How to get a job as a librarian

Keywords: How to get hired as a librarian, librarian hiring, library job, library jobs, how to get a library job.

Because I want you to be able to get that librarian job you are about to apply for.

But from what I'm seeing, as a hiring manager for an academic library job, many of you are not presenting yourself well in your applications. Many of you are presenting yourselves abysmally.

Much of what I'm seeing makes me want to call you, or pull you aside in the grocery store, give you a big hug and a big-sisterly pep talk on how to do better next time. But I can't do that. So I'll post this and hope that some of you see it. It's too late for you to do better for this job, but I hope you'll do better when you apply for the next.

1) Use correct grammar.
I am amazed, stunned, at the poor grammar and punctuation used in the cover letters and resumes for this, a job that requires a master's degree. If you have trouble with grammar, get a friend to edit your materials for you. The job requires effective, literate, written communications. The bare minimum requirement for you to make it through my first screening is to show me you can write properly. We're librarians, for cryin' out loud.

2) It's called a "cover letter" for a reason.
It's meant to be in the form of a letter. Not a blurb. Not an email. A properly written, properly formatted, business letter. You're applying for a job that requires research skills. If you don't already know how to format a business letter look it up. When I see letters with no headings, no salutation, no return address, I wonder what you thought a "cover letter" would be. Be professional. Write a real letter. And address it to the appropriate individual who makes the hiring decision. If you can't find out who that is, address it to the head of the library. Oh, and a business letter is formal, so no "smilies". I wish I didn't have to really mean that, but I do.

3) Tell me something related to THIS job.
Oh... how many letters have I read today that tell me about all the skills a candidate has that do not relate in any way to this job, and skip over any that do. Did you read the job listing? Do you know what we're asking for? It's pretty clear. And if you then say NOTHING relevant to THIS job in your cover letter I imagine that you are either sloppy, inattentive, or are sending out a generic, boiler-plate letter to hundreds of employers without regard to the particulars of each job. This approach will not get you a job. The cover letter is your brilliant opportunity to tell me specifically what skills you, specifically, bring to meet the needs of this job, specifically. Don't pass up this opportunity. And don't copy and paste a bulleted list of qualifications from your resume into the cover letter and call it a day. Again, you have wasted an opportunity to write a brilliant letter, if you're merely including a reiteration of your resume.

4) Do not tell me things that I am not legally allowed to ask you about.
Do not tell me about your family. Do not tell me about your relationship. Do not tell me about your gender, race, or religion. These are issues I cannot ask you about, either due to employment law or simple hiring ethics. If you volunteer this information you put me in an awkward position of trying to ignore it, and of wondering why you would include unnecessary personal information. The only exception to this rule would be if there is a glaring gap in your employment history, and you want to explain a valid reason for it. For example, if you had to take time off for illness, or to take care of a family crisis. Even then, acknowledge the issue but be as brief and succinct as possible. Now is not the time to share personal details. (Also? On your resume? Don't ever mention marital status, health, or give your freakin' social security number! Not necessary, and not safe!)

5) Show you know something about your prospective employer.
I work at a school that is known for making education accessible to underprivileged individuals. When you write and claim that you want to work in our environment of "academic excellence" I think you either read nothing about us, or are sucking up, and badly. I mean, we do a lot that's good, but we are far from academically excellent. Again, you're applying for a research job. Do some basic research, then provide specific evidence of it.

6) Focus your resume on THIS job.
If you're asked to submit a CV it can be longer than a resume, but if you're asked to submit a resume it shouldn't be more than a few pages long, and it should, like the cover letter, focus on the skills needed for THIS job. It's lovely if you're great at cataloging, but if you're applying for a reference job, mention the cataloging, move on, then focus on reference related skills. You should NOT have one resume you send out for every job. Edit your default resume into a new form that suits each job you apply for.

Look, you want this job. And I want to hire you. But there are a lot of applicants for every position. Dozens at a minimum, hundreds at a maximum. You have to present yourself well, and quickly, in writing, to make it out of that first screening process. Write a grammatical, efficient, directed cover letter, that tells me how your experiences suit you for THIS job. You must do this job of selling yourself, because I will not hunt through your resume to match up your experiences to the job requirements. That is your responsibility. Similarly, write a succinct, directed resume, that shows me how you can do THIS job.

I do hope this helps. I want you to get a job, I do. But you have to do the heavy lifting. It's just the way it goes. But once you get good at it, it'll be a valuable skill that will serve you well forever.

And it will make you stand out from the abysmal pile of nonsense I read today.

Airlines are adding additional rows of seats to the new models of 737s to increase the number of passengers they can carry. As legroom shrinks will we see the same sort of frenzy to charge taller passengers extra for encroaching into shorter people's legroom as we've seen directed at fat passengers?

Yeah, I just bet we will.

So, we've got a web article that explains how long you'd have to exercise in order to "burn off" different foods from chain restaurants.

A donut? 59 minutes of walking

An egg McMuffin? 32 minutes of running.

A chocolate chip cookie? 62 minutes of biking.

How can this be presented as anything other than wild comedy? An hour of walking in order to justify eating a donut? or of biking in order to eat a cookie? What this article is claiming is that if you ever eat a tasty fast food treat you'll need to exercise for an unreasonable amount of time or else it will make you OMG fat! And let's not even deal with the overly simplistic calories-in-calories-out calculus.

I can so easily see most people who haven't been exposed to Health at Every Size or Fat Acceptance reading this article and coming to the conclusion that it's never worth it to eat a donut, or a cookie.

What a sad, screwed up thought.

A new study shows that fat, white Americans are more likely to report that they've been victims of discrimination than thinner people. The study seems to focus primarily on respndents' perceptions, not whether or not discrimination actually occurs. But nowhere does the article indicate that discrimination on the basis of body size is wrong, nor does it discuss the possibility that fat Americans of all races are indeed discriminated against. I found the completely distanced, neutral tone of the article jarring. Even if the study at hand was not focused on these issues, someone could have been quoted about them, to flesh (heh! flesh!) out the full story.

Still hard-hearted

Months later, I just googled "hard hearted yankee bitch" again and YESSSSSS it pulls up my blog and only my blog! Score!

Seeding Google

I just googled the phrase "hard hearted yankee bitch" because I feel like one of them today, and I got no hits. So I decided I needed to post that phrase, just because. Because today I am a hard hearted yankee bitch.

Fat transplant patients allowed to get sicker while waiting for organs, blamed for their own ill health

The very obese wait longer for organ transplants, up to ONE YEAR longer. The likely reason is that doctors view the obese as being at greater risk for complications and death, therefore donor organs are more likely to go to slimmer patients.

Well, you know why the obese patients might be doing worse? Because you're making them wait months and years longer than other patients for a transplant, giving them plenty of time to get sicker. And then you're blaming their weight for their failure to do well after a transplant!

Patients are being denied treatment, and then blamed for it. Words cannot express the cruelty of this situation.