Reviewing Librarian Recruitment Materials

The Emerging Leaders team from the ALA is conducting a survey to evaluate the librarian (to the profession) recruitment materials.

To help improve ALA’s ongoing efforts to recruit a diverse pool of talented and dynamic individuals to the profession of librarianship, librarians are invited to participate in a web-based survey which focuses on the accessibility and usefulness of existing ALA recruitment materials.

Press release with link to the survey.

Spidey Gets Fired - CNBC.com

Spidey Gets Fired - CNBC.com

Tribes by Seth Godin

Seth Godin is an extremely popular writer and consultant, usually writing about marketing and motivation, and Tribes is one of his older books. His most recent is Linchpin.

Tribes is about leadership, whether by forming a group that has a similar code or by stepping out from the group and becoming a leader. It has the usual status quo sucks, so status quo not rhetoric, which I don't disagree with, though when some people revolt, they don't necessarily know why they are revolting. Tribes is meant to inspire and encourage leadership.

Tribes is a series of micro-essays (not short enough to be called aphorisms) which makes for quick reading of brief arguments and examples. His writing style is similar to Gladwell's, with premise, example, explanation, next! which seems to be the style in a lot of popular business writing. I could blame this on Tom Peters, since I hope the reason for it is not that mass media has made us too shallow to hold a whole chapter. As an inspirational work, this style means the focus is on actionsand it means that the reader can find many ideas and inspirations and do more research as needed. Or, as Godin would prefer, just do it.

I did like his directions for forming a micromovement, which I think librarians can learn from:

1. Publish a manifesto (no, not a mission statement)
2. Make it easy for your followers to connect with you
3. Make it easy for your followers to connect with one another
4. Realize that money is not the point of the movement (I think we do this one unintentionally well)
5. Track your progress

Leadership is an important topic in libraries (at least at the interview), and so is forming groups and networks at the library. Tribes is an important book in the leadership literature, even if it may not get you to step out from of the herd, or stop sheepwalking, as Godin puts it.

For some free stuff from the book, check out the Current Tribes Casebook.

"People who graduated from college in a recession earn 2.5% less"

January 18, 2010 Business Week cover story, The Disposable Worker, looks at how a recession affects graduates and how more jobs are temporary, with no basic benefits, and how workers are happy to have them.

This quote, partially seen in the title, is the most disheartening:

For workers, research shows that chronic unemployment and underemployment cause lasting damage: Older people who lose jobs are often forced into premature retirement, while the careers of young people are stunted by their early detachment from the working world. Even 15 years out of school, people who graduated from college in a recession earn 2.5% less than if they had graduated in more prosperous times...

2009 SLA Salary Survey

The 2009 SLA Salary Survey has been released. Accessing the actual survey results and mini-reports will cost $. Individuals can also purchase access to the SLA Salary Calculator (9.95 for SAL members and 14.95 for non-members).

LibraryWorks

The LibrariansYellowPages and Library Associates, a recruitment firm, have partnered together to offer a job board called LibraryWorks. Currently all of the postings point back to LibGig, also a creation of Library Associates.

I don't know if their plan is to become a vertical search engine for library jobs or if this is just another way to drive traffic to their postings. The interface is clean and has a nice mix of jobs, but you can't sign up alerts or subscribe via RSS. It's early days, but so far days of meh.

Not a day without a conference

Marian Dworaczek has posted a list of upcoming conferences that are relevant to librarians.

DOL Job Tool Challenge

The Department of Labor is running a Job Tool Challenge to find the best online tools for job seekers. The submission period has passed, but you can vote on the tools that were submitted. Tools include social media tools, blogs, vertical search and job or career matching services. You can use these tools as a current job seeker or integrate them into your media instruction classes in libraries.

• The Project
• The Job Tool Challenge, for voting on the tools.
  

Help from resume reviewers

I am looking for librarians who have been involved in a recent hiring campaign at their library (past year) who would be willing to give advice about how to properly format resumes. Librarians from any type of library, including special and people who work outside of traditional library fields are most welcome.

ere shares the bad news

ERE.net shares the bad news on job losses, but puts some perspective to the reports.

Two Perspectives on Work

CBC's Spark has two perspectives on work, from Seth Godin, author of Purple Cow, amongst others, and Matthew B. Crawford, the author of Shop Class as Soulcraft.

Going freelance

Gina Trapani explains how to go freelance. I don't know how many people still hold on to the misconception that you quit and "hang out your shingle" but her advice on how to build gradually, getting your name out there and when to give your work away is helpful and probably true to most freelance experience (it is to mine).