Articles

Job Hunting Over the Holidays

by Emily Guier, Head Editor, INALJ Wyoming

Job Hunting Over the Holidays

emily.guierIt seems like job postings have really slowed down over the past few weeks, at least in Wyoming. I would expect hiring takes a backseat during this busy season, which can be difficult for job seekers. Rather than becoming disheartened in one’s search, I think the next few weeks can be valuable for evaluating job hunting tactics and goals. Here are some tips and tricks to get through the holiday season and land a great new job in the new year:
1) Reflect on your job hunt. Take some time to think about your job hunt so far. How long have you been applying? How many places have you applied? How many interviews have you completed? Taking a moment to reflect on what you’ve done up to this point can help you refocus your hunt. Maybe it’s time to broaden your search or reach out to contacts you may not have utilized yet. Consider what has been successful and what areas you can improve in. Maybe you’re a great interviewer, but haven’t been so good on following  up with places you’ve applied to.
2) Make and keep New Year’s resolutions today. Once you’ve had a chance to reflect on your job hunt, it’s time to set some goals that you can implement right away, or revisit goals you’ve already set in your hunt. In this step, I think it’s important to set some bigger goals with tangible steps to make the goal a reality. For example, I want to have a job offer by February and in order to do this, I need to apply to x amount of places per week. Just remember that they’re called New Year’s resolutions, but you don’t have to wait until January 1st to make them happen.
3) Find a community to keep you motivated. Job hunting can be a lonely endeavor, and it’s easy to get off track when you’re only accountable to yourself. If possible, reach out to friends or colleagues who may also be in the midst of a job search. A network of other people can help you with applications, interviews, and general motivation.
The holiday season can certainly be tricky for looking for jobs, but it can also be a chance for a fresh start. Be sure to use the momentum of the New Year, and happy hunting!

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. 

Tags:

  1 comment for “Job Hunting Over the Holidays”

Comments are closed.