Thirty before 30: #9
by Jacquelyn
You honestly have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to write this. Nearly two years but now the time has come for me to announce starting this upcoming Monday I will be going to work as an Information Services Librarian at the main public library here in my hometown. I went for the interview about three weeks ago and yesterday I got the call from HR that my background and drug test came back favorable ( I knew it would…unless I was hiding a second life from myself…which I don’t think I am). So I can officially cross out #9, Obtain a full-time professional job in the library field, from my Thirty before 30 list. Excitement!
When I saw this job posted on a couple of listserve I wasn’t sure I was going to apply. I was on the fence for a couple of days. In that week alone I had received at least three different rejection letters for positions I had applied to months ago. And I had just had a conversation with another librarian who worked in NC, who kind of re-confirmed some of the things I heard back in the spring. That obtaining a LIS job here in NC was particularly hard because we have a number of MLIS programs in the state. I think of the people I talked to said that they had done 1-2 years of hardcore job searching before they landed their first LIS job in NC. So I wasn’t really thinking my prospects were that good. I wasn’t limiting myself to only applying to NC but I can’t say I didn’t get a bit excited for every job that came up here in NC. Although there weren’t many. I’ve lived here my entire life and my family is here, so I had some feelings about leaving all that behind.
I guess if I have any advice for any job searcher out there, especially in the LIS field it would have to be listen to the advice of others but don’t hold them as gospel. Every situation is going to be different so what worked for me might not work for others. And vice versa. This job is everything I wanted to be doing as my first job but in a different venue than what I thought I wanted. If you live in a place that has a large number of qualified people for your field, don’t automatically write off being able to stay in the area. Just know that you are going to be up against a lot of people and make sure you stand out. I have no doubt that my internships and work experience helped a lot in both this job and the part-time one at HPU (not that there is no real proof in the correlation, but a good number of those who I talked to who searched for jobs in NC that took almost 2 years to get one, did not have earlier work experience in a library, and once they started volunteering after graduation they got more positive responses).
When I was contacted for an interview I was really excited, but not as excited as when they offered me the job. As of now I still plan on keeping the part-time job at HPU. I think since I’ve always traveled that world of both public and academic libraries I’ll enjoy working in both places at the same time. My first boss at Jackson did the same thing for years, worked in an academic library and had a part-time job at a public one.
I can’t wait to start chronicling my experience as an Information Services Librarian.
Congratulations! You’re amazing and I’m so glad that companies are beginning to see that!
Oh my thank you Amanda! I’m so excited to start this journey!
Again congratulation! This post is inspiring. I need a part time job and I really had not considered getting one at a public library. Hopefully, One will come available soon. Thanks for sharing your experience.
Thank you Ingrid! It’s interesting to see both academic and public they are so similar but yet you have such different experiences.