by Diana La Femina previously published 9/8/14 The Power of Introversion I’ve been reading Quiet Influence: The Introvert’s Guide to Making a Difference by Jennifer B. Kahnweiler. It’s an interesting, short book explaining how introverts can make the most of their innate strengths and translate these strengths into their careers. Kahnweiler discusses six main strengths: taking quiet time,…
by Diana La Femina, Senior Editor, INALJ Newfoundland and Labrador, Northwest Territories, New Brunswick, Manitoba, British Columbia, Alberta How to List Your Accomplishments In my last blog post I talked at length about what should go into your resume. Now, I want to discuss how to list accomplishments. You’ve heard it over and over again: you…
by Diana La Femina, Senior Editor, INALJ Newfoundland and Labrador, Northwest Territories, New Brunswick, Manitoba, British Columbia, Alberta The Anatomy of Your Resume A resume is a powerful tool. While your cover letter should be used to explain why you are the best person for this position, your resume should show who you are. It should…
by Diana La Femina, Senior Editor, INALJ Canada previously published 5/16/13 5 Right Questions for an Informational Interview I can’t remember how I first heard about informational interviews, but I now believe them to be one of the most powerful and underutilized tools in any professional’s repertoire. (And by “professional” I mean anyone who’s serious…
by Diana La Femina, Senior Editor, INALJ Newfoundland and Labrador, Northwest Territories, New Brunswick, Manitoba, British Columbia, Alberta Make Sure You Look the Part Appearance matters, whether you want it to or not. But it’s not so much how you look as it is how you present yourself. Anyone who knows me personally can tell you…
by Diana La Femina, Senior Editor, INALJ Newfoundland and Labrador, Northwest Territories, New Brunswick, Manitoba, British Columbia, Alberta Some Advice Across the Board: Job Hunting Advice for Everyone! I’ve been giving some advice to a job hunter in my life outside of librarianship, and I realized that a lot of the advice I’m giving him can…
by Diana La Femina, Head Editor, INALJ South Carolina How to Thrive After a Set-Back Sometimes things happen in your professional life that you have no control over. The secret is to think of how you can turn these events into opportunities. (Easier said than done, I know.) In my usual way, I’ll explain with an example from…
by Diana La Femina, Head Editor, INALJ South Carolina What to Include in Your Online Portfolio Ladies and gentlemen, I have been true to my word. Due to some interesting developments in my professional life it hasn’t been easy, but I’ve successfully gotten my online portfolio in order. I’ll be constantly updating it, of course, but at least…
by Diana La Femina, Head Editor, INALJ South Carolina Using Social Media to Get Yourself Out There I have a project I’m setting for myself during the next two months: I want to finally get my online portfolio together. I’ve been planning it out for a while but just haven’t had the time to get the…
by Diana La Femina, Head Editor, INALJ South Carolina February Resolutions New Year’s Resolutions are beautiful things. They’re full of hope and optimism. We make lofty goals and envision our success. And then February rolls around, and most people look back at their resolutions and see failure in one short month. Perhaps your resolution was…
by Diana La Femina, Head Editor, INALJ South Carolina Being Thankful This should probably have been November’s blog, but it still holds true. Actually, I think I may have already written about this, but even if I have it definitely needs to be repeated. If you’re like me (and most people, I assume) then it’s…
by Diana La Femina, Head Editor, INALJ South Carolina Your Biggest Weakness in 4 The point of an interview is to sell yourself. That should be the goal of every answer you give. You’re the best person for this position, the only choice, and this is why. But how do you answer the dreaded weakness…
by Diana La Femina, Head Editor, INALJ South Carolina The Comparison Trap I’ve written about finding your strengths, about tracking your accomplishments, and about taking risks and following through. I know some of these are rather generic and obvious, but sometimes it’s the obvious things that need to be brought into conversation or else we’ll…
by Diana La Femina, Head Editor, INALJ South Carolina Take a Risk and Follow Through Putting yourself out there is never a comfortable thing. However, wonderful things can happen when you take the risk. For example I’ve been searching for a volunteer position in New York City. You’d think this would be easy to find,…
by Diana La Femina, Head Editor, INALJ South Carolina Asking for the Support You Need Every month I need to write a blog post with advice to you, and every month I’m faced with the same problem: I don’t feel I’m qualified to be giving advice. Oh, I can tell cautionary tales (“don’t do what…
by Diana La Femina, Head Editor, INALJ South Carolina Discovering Your Strengths I’m being hard on myself again. I’m at a perfectly good job, with wonderful coworkers and an environment that’s anything but stale. Problem is, this isn’t where I had envisioned myself a few years ago (or even one year ago, or six months ago).…
by Diana La Femina, Head Editor, INALJ South Carolina Keeping Track of Your Accomplishments I’m learning a lot in my current administrative position, and not necessarily what I thought I’d be learning. It’s exhausting (I’m either traveling to or at work 14 hours out of the day) and I find the position really uncomfortable, but…
by Leigh Milligan, Head Editor, INALJ Pennsylvania and former Head Editor of INALJ Wisconsin Informational Interviewing: A Unique Way to Learn about Libraries and Network at the Same Time One technique in networking and job-hunting that I have been interested in as of late is informational interviewing. I read a blog post on INALJ last…
by Diana La Femina, Head Editor, INALJ South Carolina Non-Library Positions on Your Resume Let’s talk a bit about looking outside the field for job experience. I know as well as anyone else just how hard it can be to get a professional position without a good deal of experience first (it’s a Catch-22, and…
This interview is over 1 year old and may no longer be up to date or reflect the interviewee/interviewees’ positions All Jobs for INALJ can be found here: http://inalj.com/?p=1441 Updated daily Naomi House’s interview with success story Diana. Naomi: How did you find your current job? Diana: My best friend works at a large corporate…
by Diana La Femina, Head Editor, INALJ South Carolina The Art of Down Time Oofah, it’s been a busy month! My first INALJ blog post, Learn From My Mistakes, came out this morning. (Stay with me now, this is the segue.) I reread it to see how it came out and to get some inspiration…