My Guide to Job Hunting: Diversify Your Sources

As I mentioned before, I'm so sorry to ignore any readers who have come here looking for advice and sympathies on being an unemployed librarian.  So I’ve prepared a series of posts to help guide you down your path of library job hunting. If you missed anything, check out part one, treat job hunting like your job, and part two, get organized. 

Diversify your sources

I’ve posted about my top 5 job sites (or sources), but obviously there are others.  The source I used the most and found to be the most helpful was the University of Texas’s iSchool Job Board.  I got the emails (actually I still do) and printed out every job that looked like something I would be interested in.  Other sources that I used, besides the ones on the list, include LibGig, the LIBJOBS listserv (run by IFLA), LibJobs.com, Library Journal JobZone, Higher Ed Jobs, and LISJobs.

The reason I subscribed and checked so many sources is because not every job gets posted all over the internet.  For example, all of the jobs on ALA’s JobList will end up in a Texas iSchool email, but not the other way around.  My job as a medical librarian at a community hospital was posted in our local paper (a great source for corporate/special libraries where the people doing the hiring aren’t librarians), and then later, on LibGig and MEDLIB, but not on any other site.  So even though you may be seeing a lot of the same jobs being posted, you never know when you are going to run across something unique. 

It’s also a good idea to check with local libraries.  The branch libraries in my city have been hiring, but the jobs don’t get posted to national lists.  They occasionally end up on the local library school listserv, but the posting is mainly confined to the library’s web page.  So if you are interested in working in a specific area, check out the libraries’ web sites.  The same goes for academic institutions, especially small and community colleges.

Coming Tuesday: Update your Resume and Cover Letter

What sources am I missing?  What are your favorite sites to look for jobs?

12 Days of Christmas Cookies - Almond-Cherry Rosettes

Like Mostaccioli, these cookies are an Italian holiday standard in my family.  I never actually saw my grandmother make them, we always bought them from a Polish bakery that specialized in Italian cookies (weird, right?) when we visited my dad’s family in upstate New York.  My aunt sends us a big box every year in our Christmas package and they disappear within a couple of days. 

You really need a cookie press to get the authentic shape of these cookies (rosettes), but I don’t have a cookie press, nor do I expect you to have one, so I simply roll the dough into balls, flatten them slightly, and press the cherry in the middle.  They still taste good and that’s all that really matters with us.

Almond-Cherry Rosettes – makes about 2½ dozen

½ cup sugar

½ cup powdered sugar

½ cup flour

⅛ teaspoon salt

1 can (8 ounces) almond paste

2 egg whites

Candied cheery halves or maraschino cherries, halved

Preheat oven to 300°.  Prepare baking sheets.

Sift together both sugars, flour, and salt and set aside.  Break the almond paste up into small pieces using a fork.  Put into a mixing bowl and add egg whites.  Use an electric mixer to beat until smooth (2-4 minutes).  Mix in flour mixture.  If the dough is too sticky, add more flour, 1 tablespoon at a time (you may add as much as an additional ¼ of a cup). 

Roll the dough into small balls, about 1.5 inches wide.  Lightly press the cookies down with your fingers.  Top with a cherry half.  Bake for 20-25 minutes or until light brown.  

Photo Credit

This post is linked to Tasty Tuesday.

Weekly Wanderings

Weekly Wanderings

Everything You Can –Am I doing everything I can when God asks something of me?  Probably not.  A reminder of what Mary and Joseph did what they could when God asked.

Library Poetry – for all the students and academic librarians out there, you’ll appreciate this.

Why Leaders Exist – “Leaders exist to create a shift in reality”.  I thought this line and this post was particularly interesting.  We could all work a little more on our leadership skills and this is a good place to start.

You Are Not Alone – I have shared before about my ongoing battle with depression, so whenever I spot a post about depression from familiar blogger, I jump at the chance to read it.  Tamara is one of favorite (if not my favorite) Christian bloggers and reading this guest post she wrote is wonderful. 

Oatmeal, Cranberry, and Chocolate Chunk Cookies – I watched Giada make these on her show, I thought they sounded so delicious that I had to share them!  I’m adding them to my cookie list (which never seems to stop growing).  I think they would also be delicious with white chocolate. 

My Guide to Job Hunting: Get Organized

As I mentioned before, I'm so sorry to ignore any readers who have come here looking for advice and sympathies on being an unemployed librarian.  So I’ve prepared a series of posts to help guide you down your path of library job hunting. If you missed part one, you can find it here.

Get organized

I can be very organized and compulsive when it comes to certain areas of my life, and job hunting was definitely one of them.  I work better with a set schedule, to-do list, and deadline so I set up the process described above to suit my personal needs.  Obviously, most of you aren’t as obsessive as I am, so you’ll want to set your schedule up to suit your needs. 

I established three ways of keeping track of the paperwork job hunting generates.  The first was a job hunting binder to help me keep track of all the job postings I came across.  I used a 2 inch three ring binder and 4 dividers, labeled according to job type: academic, public, special, applied for.  I printed off every posting I found that I thought I might possibly apply for (I know, a huge waste of paper, but necessary for me), and wrote the application date on it.  I then highlighted the date according to priority (immediate, open until filled) and arranged them in the binder in the correct category, according to their priority level.  After I applied for the job, I wrote the date I applied at the top and stored it in the last section “applied for”, organized by date.  When I followed up on the a job or heard back from the job in any way, I also marked that on the job description. 

The second way I stayed organized was by establishing a flash drive just for job hunting purposes.  I only stored job-related documents on the drive.  That way I could carry it around and use it on different computers without having to email myself all sorts of documents.  On that drive is the cover letter for every job I applied to, and probably 5 or 6 different versions of my resume (another post coming soon to explain why I think you need multiple versions of your resume).  I saved all working files as word documents and finished documents (ones that had been attached to a job application) in a PDF.  Now, I’m a little obsessed with folders on a drive so I had folders that mimicked the sections in my binder.  I found that helpful because when I was following up or needed to reference something, I could easily locate the correct cover letter/resume.  I know a lot of people don’t save all their cover letters and may find this excessive, but again, this is what worked for me and kept me sane through all of this.

The third and last way I maintained organization was an Excel spreadsheet.  I know next to nothing about Excel, but I am capable of setting up a simple spreadsheet to help me keep track of all the jobs I applied to.  I liked to think of the binder as way to keep track of all the job postings for jobs I wanted to apply for and the spreadsheet to keep track of all the jobs I applied for.  My headings were simple and included things like the name of the institution, what sort of place it was (public, academic, special), where the job was, what kind of librarian they were looking for, the date of the application deadline AND the date I applied, whether it was an electronic application, an email application, or a print and mail one, if I had followed up, the date of the follow up, if I had received any correspondence from the library and what kind, and if I received a phone or in-person interview.  Obviously, this was a huge spreadsheet, so I never printed it out, but I used it to keep track of how my job application was progressing.

Coming Monday: Diversify Your Sources

How do you stay organized in your job hunting?  Is my method to OCD for you? :)

12 Days of Christmas Cookies - Brown Butter and Jam Cookies

A few years ago, Food Network’s 12 Days of Cookies highlighted cookies from around the world.  Many of the cookies were familiar to me, but I had never heard of a cookie like this.  I made them the Christmas I found the recipe, and I’ve made them every holiday since.  I don’t make many jam or filled cookies, so I find that these are a nice change from chocolate and super sweet cookies. 

I’ve made some changes to the original recipe, including the shape, which makes the original name of the cookie, Lusikkaleivat or “spoon cookies”, irrelevant.  Here is the original recipe and how make spoon-shaped cookies.

Brown Butter and Jam Cookies – makes about 36 cookies or 18 sandwiches

2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter

2 cups flour

¾ teaspoon baking powder

⅛ teaspoon salt

¾ cup sugar

1 egg yolk

1 tablespoon vanilla

¼ cup jam of your choice (I like raspberry, black raspberry, or blackberry)

Powdered sugar, for dusting

Preheat oven to 325°.  Prepare baking sheets with parchment paper, silicone mats, or greased aluminum foil.

Melt butter in a small saucepan over medium heat.  Cook for 15-20 minutes, or until lightly browned and it smells slightly nutty.  Swirl the pan during the cooking to keep the butter from burning.  Watch the butter carefully, because butter goes from delicious browned to burnt very quickly.  Remove brown butter from heat and pour into a medium bowl.  Allow to cool for 10-15 minutes.

Wisk egg yolk, sugar, and vanilla into cooled brown butter.  Stir together flour, baking powder, and salt in a separate small bowl.  Gradually whisk dry ingredients into butter mixture.  Stir until dough looks like wet sand. 

Roll a small amount of dough into a ball that is slightly smaller than a gumball.  Arrange cookie balls on prepared pans and flatten lightly with your fingers.  Repeat with remaining dough.  Try to make an equal amount of cookies, as you will sandwich these together. 

Bake cookies until very light brown, 12-15 minutes.  Cool 5 minutes on pan and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. 

When cookies are cool, spread about ½ teaspoon of jam onto one side of half the cookies.  Sandwich together with another cookie.  Dust powdered sugar over tops, if desired.

Photo Credit

My Guide to Job Hunting: Treat Job Hunting Like Your Job

As I mentioned before, I'm so sorry to ignore any readers who have come here looking for advice and sympathies on being an unemployed librarian.  So I’ve prepared a series of posts to help guide you down your path of library job hunting. 

Even before my 5 month stint as an unemployed librarian, I was a serious job hunter.  I started job hunting the September before I graduated library school in December.  So I easily clocked in at 8 months of serious job hunting before I lucked out with my current job.  Thus, I consider myself fairly experienced in the realm of library job hunting.  I am by no means an expert, so this serves as a disclaimer that what worked for me may not work for you.  But I hope it at least helps. 

Somewhere along the line (sometime before graduation) I developed a daily routine or a process for job hunting.  I had several mentors in library school, ranging from professors to practicing librarians to the director of my program, and all of them provided me with job hunting advice and taught me great skills.  I sort of meshed all these skills together and created my own process/routine/guideline/whatever you want to call it.  There are five parts in my process, and beginning today, I will share this guide with you.

Treat job hunting like your job

One of the best pieces of advice I ever got before library school graduation was treat job hunting like a job.  What my awesome mentor meant by that was you should set aside time every day to job hunt; create a work-like environment (see “get organized” below) and sit down and do nothing but job hunt.  Go somewhere else other than your home if you need to further that “going to work” mentality.  Don’t answer the phone, surf the internet, check facebook, or do any of those unproductive things that limit how much we actually get done.  You should devote several hours each day where you do nothing but look for jobs, apply for jobs, and work on your resume(s) and cover letters.

I had a routine during my unemployment.  After breakfast, I would get dressed (because I don’t know about you, but I’m not very productive when I’m in my pajamas) and do the usually morning piddling on the internet (blogging, facebooking, email checking).  After that I would set a time limit (usually two hours) where I job hunted.  I made myself to apply for at least four jobs every day.  If I ran out of jobs to apply for, I worked on my resume, emailed potential contacts or followed up on previous applications, and continued to look for more jobs.  If I didn’t finish all 4 applications in the two hours, then I would go back later in the day and finish them up. 

Clearly this takes discipline and motivation, but if you think of job hunting as your only job until you find a real one, I find the motivation isn’t too hard to come by.

Coming tomorrow: Get Organized

What do you think about this?  Do you have a routine that helps you stay focused on job hunting?

It’s Time to Ask the Readers!

The other day I was checking my stats (I have a love/hate relationship with mine) and looked to see what keywords people were using to find my blog on search engines. It surprised me that the number one key word search that brings people to this blog is "unemployed librarian".

Honestly, that shouldn't surprise me because this blog was originally entitled The Adventures of an Unemployed Librarian and the URL still reflects that. But sometimes I forget (and/or get caught up in other things) about all the unemployed librarians out there. So I apologize! But never fear, I will try not to neglect you again.

I have shared a few things fairly recently about job hunting and the state of the library economy (you can find those here and here). You can also read more about those topics and my personal experiences in the "Job Hunting" category. But it's been a while since I've given any real advice.

I have a post planned for later today on my personal process for job hunting, but what I really want is your opinion. As far as job hunting goes, what would you like to read about? Resume tips? Interview skills? Life as a full time librarian? (If you are interested in the latter, you can check out my posts about medical librarianship at Closed Stacks.)

What can I write about to help you/ease your fears/convince you stay in the profession?

Let me know in the comments or send me an email (lizy1285 {at} gmail {dot} com). I will also be asking this question several times on Twitter tomorrow so, if you don't already, follow @LibrarianLizy and answer there.