NextGen: Are You Experienced?

Once, while speaking in an introductory class at library school, a student expressed her concerns about finding a job after graduation, since she did not have experience in libraries. That gave me an excellent opportunity to reflect on my own career path. I recall sitting in classrooms and learning that the majority of my classmates already worked in libraries. Many, in fact, had come to graduate school in order to get promoted, which worried those of us without such experience.

Many of us come to the profession after working a series of odd jobs or with years of dedication to another vocation. While it can be difficult to figure out how best to present that previous experience when applying for a first (or second) professional librarian position, never underestimate your nonlibrary experience! If you focus on the similarities rather than the differences, you may even discover that you have been preparing for a career in librarianship all along.

As an undergraduate at the University of California at Berkeley, I worked as a cashier at a newsstand/tobacco shop across the street from the school. The shop was less than a block from the busy intersection of Telegraph and Bancroft, an area that should be included on a list of top destinations for people-watching. Here I observed elite professors, up-and-coming academics, hippies, young students, confused souls, performance artists, street musicians, nudists, sorority girls, protesters, the rich, the poor, families, and tourists, many of whom would wander into my workplace to purchase their favorite magazine or cigar and in the process teach me the important skill of how to serve an incredibly diverse clientele.

I went on to work as an academic counselor and later as a vocational rehabilitation counselor. My “training” for a future career in librarianship continued. The mark of a good counselor, I learned, is knowing how to take complicated information and make it accessible and easier to understand. Does this sound familiar?

For me, working as a cashier and later as a counselor was literally “on-the-job training” for the library field. As a counselor, for example, I interacted with groups and individuals, sometimes in stressful situations, and gave presentations to classes and others who ranged from kind and interested to indifferent and hostile. This trained me well for providing bibliographic instruction to undergraduates. My countless hours of one-on-one interactions, meanwhile, turned out to be excellent training for reference work.

Many counselors also conduct research involving reference materials and government publications. One firm I worked for housed a small library and permitted counselors to select and purchase materials, as well as write content summaries and assign subject headings for records in the internal library catalog.

After library school, a librarian once recommended that I remove my years of counseling from my curriculum vitae, saying it did not apply. Fortunately, other librarians gave me the opposite advice: there is no reason to discredit nonlibrary experience.

During the interview process, think creatively and point out the transferability of your previous career experience. Instead of beginning an answer to a question with, “I have no experience with reference work, but...,” answer with, “working as a [blank] has provided me with many skills related to reference work....”

Make a list with the functions of your prior work that relate to the duties of a librarian. The U.S. Department of Labor's Dictionary of Occupational Titles (1991) states that a “Buyer,” for example “coordinates activities involved with procuring goods and services, such as raw materials, equipment, tools, parts, supplies, and advertising, for establishment...confers with vendors to obtain product or service information...negotiates contracts within budgetary limitations and scope of authority.” A “Recreation Supervisor” develops and promotes “programs, including music, dance arts and crafts, cultural arts, [and] nature study.” Clearly, these are much the same skills needed in libraries.

Of course, it can be hard to compare your experience to the work of a librarian if you cannot visualize yourself in that new role. If possible, complete an internship, even a short one. Not only will it help highlight similar functions among your past, current, and future work, it can provide an added boost of confidence in the interview process.

The knowledge you gain from library school and from working in a library is, of course, extremely significant. Regardless, keep in mind that a lack of library experience never diminishes the important skills you have gained in your nonlibrary jobs.