I bring fantastic news! I, the “sweet librarian”, am officially a REAL LIBRARIAN! I go in to fill out paperwork and make it official tomorrow afternoon, start on Monday, and I know I’ll have a lot more material for blog posts in the near future, what with the ability to draw from real-world experiences. I do have a few thoughts today for job seekers, now that my search has paid off.

One, automate your search. I wrote about this in my very first blog post and it was very helpful to me – I created queries on Indeed, Simply Hired, LibGig Jobs, OLC Jobline, and ALA JobLIST, then found the RSS feeds for them and put them in Google Reader (you can also have them sent to your email). That way, I never missed a posting.

Two, and more importantly, check the employment pages on library websites – this is where you find the unadvertised jobs with (most likely) smaller applicant pools. I made a hyperlinked list of 43 academic and public libraries in the Akron area, I checked them all about once a week, and that’s how I found the posting for the job I’m about to start.

Three, don’t ever give up. It took me two years and 40 applications, I was called to five interviews, but in all that paperwork and perspiration I found the right job posting and was called to the interview that ultimately lead to a job offer. Don’t get discouraged and don’t stop looking – there are plenty of job seekers and not many jobs, which makes it doubly hard for a new graduate to get their foot in the door, competing with experienced librarians, but each application and interview is a learning experience that will prepare you for the one that will lead you ino a career.