It's the economy, baby

Since the economy is on everybody's mind and lips, it may not hurt to do some tracking about what is being said about the economy in these turbulent times. During my daily work, I have to read labour market information and stay on top of economic indicators in general. Sometimes, I come across items that I think that everybody should take a look at, or they offer a summary of what is happening.

Again, without historical perspective it is difficult to determine WTF is happening--and even then, experts won't always agree. But it can help you feel better if you know just a bit about what is going on.

And you might get a question on these in an employment interview--reference librarians, if you don't read or follow at least one newspaper you're going to blow these questions. You might save yourself on pop culture--Daft Punk for 200, Alex?--but reading the newspaper is a requirement.

So, for today, watch Yahoo Tech Ticker explain the 5 signs of a recession.

LinkedIn Maintenance

Jason Alba of JibberJobber has a good post about some basic LinkedIn maintenance that you should perform on your profile: make sure the main email address for your LinkedIn profile belongs to you. It shouldn't be your employer-supplied email and it shouldn't be your college email, since those aren't yours and have a limited lifespan. Hypothetically, you will want to keep your LinkedIn profile for the remainder of your professional life.

The same goes for your LibGig profile, or really, any social networking profile you maintain. The address you use should not be the most convenient, but the one that you personally "own",

Layoff creepers

Bob Sutton, the author of the No Asshole Rule, has a thought-provoking post on his blog about the quality of the workers who will lose their jobs if layoffs occur. Do the innovators get the pink slip--and the slackers, possibly by virtue of tenure, get to stay?

This is not to say that new workers are the brightest apples in the bushel, but that sometimes layoffs mean that organizations lose quality workers--and probably the people that they could least afford to lose in a crisis. Sutton makes a good argument for the timing of layoffs and how, if you must layoff, to give workers enough of a lead to know what will happen, so they can resort to plan B. In addition, he also mentions companies, like Toyota, that invest in training and skills development during a downturn. Remember, he advises, recruiting and training replacement staff, on the upswing, is as significant a cost as keeping workers through the downswing.

But it probably earns more goodwill to retain than to let them funnel down the layoff drain.

And how will you be paying for this?

According to this article from American Libraries, the stock market collapse will have consequences for many libraries that rely on endowments for funding, which means cuts to library hours, as well as, library staff. This could mean layoffs--but it could also mean decreased hiring in the coming year. It could also mean keep the people but fewer books and licenses, so don't despair about job offers yet.

One thing you can do is some research to figure out how your prospective employers are funded. The American Library Association has a section on their site dedicated to library funding, and Library Journal also offers a roll of articles about library funding from their pages. The state or provincial library site should have information about how the libraries within that area are funded (state name + library in Google should get you these websites).

So don't lose your nuggets over the news, but do a dig into the money sources of your prospects. This should also be part of your basic employer research that you take to an interview.

Tech Therapy compares librarians to IT staff on campuses

According to this Tech Therapy podcast, librarians and IT staff on academic campuses have lots of commonalities, but they can't seem to get together to help one another. Forced collaborations, rather than voluntary project sharing, appears to be the big difference between these two groups.

They are looking for people from both departments to comment on their premise that librarians and IT can't seem to get along, and so far, not many comments (yes, some libraries call their patrons "users", some call them "clients" or "customers", others use "students"; it depends on the library), which I hope doesn't mean that librarians and IT personnel believe there is no way we can get along.

The meltdown and the bailout

The meltdown and the bailout are examples of how macroeconomics--large scale economics--can affect a person's microeconomics, your own little-big life and budget. But what the heck is going on?

What a good question, and since I am not an economist--generally skeptical and willing to wait for a little historical perspective--I have a few resources that will help you make up your own mind:

• NPR's This American Life is looking at the meltdown and explaining what is happening on Wall Street and Main Street, by looking at the housing crisis, as well as what is happening on Wall Street.
• ProPublica items tagged Wall Street Bailout, will help you keep on top of the stories.
• Business Week Behind the Cover Special Feature on the Bailout. In general, Business Week will have good up-to-date reporting on the bailout, so you might want to add it to your news reader.
• Silobreaker's Freetext Search Map on the "meltdown" will allow you to explore news stories and their connections.
  
• The Trillion Dollar Meltdown, published in January of this year, is looking awfully prescient. 
  
• If you want a historical view of past financial fiascos, the Wall Street Journal published a round-up on the five best books about past financial crises. 

Job searches away from big cities

Another reason for people looking for work in academia to look beyond the larger centers and "big name" colleges: Searching and hiring away from the spotlight.

If you aren't sure how to look for work outside of the big centers, and can work anywhere, check out the post about working in a smaller city and my article on LISCareer about relocating to find work.

Tax perks for students

This is for Canadians: there may be some tax benefits that you can claim, as a student, that you are unaware of--though, as graduate students, you may be experts at these. If you went out of town for a summer job, save your receipts for the move.

Think like a "pig", make more money?

This 60 Second Science podcast refers to a study that suggests that men who hold more traditional beliefs about male and female roles make more money. Since the snippet doesn't reveal what industry these men worked in, or what city they worked in--which also affects how much cash they make--you can guess that some of them are supporting Real Housewives.

But the women who were surveyed who tend to hold more traditional views, make $1,500 less than women with less traditional beliefs--again, without stating were they lived, worked and did their nails.

However, it does reinforce my belief that if you don't know how much you are worth, you don't know how much to ask for.

Women hate working for other women?

According to this article from Women.Co, women find it harder to work for other women than they do for men. I can only go by my own experience, so I think it is utter baloney. I think this part of the article actually hits the nail on the head:

‘It may be that something about the nature of the work itself is influencing these health differences,’ Dr Schieman told the Journal of Health and Social Behavior.

‘For example, women working with a woman supervisor might tend to be found mostly in the caring sector or in jobs that tend to be under-resourced, under-funded and under-valued, such as social work or education, creating stress both for the workers themselves and stress for the boss that might trickle down to her subordinates.

‘These are speculative points that need to be investigated further.’

Less pay, less job security, working in "caring" professions--hmmm, sounds soul-sucking. Add a diva boss or colleague--male or female--and I think I would be putting Maalox in my coffee as creamer, too.

College reviewing service to find the academic library of your dreams

If you're a footloose job seeker looking for work in an academic library, you could really go to any community that you want--provided that they are hiring. And you can use a college reviewing service to do it.

There are the mainstays: the Best Colleges from the US News and World Report, the Princeton Review Best Colleges, the Peterson's Undergraduate College Search--which is one of the few that has information on community colleges--or the new college reviewing site, Unigo.com, that solicits comments from real students about what campus life is like. You can also try Epinions to find "customer reviews" of colleges and universities. You can combine your search with a scan through the Chronicle of Higher Education's Almanac (not all free), and check out the job postings at the same time--and you should be reading the Chronicle if you see yourself working at an academic institution in the US.

Once you have selected some of the colleges or universities that you are interested in, see if they have an RSS feed for employment--make sure this feed covers library positions, as well as any other administrative positions that you are interested in--and make your own Yahoo! Pipe or Rollyo search engine so you can get an updated listing. You can also pull the feeds into your RSS reader, but I thought making your own search engine just makes you seem so savvy.

Now keep in mind that these services and sites are talking about student life, but you can still get valuable information about the work environment, where the college is situated and what it looks like. If the entry really blows your mind, you can put in the name of the city--or local suburbs or towns located nearby--and start contacting the local Chamber of Commerce or Visitor Center, to get any publications or resources that they have about their city. The more you know about a community, the more you will have to say at the interview when they try to find out how much research you have done in regards to the campus community. You won't sound like a local, but you won't sound like you're clueless either. You can also nix communities from your list if you find out the cost of living is too high, or if there isn't any work for your partner or if you find out a library is closing.

A little bit more research than throwing a dart at the map, but if you don't like to look for stuff, aren't you in the wrong career?

On the bias

Jobacle had a post yesterday that encouraged people to explore their biases when it comes to careers--stereotyping by career, an outgrowth of Krumboltz's occupationism. The post linked to Project Implicit, a project that explores biases and I urge you to take some of the tests on the site to explore your biases.

Biases affect us in hiring and working with others, whether they are colleagues or clients, and a greater awareness--and an attempt to neutralize your biases--can only help make the workplace more fair.

In case you think I am chiding interviewers, no, job seekers have the same biases: a fat interviewer won't like me because I am so thin and beautiful, old people are afraid that young people will take their jobs, and they won't hire me because I am too old and a white male. I could go on with all of the nervous, half-beliefs that we all possess, which we believe are gospel in times of stress. Analyzing your biases can help you recognize them when they prey on you and help you mitigate or remove their effects.