Monday 14 November 2011

Thing 21 - Promoting yourself in job applications/interviews

It's been a long time since I dipped my toe in the job market, even within my current organization. Throughout this course, though, I've developed a growing awareness that I should be doing things like getting my CV up to date, even if I have no current plans to move on.
Whilst I may not have moved from my post, I know that my skills have moved on a lot since I last applied for a job, so I have to address this - an up to date CV 'bank' can be useful for personal development issues in general, to identify areas that I'm doing well in and those I need to work on a little more. This involves reviewing the work I have done and enjoyed, as this is probably where my skills are strongest.
When I look back at my work, and think about what I like to do, a few things stand out - I like best those projects which involve investigating and resolving a problem, and anything which involves codes, precision and logic! For example, I really loved working on the data conversion from our old LMS to the new one - researching and relentlessly logging detail, with the knowledge that it was the quality of this detail that would make the project a success, as well as thinking around the area to anticipate problems, therefore either avoiding them altogether, or already being on the way to solving them when they occurred. It was nice to have the feeling of presenting the converted data as a fait accompli to the system users; the large majority of data checking after the move didn't raise much that we didn't already know about.
I also like helping people, which sounds a little trite, but there is great feeling of satisfaction from showing people something they didn't know already which can really help them in the future. This applies to staff as well as library users - it's great to share knowledge to enable people to have the confidence to work more independently too. For me, I think that this can come from skills built up through long experience of working with MARC, AACR and an attention to detail that, e.g.,  makes me really want to 'know' a system rather than just being a basic user of it. I think that I have pretty good implementation skills - I like sorting out the nitty gritty from the strategic ideas and getting working on something that will have an outcome. I suppose if I have any dislikes, it is being held back from reaching this stage in a project.
This has definitely been a useful exercise. On the back of this task, I have started to create a new CV, which is still a work in progress, but a start at least! Finally - my interview tip - make sure you sit comfortably and don't freeze like a musical statue - I had a great interview once which was marred only by my standing to shake hands at the end followed by a John Cleese funny walk from the office as I tried to get my pins and needles filled foot to work again!

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