HR and Honesty

by Sarah Porter, Head Editor, INALJ California

HR and Honesty

bio_meI just finished listening to the irreverently funny chapter about working in Human Resources in the audiobook “Let’s Pretend This Never Happened” by the Bloggess, Jenny Lawson. While I do not share the same sort of interesting stories that Jenny gathered from working over a decade in Human Resources, I had a brief temp job in the HR department of a large company, and where I had the opportunity to see and participate in the hiring process behind-the-scenes. What shocked me the most on the job is it seemed as if they had created a five-second rule for looking over each application and resume. Resumes that I assume applicants invested countless hours of work in and filled with a lifetime of experiences, were thrown into the “no” pile for trivial reasons, such as the font was too big, or the reviewer did not like the school that the applicant attended, and so on.

It’s a tough job market out there, especially for future librarians. I am sure that thousands of perfectly adequate resumes are being thrown into the “no” pile with barely a consideration, and not just for trivial reasons, but because they do not stand out from the crowd. I assume this because I was part of the crowd, with a perfectly adequate resume. At times, I have felt discouraged by not hearing back from libraries. Instead of giving up, I continue to look for ways to gain more relevant experience and improve my resume and cover letters. Last year, I used the ALA (American Library Association) NMRT (New Member Round Table) free Resume Review Service. After receiving somewhat brutally honest (but necessary) feedback, I found out that my efforts in resume and cover letter writing did not set me out from the crowd. The best advice that I received is to show enthusiasm for the position, and tailor each cover letter and resume for the specific position you are applying for.

If your cover letter and resume are not getting attention, I recommend asking for feedback from a trusted friend, mentor, professor, librarian, or anyone you trust to critique your work. Constructive criticism is not always pleasant to hear, but getting outside of your comfort zone is necessary for growth.

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Naomi House

Naomi House, MLIS, is the founder and publisher of the popular webzine and jobs list INALJ.com (formerly I Need a Library Job) and former CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) of T160K.org, a crowdfunding platform focused on African patrimony, heritage and cultural projects. INALJ was founded in October 2010 with the assistance of her fellow Rutgers classmate, Elizabeth Leonard. Its social media presence has grown to include Facebook (retired in 2016), Twitter and a LinkedIn group, in addition to the interviews, articles and jobs found on INALJ. INALJ has had over 21 Million page hits and helped many, many thousands of librarians find employment! Through grassroots marketing, word of mouth and a real focus on exploring unconventional resources for job leads, INALJ grew from a subscription base of 20 friends to a website with over 500,000 visits in one month. Naomi believes that well-sourced quantity is quality in this narrow job market and INALJ reflects this with many new jobs published daily. She has also written for the 2011, 2012 and 2013 LexisNexis Government Info Pro and many other publications in the past decade. She presents whenever she can, including serving on three panels at the American Library Association's Annual Conference in Las Vegas; as breakout presenter at OCLC EMEA in Cape Town, South Africa; as a keynote speaker at the Virginia Library Association annual meeting; at the National Press Club in Washington DC; McGill University in Montreal, Canada; the University of the Emirates, Dubai, MLIS program and the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Naomi was a Reference, Marketing and Acquisitions Librarian for a contractor at a federal library outside Washington, DC, and has been living and working in Budapest, Hungary and Western New York State. She spent years running her husband’s moving labor website, fixed and sold old houses and assisted her husband cooking delicious Pakistani food. She is preparing to re-enter the workforce and is job hunting. Her husband is now the co-editor of INALJ, a true support!  She has heard of spare time but hasn’t encountered it lately. She pronounces INALJ as eye-na-elle-jay. 

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