Tag Archives: libraries

Home for the holidays: Make time for a little job hunt amid mistletoe

Posted on by
1

Anyone heading home for the holidays may want to plan now for a “one day job hunt” during the visit.  And if you’re visiting family or friends in Dallas, Denver or Detroit, detour from the home fires to develop your professional network amid the holiday festivities.

I started considering the one-day job hunt a few years ago when I visited San Francisco on a long weekend, and spent a few hours meeting a couple of editors. Though I don’t write for any of them, I cultivated a positive relationship with those visits – and still hope that someday MarketWatch will want my career column.

More recently, a member of the D.C. Web Women social list asked how to search while visiting a city for business. I shared a few ideas, and began thinking about how valuable it is to mix business and pleasure over Christmas – or Passover, Diwali, homecoming or any other trip home.  It’s the kind of activity that could be especially valuable if you have aging relatives who may someday need your care and presence.

The holidays create a feeling of goodwill, as well as some slower work days (so expect many of the people you’d like to see may be off seeing their family or replenishing their energies for 2011).

Here’s seven tips for a one-day job hunt on your next trip home:

  1. Ask Aunt Sue or cousin Juan to name a few well-connected people who they know. Find out where they work and what kind of professional network they have. Then schedule a chat with one of them, explaining your interest in finding a job and returning to their fair city.
  2. Identify three major employers in the region you’re visiting, and see if you or your family know someone there. They may be members of your college sorority, part of a LinkedIn group, a family friend or even an in-law. Connect with them – and be clear you’re eager to return home once you find the right job at a great employer.
  3. Set up an “informational interview” with a manager at one of those employers.
  4. If you’re active in Rotary, Toastmasters, Couchsurfing or some professional or social group, go to one of their meetings. If that’s not possible, write the chapter president to arrange a coffee or breakfast during your visit.
  5. Return to your high school, church, synagogue, fairgrounds or other stomping grounds and say hello to former teachers, friends, members.
  6. Discover where the small business incubator and business development organizations are located and drop by to pick up nuggets on what organizations may be expanding and need to hire in coming months. Or spend two hours in the local library researching employers and talking to librarians and patrons about possibilities
  7. Job hunt when the rest of your family won’t miss you – early mornings or during a shopping trip that has plenty of participants. Don’t skip out on family activities like ice skating or a trip to the family homestead, now grown into a subdivision. Those may yield surprising leads or connections that could turn your old neighborhood into your next neighborhood.

Make sure you bring along copies of your resume along with the gifts for family, and at least one professional suit (with a festive holiday tie or pin) in case one of the chats yields an immediate opening. And once you leave, make  sure you send a thank you note or email of appreciation with everyone you connected with at home.

Share

So you want to be an author? Take a page from this writer and librarian

Posted on by
Reply

Shutta Crum grew up in the mountains of Kentucky,  “listening to tall tales long into the night” and storytelling took root in her life. She spent 25 years as a librarian,  most of it at the Ann Arbor District Library, organizing story times and choosing new books for children.  She’s taught high school English and developed articles on writing and teaching for professional journals.
Now she writes children’s and teen books from her farm outside Ann Arbor, with almost a dozen in print. Shutta’s books include Fox and Fluff, Who Took My Hairy Toe? and her new one Thomas and the Dragon Queen. She also writes poetry for adults.
So it’s not surprising that her advice and insights were stellar, varied and well grounded when we sat together on a panel called I’ve Been Published at the ArtsAlliance’s convention this week in Ypsilanti.
Start by heading to the library, she suggested, to see what other books or articles already have been published on your subject. Do your homework.   As a teacher and librarian and author, she’s started it for you – with abundance of advice and ideas for writers on her website.

From our panel and a discussion afterward, here are Shutta Crum’s five  tips for would-be authors and writers:
1. Everyone gets rejected.

Even amazing authors like Jan Yolen get rejection letters, she said. So get used to it. And keep going. Some though are  “champagne rejection,” in which the editor keeps open the door for future projects.

2. Submit to agents and publishers simultaneously.
“I sold my first seven books myself,” she said, then an agent took over and sold the next half dozen.  Remember that anyone can call themselves an agent so review her four page Comprehensive Checklist, available on her website, or look up the Science Fiction Writers of America’s editors and predators piece (LINK coming later).

3. Don’t tell anyone you’re writing a book.

And especially don’t tell them you’ve submitted it to publishers. They will keep asking you about it – and that can be discouraging. It can take a year or longer for a book to be published. Once it is, throw a huge party and invite all your friends. They’ll be amazed and thrilled and you won’t have had to answer the how is the book coming? question 179 times. This, she said, is her biggest tip.

4. Locate book subjects that aren’t already blanketed.

Find a niche that is not overflowing already. “If you fill a vacancy, you’ve got one foot in the door,” she said. Some topics are harder to find — like a great April Fool’s Day book for children that doesn’t hurt feelings. (For more of these, check out the Chase’s Calendar of Events at where else – your local library – she suggests.)

5. Never assume your writing is sacred.

If the publisher needs a boy hero, change the girl’s gender in your book. Make revisions; take suggestions.  An editor is “worth their weight in diamonds,” she said.

Shutta also talked honestly about the payoff of being a children’s author. She charges $850 for a day-long visit to a school, which includes four assemblies or classes. Her book advance, which started at $2,000 a decade ago,  has grown to more than $10,000. (The advance is against books sales; for an illustrated book, the author may receive barely $1 for each copy sold, she noted.)

Though her paydays may not reflect it, Shutta certainly seems like a diamond necklace of  insights for writers, and her ideas and encouragement shone bright.

Share

Curating and culling the ocean of career information

Posted on by
2

You feel bombarded with information, in every medium available. Facebook, LinkedIn, Brazen Careerist, email, Twitter and text messages all deliver insights, information and materials worth reading.
I feel that way too, which is one reason I wrote “Why You Need a Career Curator” for Fortune magazine.Most people need help with the oceans of blogs, websites, newsletters and books coming at them.
The article in the July 5 issue of Fortune has some great suggestions on managing all that, mostly by making better choices and using technology – Google Reader, bookmarks and more.  (The article is not yet available online but it is on newsstands.)
“You can’t digest that much informtion – the human brain can take in only so much information,” said Mary Ellen Slayter, a former Washington Post writer who now edits SmartBrief e-letters including Your Careers and Leadership.
Here’s five other suggestions for keeping the flow of information focused and usable:
1. Seek blogs and information specific to your industry, your profession. Even in career advice, you may find blogs focused on finance careers or writing careers or many other niches, Slayter said. Look too at the growing targeted social media communities – some focus on a profession, others on a city. Before you sign up for another RSS feed, blog or e-letter, ask yourself: “What value will this bring me?” and “Why do I need this now?”

2.  Look for ideas and insights backed up by research. Seek accuracy and currency and some research-based writing, says Cuyahoga County Public Librarian Bonnie Easton. Ask yourself: “Where is their authority? Where are they getting information from?”

3. Use lists and tags to track different topics. These work on Twitter, on Google Reader and even in your email in box. Once you have different tags and lists set up you need to decide how often to review them. Some may require 10 minutes a day; others may be once a week quick run-through.

4. Just say no. Go through your e-mail inbox and look for e-letters and other regular materials that you seldom or never open. Those are the first to go. Then consider which ones feel like a chore and don’t deliver any “aha!” or “good idea” boosts. Unsubscribe from one or more of those. And then look at what else comes in regularly that could come out without much loss.

5.  Develop places and processes for saving. The valuable articles and insights could be parked someplace for later reading – perhaps  Google Documents, a Word file or a section of your blogs. Or create a system within your organization for stashing and sharing the best stuff. “That gave me a place to go back and find them,” said Erin Young, a user experience consultant in Austin, Texas. Then she left the company – and now she uses GoogleDocs.
“Occasionally you find a gem, and it’s easy to lose that gem,” she said.
Remember that you too could be part of the overload and career information clutter if you’re not careful. So use Twitter thoughtfully. Post responses when you have something valuable to add to the discussion, not just so your name shows up. Blog posts need to “create a unique contribution,” Young said.

And above all, Young and I both believe it’s important to use social media sites such as LinkedIn to nurture your in-person relationships, not to drown them.

Share