by Jennifer Crutchfield, Head Editor, INALJ Connecticut

Resume Building While Searching for a Job

Building your resume doesn’t have to be put aside because you can’t find a job at the moment. Use your free time wisely and refine your skills as an information professional. Here are a few tips that I have found helpful in my resume building:

Volunteer. You can’t go wrong with volunteering. You gain experience and your institution gets assistance. A great aspect about volunteering is that you can pretty much pick your dream place to work and most likely they will be looking for volunteers.

Join a professional association. Some associations can be expensive. If you’re on a budget, try one professional organization that you are really interested in. You can always switch organizations after a year if you would like to try others. The meetings these associations have are great for networking and the get a feel for the profession.

Get creative and develop your own projects! For example, if you’re interested in being an Archivist, get your old family photos or videos together and create a collection. I did this with my family videos by digitizing and editing old VHS tapes. If you’re interested in the technology side of librarianship try creating your own website for whatever interests you. Whatever you’re passionate about, you can always think of a project that will impress potential employers.