They Hired the Other Candidate – Now What?
Recently I’ve had several conversations with friends, colleagues, and a couple of nieces and nephews who’ve made it to the final cut of a job candidacy, only to learn, after several rounds of...
View ArticleLooking for Invisible LIS Jobs – What Search Terms?
The good news: we know anecdotally that there are LOTS of jobs out there that would be perfect for those of us who have LIS skills. The bad news: those job include titles that make it really, really...
View ArticleFinding International LIS Jobs
The following post is an updated reprint of a column I originally wrote for Rethinking Information Careers, part of Rachel Singer Gordon’s LisJobs.com site. Although I’ve verified/corrected all of the...
View ArticleJob-Hunting: Guerrilla Tactics for Landing that Job
Online applications not working for you? LIS job postings not delivering results? To paraphrase Prussian military strategist Carl von Clausewitz, these days job-hunting is the continuation of war by...
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8 Ways Organizations Need Your Information Skills
Where can your LIS skills add value to a consumer-goods company, a software development organization, a green-tech developer, a national online retailer, or any of the myriad other organizations that...
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Informational Interviews: The Five Basics
When you’re trying to learn more about potential LIS jobs, employers, or careers, few options are better than going straight to the source, otherwise known as having an information interview. They’re...
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Researching LIS Job Opportunities and Career Paths
Whether you’re a student soon to graduate and getting ready to hit the job market, an employed professional seeking to make a job change, or a now-unemployed practitioner trying to identify or create...
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Can We Talk? How to Ask for an Informational Interview
Anytime you’re asking a favor of someone, it feels a bit awkward, and information interviews are no exception. Generally, you’re asking someone who’s both successful in their career and really busy to...
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Smart moves for stealth job hunting
It’s time. Perhaps it was a new (and somewhat crazy-making) library director. Or a change in management policies. Or a redefinition of your job responsibilities. Or the company’s move away from the...
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Informational interview? Don’t miss these 5 benefits
Informational interviews can be a terrific way to explore career paths, companies of potential interest, and specific types of work. But they’re also a great opportunity to build your network,...
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10 Tips for Rocking Your Resume
Recently several students I was working with asked for resume tips – sort of a generic list of broad concepts they could use to shape their efforts. Since resumes aren’t my specific area of expertise,...
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Social proof – when others tell the world how terrific you are
Yeah, yeah, yeah – you keep hearing that you should have at least a few recommendations from significant others (like previous bosses, not your spouse) on your LinkedIn profile page, but really – is it...
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Job-hunting? 5 ways to help your network help you
Yep, asking your network for job-hunting help can sometimes feel awkward. But did you know that experts say less than one in three jobs results from an online application? That one statistic alone...
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Career takeaways from LJ’s 2016 Placements and Salaries report
The recently published Library Journal annual “Placements and Salaries” report, written by the University of Tennessee-Knoxville’s Suzie Allard, once again provides fascinating insights into how new...
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Find – and tell – your story
How to pull the narrative threads from your chaotic eclectic career Recently I worked with an MLIS student whose resume prior to grad school was primarily retail, clerical, and a number of nanny jobs....
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Interview coming up? Questions to get to know them while they get to know you
One of the best ways to distinguish yourself among other job applicants is to ask thoughtful, targeted questions during your interview, both in response to questions asked of you during the interview...
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What should you wear to an interview? It depends
Do an online search on tips on dressing for an interview and you’ll get lots of help – about 11.5 million hits, in fact. Everyone has very definitive “do’s and don’ts,” but the reality is that each...
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Handling the interview stumper: what’s your biggest weakness?
For most people, just talking about their strengths in an interview can be pretty challenging. But talking about your weaknesses in a way that doesn’t sink your hiring prospects can feel even more...
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Making the most of your starter job
Or, why you should consider that job in Smalltown, USA Recently I had an opportunity to work with a young woman who had just graduated from an MLIS program. She was unsure of how to proceed with her...
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I didn’t even know that job existed!
One of the downsides of giving LIS students and professionals career advice is that you’ve pretty much got to follow your own advice if you want to have any credibility at all (translation from my...
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