ALA NMRT can help you find a job and succeed in your career

by Holly Boyer, Senior Editor, INALJ

ALA NMRT can help you find a job and succeed in your career

holly boyerThe American Library Association New Members Round Table wants you to succeed. They want you to be successful so much, they’re willing, able, and really excited to help you along the way. How, you ask? By offering a variety of services and opportunities.

Full disclosure: I am a very enthusiastic NMRT Member and the current chair of the Membership Promotion, Diversity, and Recruitment Committee. However, this post is not an official NMRT MPDR communication.

  • First, NMRT offers a free resume review service to its members. Yes, a free resume review service by actual professionals in your field. This is worth its weight in gold, books, Dr. Who memorabilia, or whatever it is you fancy. They also offer an in-person review at the ALA Annual and Midwinter conferences. There are also other great job hunting resources on that page, including interview advice, resume resources, and academic library interview process.
  • Second, you know how all those sweet academic librarian positions (among others) require some kind of professional service? NMRT has got your back. As a member you are guaranteed a position on a committee if you apply. You get committee experience in a national professional organization, which is definitely worth its weight in yarn.
  • As some of you may know, I love to socialize and meet new people, aka networking. NMRT offers fantastic networking opportunities at both the ALA Midwinter and Annual meetings. At Annual they hold a Student Reception and an Awards Reception. The Midwinter Social is a fun opportunity to meet other NMRT members and possibly, shortly after meeting them, invite yourself along to whatever other event they may be going to. (Yes, I did actually do this, and again, full disclosure, I was on the Midwinter Social Committee in 2013-14.)

 

If the previous weren’t enough, NMRT also offers a Mentoring Program for either conference or career mentoring. The conference mentor will help you navigate through the often overwhelming first time conference experience. (They also usually host an orientation session at both conferences for the same reason.) Career mentoring connects members new to the profession with experienced professionals for guidance and support in developing their careers.

Lastly, have you wanted/needed to publish a scholarly article but find it difficult as a newbie to the profession? NMRT annually publishes Endnotes: The Journal of the New Members Round Table, a peer-review journal which included 2-4 scholarly articles written by NMRT members.

If you’d like to know more about NMRT and how to join, there’s more information here. If you’re already a member, let us know why you joined or why you remain a member in the comments or tweet @INALJNaomi and @hollyanneboyer. We’d also love to hear how your other professional memberships help you in your career – let us know what we’re missing.

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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