Men, sizing matters

Again, a do's and don'ts of workplace fashion focused strongly on (young) women. Complete with slide show including cleavage. Ok, I agree that people could dress a little more professionally. (Not that I will, but you know about advice: love to give it, don't follow it.) But I hate how most of this advice is focused on women. Men, too, take liberties with the dress code: it just happens that their faux pas usually have to do with improper sizing while they are still within the dress code confines. How about these:

• The fuzzy-bear belly. Yes, men with muffin tops and popped buttons showing up for work. Or growing increasingly deshabille as the day goes on. These are the guys who aren't allowed to be skins on the court.
• Chafe-y underwear so they're always rearranging their clappers. Or that scissors move when they slouch down in the chair and think no one is watching. YUCK. Just buy some knickers that fit already.
• Tight clothing.You need a size thirty-six waist. You are not the same size you were in college, get over it.
• Overhanging gut that ate the belt. Steve McQueen is looking for you and he has a fire extinguisher.
• No waist man. Pants hiked up to the armpits and scary camel toe. If your nipples are that cold, put on a sweater.
• I don't want to see your ankles. Ever. Your legs have stopped growing, just measure and commit. (That Nicolas Sarkozy thing was an April Fool's Day joke.)
• Plumber's crack. Need I say more?

Clearly, if you actually listened to the adage, measure twice, cut once, we'd have some better dressed men and perfectly fitted baseboards. Beyond sizing, but purely fashion stricken

• Track pants. Jay Z wants you to get out of his closet.
• Ungroomed facial hair. Yes, you, the one that ate that soup for lunch. Or was it yesterday's lunch?
• Men wear flip-flops, too. A far greater crime: brown sandals with black socks. Or mismatched tube socks. So shut up about it.

Feel the love? Now you know why women hate fashion do's and don'ts.

Should you dress "younger"?

I like the guy who gives a nod to confidence. I would also go with common sense, but you can fake it til you make it. Notice that they are pretty hard on older women and their appearance: sometimes it is hard to dress "appropriately" when stores don't sell anything appropriate.

Do we need weekends?

Do we need weekends? I think that we do, though they can be mid-week, and you can separate them sometimes but I would prefer to have two together. Most librarians, especially new ones, don't get traditional weekends, but many libraries do try to give a break, and if they can't they are short-staffed. I think many beginning librarians could agree that they have too few hours packed with too much work--and a weekend becomes more important.

This essay also seems to forget that many people need one day that they don't have to pay for child care: Saturday and Sunday when the kids are off, terrorizing the parks. Or, really, home on the Wii, but someone has to watch them. School schedules have a huge impact on the lives of parents--especially single ones--and those schedules certainly structure our work lives. You don't have to have children to have additional family responsibilities: a family member, of any age, could need your care and assistance, forcing changes at work.

People who have just graduated from college are probably scoffing, weekends, that's when I worked my job. And yes, that's true for many college students, but what you did do was something else. Occasionally boring and sometimes fulfilling but you did something other than study. And be honest: some of those days were spent beer drinking or napping during the afternoon.

And notice in the article, it isn't about weekends, it's about work hours and constant access to wage slaves. The article talks about how Gen-Y is so frustrated that they can't be in constant contact all the time and just meet when they need to--which means after hours, and on Saturdays, or Sundays after hours. So instead of eight hours a day, we become Blackberry Minions, answering all types of queries until the wee hours.

But two days a week, if we can afford it, we should be allowed to work on separate projects and be with our families and friends. Sleep in, eat pancakes. Church, or another religious service, if we are so inclined. That's what the weekend is for.

DIY Yahoo! Pipes

You can make your own personal search engine using Yahoo! Pipes. Yahoo! Pipes uses drag and drop modules into a sandbox that you can use to remix your RSS feeds, searches from Yahoo! Local and the Google Base. You can also add a filter to sort by job title (didn't work so well in the one that I created for library jobs) and sort by publication date (field needs to be filled in the original RSS to really work).


I also used some RSS fields from some vertical search engines (Eluta, WowJobs and Indeed Canada) to give it some power. You can tinker even more with their feeds by adding the province or state that you would like to work in and get a better geographical fix when you run your searches.

Now, you don't have to cobble together your own pipe: you can use the pre-existing pipes (there are about 10 for library jobs). You can also easily clone one that you like and make some changes, provided that you have a Yahoo! account.

I did notice something weird looking for library jobs as my keyword: I got lots of pipes for lesbian (oh, yes, the first thing I think of when I hear librarian, so easy to confuse the two). Trying to remove the erotic search engines just didn't seem to work (maybe they use librarian or library as a tag?). I found lots of erotic pipes (ha ha!) on the Yahoo! Pipes service, so you may not be able to get results from the pipes service if you are running a family friendly search or are behind a finicky filter.

What was the most difficult course you've taken?

This is a good question for a person who is fresh out of school, usually asked if the employer expects the candidate to apply their classroom knowledge to the real world.

You have to pay attention to the question though: this class was difficult, meaning that it was a hardship in some way. You can answer it by saying the subject matter didn't interest you--but if you mention your cataloging course and you're interviewing to become a cataloger, you're could be in trouble. Some people are a bit too forthcoming and describe their clashes with their prof (too difficult/obscure/hidebound/whatever), which could be a legitimate reason, but makes you seem like a maverick--great on film, but we don't want to work with you. So here's a strategy: tell the truth.

We don't always like all of the stuff that we have to do, but we persevere or we find a part of the task that we like and we do it well. You persevere because you have to pass the class to become a librarian. To pass, you need to find some aspect of the dreaded class that you can understand so you can either crack the code of the rest of the subject matter, or to finish enough components of the class well enough to pass.

For example, the research methods class that we had to take included statistics which are not my favorite subject--there are stronger words I normally use for statistics but I won't use them here. But students could focus on qualitative methods and that is what I used to pass the class--and do pretty well. It also helped that I had a kick ass prof who wanted everyone to do well in the class. I'm still not happy with statistics, but because I took the class and did extra reading, I was able to pass (better than pass) and I can still deal with them now. I have to: they're part of my job.

So pick the class that you found difficult--and hope it isn't 90% of the duties of the job that you are interviewing for--and describe what you found difficult, why and how you dealt with it. Stay focused on your difficulties--not problems real or imagined caused by others (difficult professor, dog ate my homework)--and how you manage yourself and your resources to overcome obstacles.

Follow-ups to this question could include what do you like least or best about your current job? or what do you do to overcome obstacles?

Common Craft explains LinkedIn

What is LinkedIn? from LinkedIn Marketing on Vimeo.

Spotted on iLibrarian.

I think this can give you an idea and even explain networking. But the true benefit to LinkedIn, for job seekers, is that there are many human resource professionals on the site. Many of them are LIONs--many of them are not, and hate the idea. They pay a lot of attention to the Answers section, so you should be in there answering and asking questions, when relevant to your expertise. I have gotten recommendations from strangers, but LinkedIn connections, that I have been able to use in my work. You can use it in your job search, but you need a bigger network than other librarians and your college pals, so you have to make connections to people, usually by answering and asking questions.

That is the power of LinkedIn: you can expand your current network, which is limited by geography, and connect with people, linked to you by others or who ask to be introduced to you. But sitting passively on LinkedIn is not going to get you anywhere.

Open mouth, insert foot

When I was initially looking for my first library job, my best friend helped me prep for interviews. She was the Interviewer and I was the Victim, sometimes Idiot with flashes of Savant. We worked our way through 101 Great Answers to the Toughest Interview Questions, and I would answer and she would tell me I was wrong.

Anyway, after about 20 minutes of this--possibly less, since she thinks I have the attention span of a gnat--I would get BORED. As in, I would take the questions in a new direction that she didn't expect. Like I would answer questions about supervisory skills by describing my God complex, or whine in response to questions about professional development with, oh, do I have to?? or how I thought the best customer service was delivered with a fire hose--and yakked appreciatively about fire men and calendars. You know, stuff like that.

Not the right answer, obviously, but I just couldn't take the ridiculous, fatuousness of the whole interview procedure anymore. Especially because it felt like I was failing.

I do not suggest that you talk about fire men or hoses in any sort of appreciative or deprecating tone during your interview. Especially if this is for a public library job. They might be in your union or your library late fees bought their fire truck. But the joke interview worked, because I was no longer tempted to say the outrageous. (Remember attention span mentioned above?) After we stopped laughing and got down to business, I started to pay more attention to the questions since my brain had had a break.

So, if you are in the endless round of interviews and need a break, please expand on the following in your own style:

1. What method do you use to set and attain your goals? I have one? Like a goal, I mean? Hire me. Goal realized.
   
2. As a librarian, do you think of yourself as more geek less nerd, or vice versa? And because this is actually a "fit" question, everybody on the panel will think that they are your vice versa, unless the boss tells them differently.
3. Our opinion on challenged books is turf 'em, who needs the hassle? Tell us how we could still post the Library Bill of Rights with a straight face. Talk about a problem solving question. Think they asked something similar at the ENRON interview?
   
4. Tell us the name of the last book you read. And this time, tell the truth. It wasn't Thousand Splendid Suns, or anything with a reader's guide. It was Incubus Dreams or some book with a butt cover, and you read for fluids.
5. Librarian: neither liberal nor rare. Discuss.

What's your leadership style?

No, really, what is your leadership style? The interviewers have asked this question for two reasons:

• Will you do well under the current leadership structure at this library--or the branch you are interviewing for because there could be big variations between outposts--and
• Could you become a leader at their organization?

Obviously, the best way to answer this question is with an example: when were you a leader? Look at your past for an example similar to this:

• The leader receives an assigned task, or many tasks, that is too large for one person;
• She selects or inherits her team to complete the work;
• Based on the duties of each team member, the leader must assign each person a task and a delivery date and the leader decides who is responsible for what, how much and when.
• If a team member becomes confused, the leader tries to explain or clarify the process the person is responsible for.
• If a member isn't motivated, the leader may be the person to give him a push, either with rewards or punishments, depending on their leadership style.
• The leader is responsible for completing the task on time and when it is completed, decides how credit (or blame) will be distributed.

And I am not being negative by mentioning blame: projects do fail and the leader either accepts responsibility for it or ducks and covers. Remember, a follow-up to this question could be giving an example of your leadership abilities or explaining the outcome of the project.

This example assumed that the leader was selected and called "The Leader", but sometimes, a leader is just a motivator who keeps people on track and disperses knowledge. They may also not hold that role all the time (or get paid for it). You may have an example in your past where you stepped up and motivated everyone to a reach a shared goal. Just make sure your references will back this up.

You should at least know some basic leadership terms and describe how your leadership style fits. About.com Psychology has a section on leadership theory, as well as a quiz that will help you express your decision-making process. There are many other quizzes you could take, and a simple search for leadership style and quiz should turn up several.

Knowledge at Wharton and the MIT Sloan Management Review each have a section on Leadership, from a business or corporate perspective--the perspective adopted by some library managers-- but watch out for business jargon and be careful that you are using the correct term for what you mean.

Try to come up with an example that expresses your style--school work is fine, but this needs to be a big project that required the input of several people that you directed, this isn't the time for a soliloquy about how you personally manage time--and explain with that style is. Briefly. Anticipate that the next question will ask about outcomes and where you see room for growth.

It is about who you know

I came across this article Why Some Companies Retrain Workers and Others Lay Them Off and I thought it would be a simple get mad skillz or get a pink slip article. It's actually, a make friends article.

Peter Cappelli, a professor at Wharton, studied why some employers retrain and others layoff (also called, churning, like a feeling induced by a roller coaster). What he discovered was it was not policies that saved an employee, but relationships: how many they had, how valuable and how much the employer valued the relationship.

What is social capital? It’s a tight network of relationships within a workplace...Because it is an asset that exists between individuals rather than within each individual, social capital may suggest why it could make sense to reinvest in and retain individuals even if their job-specific skills are obsolete: The relationships they maintain with others may create value that extends beyond their ability to perform their current job.

Cappelli is also pretty clear: stopping for a chat on the way to get a coffee is not social capital. Social capital is sharing what is in your head for the betterment of others, giving and getting in return. The less you give, the less you can have. This doesn't mean it is the most important measure--I can have low social capital but still have the power to fire everyone--but I shouldn't give away the most important pieces. And those people know more and share more.

If this argument is true, having fresh skills is important, working for an employer with high social capital very important (for more about corporations and social capital check out Linda McQuaig's All You Can Eat), but if you have noticeable connections to people in an environment that values those connections, you can weather the storm. So serving on a committee--one outside of the library so people can see you--instead of writing another book review, may be in your best interest.

This is also called networking, but I didn't want to scare you.

And finally, service providers will be affected by the layoffs because companies are "externalizing" the cost of retraining. This can include the library. If you have some skills that people need to learn--reading, writing, figuring, word processing--you can certainly find private employment.

Maybe it's you

We sometimes think we are surrounded by jerks and lunatics, but then we realize we should go look in the mirror because we get what we give.

Anyway, just to check and make sure you don't need to do some shallow, pop introspection in front of your mirror before you exfoliate, take the Asshole Rating Self-Exam (ARSE) adapted from Bob Sutton's book, No Asshole Rule.

Now, though light and amusing--if you don't score higher than 10--it's not a real test. Just in case you didn't notice, asking questions with compound structures where only one part may be true is a way to cut down on questions, though not to get any results of substance.

Just score a one so you don't seem like a total stanley.

And just so you know: I love Capt. Kirk but when I saw the poster on JibberJobber, I just could not resist. More Star Trek inspirational goodness.

Tomorrow is a day off in the land where we do a lot of guarding and standing, so no posts tomorrow.

Great Office War

Wouldn't you work in this office--if you didn't have to clean up afterward? In the age of flash memory, practical use for a CD-ROM.



Spotted on Web Worker Daily.

Asking better questions in employment interviews

Cathy Fyock, the author of Truth about Hiring the Best, provides a summary podcast of some bad questions to ask in an interview and how to ask better questions that get relevant answers.

If you're looking for work or about to interview, I would suggest listening to this podcast to get an idea about how to answer a "bad" question with the better, more relevant answer. The best strategy is to try to answer, no dodging, and not to correct the employer, since you can sound pompous.