Thing 22 – Volunteering to gain experience

Thing 22 considers whether taking on volunteer roles can help to further your career. This one is a difficult one as you have to consider whether the role you are taking on is adding to the service you volunteer with or replacing staff already working there.

I have been engaged in 2 volunteering activities during my library career. I did both these activities while I was completing my masters. 

The first was to volunteer with an adult literacy class. I also completed a course to support adult learners during this time. Having spent my previous career welded to a pc I thought this was a good opportunity to work with different people and make a contribution. I can honestly say that I really enjoyed it. 

The second activity was to volunteer to help with a short project at the university library. With a number of other students I worked under the supervision of the archives librarian. I think for me this was about just working in a library setting, showing willing and getting something to put on my CV.

I guess both these roles could have been completed by paid members of staff if the institutions had funds for it. I’m not really sure how much they would have contributed to achieving my first post, though my manager did mention the adult leaner support course as a plus point. So does this just play into the hands of managers who know that they can get someone to do it for free? There will come a point, of course, at which if there is no career to progress into, then there will be little incentive to work for nothing.

Thing 21 – Promoting yourself in job applications and at interview

I think that I’m running out of steam now that we have got to thing 21 - promoting yourself in job applications and at interview; and this is a topic that you definitely need to have the energy for. All the advice given is very sensible and even a rudimentary amount of searching should provide you with a wealth of valuable pointers. I must admit that I tend not to update my CV if I am not actively looking for a new post. 

Additional points to maybe think about:
If you have an annual work review process this is always a good source of extra information about what you have done and what your strengths / weaknesses are.

Don’t be afraid to ask for feedback. I went through a phase of applying for jobs and not getting any interviews. So for one that I thought was a particularly strong application I rang up and asked for feedback. A very nice lady went through my application with me and explained what she would have been looking for. I took on board, changed tack and the next 3 applications all turned into interviews.

Sometimes it is not your fault – don’t be so hard on yourself. Now I’ve had my fair share of mis-understandings, wrong end of the stick, not quite prepared well enough but sometimes despite my best efforts it wasn’t my fault.

The Grumpy Interviewer

Did you get out of the wrong side of the bed? Was the cat sick that morning? Were the kids playing up? Could you be more rude? You’d think that I’d turned up just to spoil his day. But no, I’d spent nearly £100 and 3 hours (or was it more) on a train to get there; begged for a day’s leave because it was a busy time of year, not to mention time researching the organisation and investigating the library services. I think I was due a smile and some consideration.

The Internal Candidate

Oh this one made me angry. I’ve never before or since, sat in a room with all the candidates while the lead of the interview panel fawned over the internal candidate. I’m sure you did know all about him and I’m sorry that you did have to jump through hoops to tick the right boxes. Why include me in your waste of time? Another waste of a day off, time spent preparing and rehearsing a presentation. If you have a strong internal candidate advertise internally first – it will save you money!

The Wrong Job Description

So you sent the wrong job description in the information pack; you didn’t realise until the interview day; but not owning up until I was two weeks into the job? So I’d cancelled another interview; so I thought I was going to a job I wanted and not a role I was deliberately avoiding; so I was moving to a new location (no offer of relocation costs either). Oh shame on you!

Coulda, shoulda, woulda

Of course you don’t do anything because you want a job, you want to get on, you want to prove you can do it. But if I had my time again... actually I'd probably be still sitting on the sofa sobbing "why me?"

Thing 20 – The Library Routes Project - Careers

There are 2 suggested resources to look at for this thing:

• The Library Routes Project 
• Library Day in the Life 

These both consisted of very long lists of presumably librarians. Not quite sure how it is organised; the search function seemed to do weird things so couldn’t really focus on types of librarians like me and I don’t want to spend time endlessly browsing.

I already shared my career into librarianship in week 10.