Job Search Career Workshop

The 2nd Annual Job Search Career Workshop offered by SLA Maryland was a great success!  Despite the rainy day, there were 36 program attendees at the Shady Grove site along with some Maryland Chapter members on hand to help with registration, signage, and program organization.

The TRAK Records and Library speakers were engaging and helpful to program participants.  The first presenters from TRAK were Raechel Clark-Welch and Maura Barnes.  Raechel and Maura spoke a little bit about TRAK and then asked participants what they would like to get out of the presentation.  Some participants were recent grads starting out, some were changing careers, some were moving from one type of librarianship to another, some retirees were looking to get back into the library workforce, and others wanted to have their resume ready in case of an emergency.

Raechel and Maura spoke about resumes and cover letters.  They emphasized that the resume should generally not be more than two pages, not contain an overwhelming amount of detail, and that the cover letter would be a place to address more specific skills not mentioned in a resume.  They offered other suggestions about what type of information should appear in a resume and stressed the importance of including position information relevant to the industry.

Additionally, Raechel and Maura spoke a bit about having an online presence.  They stressed the importance of checking your personal online information (such as a profile photo), as more and more employers are checking prospective hires’ Facebook, LinkedIn, and similar pages.  They discussed Facebook and LinkedIn and concluded that LinkedIn is the more professional of the two websites.

Raechel and Maura also addressed job searching, including tips with how to begin your search, where to search, and what to do after you apply.  They also talked about how to prepare for an interview, including information about preparing 30 second “elevator speech,” in which you address all the important points about yourself.

The second set of presenters, Stephanie Callaway and Jennifer Cute, spoke about the top ten mistakes that you can make during an interview.  They talked about the importance of being early for your interview, turning off your cell phone, offering a firm handshake, watching the signals that your body language might be giving the interview, proper posture, and other helpful tips.  In addition to addressing “red flag” issues with interviews, they offered additional information to assist participants in preparing for the interview.  They talked about expanding upon a question that is relevant to work you have done in the past and knowing more about the library that you are interviewing with so that you can align your interview discussion with the library’s goals.  Stephanie and Jennifer also stressed the importance of sending your potential employer a thank you note to let them know that you appreciated the time that they took out to interview you.  They stressed that this is a good opportunity to reiterate your interest in the position and remind the employer of something that you may have forgotten during the interview.

Overall, the workshop participants were very engaged with the TRAK presenters. They did a great job in addressing participants’ questions, offering live examples a and giving a better general sense of how to approach a library job search.  The workshop was a success overall.

                                                                                                           ~ Annette Haldeman

Comments

[Ashley]

Great write-up! Glad the workshop was such a success.

[interview preparation]

Congratulations,You really deserves the favor.Thanks for this event because you give a good resource tips for aspires to go for their dream careers.