{"id":79953,"date":"2014-08-25T12:00:13","date_gmt":"2014-08-25T17:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=79953"},"modified":"2014-08-25T09:50:26","modified_gmt":"2014-08-25T14:50:26","slug":"getting-your-foot-in-the-door","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=79953","title":{"rendered":"Getting Your Foot in the Door"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Rebecca Tischler, Senior Editor, INALJ North Carolina<\/a>, North Dakota<\/a>, Ohio<\/a>, Oklahoma<\/a>, Oregon<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Getting Your Foot in the Door<\/span><\/h3>\n

\"rebeccatischler\"<\/a>At a library that I previously worked at, I started as a part-time assistant. I was really excited to\u00a0get that job because I had been told that once I got my foot in the door, I would be able to work my way\u00a0up to other jobs when they became available (1. I would be gaining experience, and 2. libraries do a lot\u00a0of hiring from within, or so I was told).<\/p>\n

After I had gained some experience there, I started keeping watch for full-time openings. I was\u00a0aware of how rare they were and that there would probably be a lot of competition, so I always had a\u00a0resume and an application ready to send in. I applied for many full time positions, some in my\u00a0department as well as in other departments, but I was never able to break out of my part-time job. I\u00a0seemed to be stuck in my position, and while I kept getting interviews none of the departments seemed\u00a0interested in hiring me, and I started worrying that even though I wasn’t going to be fired, I would never\u00a0be able to break out of that foot in the door job.<\/p>\n

I finally made the decision to stop focusing solely on internal jobs and started to apply for\u00a0positions at other libraries. Not long after I made that decision, I got some interviews and I was offered\u00a0a full time librarian position at another library! Not as an assistant or clerk, but an actual librarian\u00a0position! Apparently, or so I thought at the time, this was the way to get jobs in the library world and I\u00a0should have been applying at other libraries all along.<\/p>\n

I was at the full time job for awhile when one of the branch managers decided to retire (this was\u00a0the first full-time position to come available since I had been hired). I kept waiting for them to post the\u00a0job on the website so I could send the link to the INALJ.com boards, but it never showed up. Then I\u00a0heard that the head of the YA department had been promoted to branch manager! And then one of the\u00a0reference librarians became the new YA librarian, and the full-time assistant became the new reference\u00a0librarian and then a part-time assistant became the full-time and then a brand new part-time assistant\u00a0was hired! I felt like I was watching a game of dominoes. And then I started to wonder how in the\u00a0world I, someone who had been completely outside of the library system at the time, had gotten my\u00a0current position if there was so much shifting WITHIN libraries, like I had originally been told.<\/p>\n

I finally realized that applying for jobs really is all about fit. In my part-time assistant job, I\u00a0couldn’t seem to move on from that position, but I also never really fit in at that library either. I had\u00a0different ideas, and a different vision for libraries than they had for themselves, and they weren’t\u00a0interested in my weird ideas. My ideas were just too different from the direction they wanted to go.\u00a0But the new library was apparently looking for something they didn’t already have, and they saw that\u00a0something in my application. It matched with their plan and their direction and so they hired me\u00a0because they saw me heading in the same direction. And I do fit. I can contribute, and I learn from the\u00a0people around me as well as share what I know and they are interested in exploring my ideas, even if\u00a0they don’t always think they’re feasible in the end.<\/p>\n

So while it is an extremely good idea to apply to internal positions, if you’re not getting any of\u00a0those positions, and you have a desire to move on from your current job, apply to other libraries. You\u00a0need to find a library system that shares a vision (or at least a direction), and once you do, you’re a lot\u00a0more likely to be hired.<\/p>\n

What I finally learned was, yes, once you get that foot in the door, you will be able to move up,\u00a0but just maybe it’ll be somewhere else. Apply at libraries where you feel like you belong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Rebecca Tischler, Senior Editor, INALJ North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon Getting Your Foot in the Door At a library that I previously worked at, I started as a part-time assistant. I was really excited to\u00a0get that job because I had been told that once I got my foot in the door, I…<\/p>\n

Read more \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":67857,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[145],"tags":[69,3592,6143,4770,5162,6470,3627,3662,3642,3634,3601,6146,5837],"class_list":["post-79953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-article","tag-blog","tag-career-advancement","tag-career-advice","tag-career-ladder","tag-getting-your-foot-in-the-door","tag-inalj-north-carolina","tag-inalj-north-dakota","tag-inalj-ohio","tag-inalj-oklahoma","tag-inalj-oregon","tag-ladder","tag-rebecca-tischler"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/rebeccatischler.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1WoMK-kNz","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=79953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79953\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/67857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=79953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=79953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=79953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}