[Publib] Receiving "Cold" Resumes?

[James Casey]

Meg:

I don't mind getting unsolicited resumes from librarians, but if there are no current openings, the documents may sit in a box for months or years.  In many respects, the cover letter addressing an applicant's interest in a specific, advertised position is among the key elements to a successful application.  I ask myself what she/he has to say about the specific job and how well that letter is written before giving careful scrutiny to the resume itself.  Some of the miscellaneous cover letters I have received with "Greetings" and "To whom it may concern" followed by bland offerings of services haven't inspired much attention.

Instead of carpet bombing libraries with unsolicited resumes and generic cover letters, I would urge that you spend your time before graduating from Simmons in 2009 by establishing a "presence" on the web 2.0 world.  Do you have an entry in Facebook?  Do you have a personal blog or website with your vita and professional activities noted?  I would expect that you will encounter such information at Simmons or with such basic learning sites as http://learning2slnsw.blogspot.com/
where you will be given tips on how to create your own blog, become active in Facebook networking and on discussion lists among colleagues who are actively in the field discussing issues. Your present query to PUBLIB is a good start.

That being said, I should confess that I did commence job searches back in 1973 as I was planning to graduate from SUNY Geneseo with an MLS with a blitz of resume's and cover letters to many dozens of libraries. One of them did finally land be a job at Cleveland Public Library.  Desperate as I was for a job, I was willing to go anywhere.  If you have a narrow preference in terms of location, your search may take some time.  If you are willing to relocate and go where you are needed/wanted, it probably won't take so long.  But in this day and age, a web presence is probably essential to success on the job hunt.

James B. Casey --- My own views
Director of Oak Lawn Public Library
ALA Council Member



-----Original Message-----
From: publib-bounces at webjunction.org [mailto:publib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of firefly56 at comcast.net
Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2008 1:06 PM
To: publib at webjunction.org
Subject: [Publib] Receiving "Cold" Resumes?

Good day, all!

This post is mainly for the folks that do hiring/firing (HR, Directors, etc.)

I am a GSLIS student (Simmons College, Boston MA) and am starting to think about
my upcoming job search (half way through the program, yeah!).  I do NOT want to
get into the discussion of if there are jobs or not (I am operating under the
assumption that there are jobs and I will be hired for one of them). I was
wondering how everyone that does hiring feels about getting "cold" (read
unsolicited) resumes in the mail.  Do you automatically ditch them?  Keep them
on file if they look promising even if you don't have any openings at the
moment?  I DON'T want to commit any librarian faux paux (I hope I spelled that
correctly). However, I have always believed that if one wants to work at a
certain company, and your resume is stellar, it is a good idea to send it, so
that it is on file and access able when there is an opening.

There are certain libraries that I would love to work at, and would be willing
to wait for a job to open up.  I would send my resume in a heart beat if it
meant I was
considered.  But if sending my resume "cold"  meant I would nix my chances I
would wait until a formal job announcement was made.

Thoughts anyone?

Thanks!

Meg Aust-Anastasi
GSLIS Simmons College May '09
margaret.austanastasi at simmons.edu


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