on 2 separate audio books that I am going to take care of).
• Take care of a reasonable goal that you are just about there on. I had a goal to put 200 posts on my blog before the end of the year. Six more to go. What could you finish before midnight tonight, or sometime tomorrow, if you put your mind to it?
  

Unlike dropping a dress size, most of these tasks can be done in a few hours, and completing these tasks  enhances our mental well-being. Entering the year with a feeling of accomplishment is just one way to fill yourself with relief and hope.

Happy New Year.

Heads up

Here are the following typical headings on a librarian's resume:

• Contact information: which includes your full name, sans nicknames or slogans, your geographical address (one where you will receive your mail for the next six weeks after applying for a position), your phone number, your email address, and a relevant professional website that you maintain. Required, and double check it because so many people are so used to glossing over this area that they don't realize that they have made typos, or that information is out of date. (If you have some name confusion, please review this earlier post about changing names, nicknames and English names.)
  
• Highlights of qualifications: A list of 3 to 5 verb-led phrases that provide important information for the resume reviewer, and are relevant to the position they are preparing their interview list for. At your discretion, but if you have some important skills, such as managing a significant budget for collections, or that you have conducted professional work in a bilingual setting, amongst other potential "preferences" that you want the reviewer to know about, place them here. 
• Education: Typically placed before professional experience on a student or new professional's resume. This helps the resume reviewer establish that you have the required education, such as a graduate degree in library studies from an accredited institution. If you are not finished, you can include the month/year that you expect to receive your degree. Include relevant post-secondary education that led to a degree. Required no matter how far along you are in your career. 
• Professional experience: What libraries have you worked in? What did you do? What types of positions have you held? You can include unpaid professional experience in this section if you have no other relevant paid experience. Required.
• Work experience. You can use this section to talk about other work experience that you have had--waiting on tables, working as a personal trainer--where you did not work as a librarian. Try to limit it to the experiences you had to pay for school, and don't go back to the first job you had stocking shelves in junior high. Limit to the last 5-7 years (accounts for grad school and undergrad). This section is useful if there were some periods that you didn't work as a librarian or in libraries, but still worked, and can help you account for gaps. At your discretion, but some of these experiences can help you as a librarian--not all of us have trust funds to put us through school, and some libraries are smart enough to appreciate people with diverse backgrounds. 
• Public Service: typically where you place your volunteer or unpaid experience. Select relevant and/or long-term volunteer commitments, not the list of 5K fun runs where you gave directions at intersections for an hour. At your discretion, but if you have relevant volunteer experience that will appeal to the reviewer, or have volunteered successfully at the place you are applying to work at, leaving your volunteer experience off is silly.
• Publications: If you have any relevant professional publications, include a brief bibliography. Don't catalog every blog post you have ever written or every book review. Instead, mention a best representation of your relevant professional writing. At your discretion, but required for academic positions.
• You may also want to create a section for conference presentations, or combine it with conference presentations and publications.
  
• Certification: Here is where you put any other relevant certification or education that you have pursued that will enhance your work in libraries, such as computers, languages, or additional training that did not lead to an undergraduate or graduate degree. At your discretion, but how do you know when to include it or not? Well, if you are SCUBA certified, an academic library may not care, but an museum of marine studies or a special library position with an underwater archeology collection or emergency services unit might be interested in this special knowledge that you possess.
• References: most library positions don't let you get away with references available upon request. You need three professional references, attached on a new page. Your current supervisor, your previous supervisor and a professor (if you don't have three former work supervisors as references) will work fine. Required.

Now of course you can have additional sections, such as your work on committees on campus, or a career objective, but I think that these are the best basic ones that should be on a librarian's resume.

Resume Resolution

The break between terms is the perfect time to work on your resume. Take time each day for the next five days to work on your resume (sans martini glass in hand).

There are two basic types of resume: chronological and functional.

• The chronological format tells the story of your career and education over time, starting with the present day and working backwards. This is the most popular format of the resume and the CV, the one employers expect and the easiest to organize, so use this format.
• The functional format arranges your experience and education by skills, type and theme. It is the lesser of the two formats and you should avoid it like anthrax. I'm not going to kid or hedge: you need to be a mind-reader to decide how to lay out your skills in the best way to draw the eye of the resume reviewer, so stick with time as your outline.

Your lesson today is to find good samples of chronological resumes to base your own resume on. You'll need a book--like Proven Resumes or Resume Magic--because I've looked online and most of the sample resumes for librarians just plain suck. I also suggest that you read Tiffany Eastman Allen's article, Crafting a Winning Resume, but ignore the advice on functional resumes.