 Welcome to the SJSU School of Information Career Colloquia Session on Real Jobs Remote Work. My name is Jane Fisher and I am the Manager of Career Initiatives and Resources. Thank you for joining us tonight. We were going to have four presenters with us tonight to share their experience on what it is like to work virtually and how to land a job in a virtual environment. But unfortunately, our first speaker, Tom Adimatch, was called to land a family emergency. Luckily, Deanne Fix is able to step in and cover Tom's presentation as well as her own. Our presenters are all high school alumni who work virtually first as interns and then transition to regular employment. So let's get started. Deanne, I'm handing it off to you. My name is Deanne and I am a San Jose State graduate. I graduated in May of 2014, so not too long ago. I survived at Eport, so it is possible. I am currently the Manager of Library and Information Services at Sandbrook Phoenix and Vongontar, which is a law firm in St. Louis. And I also work for my NetLibrary Services as an independent cataloging contractor. So I started as an intern there and now I work for them as a contracted employee. So I'm going to just talk a little bit first about virtual internships and jobs in general. You know, some of the good things, bad things, and how to land one. And then I'm also going to be giving Tom's presentation. He was going to go more into what the Mighty Net internship program looks like. So I am more than happy to present that also for him. Okay, some of the reasons to consider a virtual internship. One of the best things is that you can really work from anywhere. I am from St. Louis. I live here now and attended, you know, San Jose State Online, like all of you do. When I was looking for internships, though, I noticed that a lot of them, especially the in-person internships, were all based in California. And since moving to California, as much as I would love to do that, wasn't really an option. I started looking into more virtual opportunities. Also, a good thing was that it provides flexible hours for the most part, especially with Mighty Net. I was able to kind of work whenever. While I was in school, I was working as a bartender. So a lot of times I'd come home at two, three o'clock in the morning and get some work done. So that's really nice to have some flexible hours if that's, you know, something that's important to you. It also shows future employers that you're really motivated and that you can work with limited supervision, which I think is something that's a great skill to have. You know, employers that hire you, you know, they don't want to be looking over your shoulder constantly, nor do you want them to do that. So, you know, being able to complete successfully an internship virtually, you know, really shows that you can work within time frames. And also, you know, it teaches you time management skills as, you know, going to school and doing classes online also does. The other nice thing is it allows you to work with people from all over the country. Tom, one of my bosses, he is in North Carolina. Mighty Net is actually, it's in Wisconsin, the main building. And all of us contracted employees are kind of all over the country. So, you know, it really gives us a chance to kind of work with people that you wouldn't normally work with. And I haven't been able to attend any of them yet, but they have meetups at the ALA annual and the midwinter. So, it's nice to put, you know, face to everybody that you are in contact with strictly through email. It's also nice to, you know, you may be able to use some virtual communication tools that you may not be familiar with. So, it gives you a chance to learn some new technology which is always helpful, especially if, you know, you're going to work at maybe a corporate library or a law library or something like that that has multiple offices. You know, they may look for someone who has used, you know, their technology to cut down on training time. And it also gives you the idea of what a virtual career, you know, would really entail if that's something that you decide to pursue after your virtual internship. Instead of taking a virtual job, you know, and not having any kind of experience before that. So, it really gives you a chance to get your feet wet. Okay. Now, of course, there's always downsides to everything. So, I wanted to put those into. So, one of the downsides is that the competition is can sometimes be pretty fierce for virtual internships, obviously due to the lack of geographical boundaries, meaning, you know, everyone who has access to a computer can really perform that internship. So, there's going to be a lot more competition. As you all know also, you know, virtual does not mean easier. I'm sure we've all had classes that, you know, are very difficult regardless of whether or not they're online or in person and sometimes, you know, having things virtual can be more difficult. You also don't get the opportunity to network in person for the most part. Most of your communication is, you know, either over the phone or by email. There's no face-to-face. There's no, you know, office kind of dynamic, no happy hours or lunches or anything like that. So, you know, if you're someone that really thrives on that kind of environment, then perhaps maybe a virtual job isn't necessarily the best path for you. The other, you know, kind of downside, especially when you're starting out is you don't get the face-to-face. So, if you have a question about something, you can't just, you know, call someone, you know, in the next office and ask them to come over and help you. You really have to rely on, you know, kind of problem-solving for yourself and hoping that the person that you're trying to contact is quick with email answering and everything, as I'm sure you've all, you know, maybe had to deal with as far as teachers and classes and things like that. So, you know, that's one of the downsides as well. You know, the other problem that I've noticed is, you know, email and virtual communication. It really has its own kind of rules and etiquette. Tone can often become misconstrued during emails and texting. You know, so you really kind of have to watch that and also, you know, in the same regard, maybe not take everything too personally. If, you know, an email seems kind of short. Well, maybe it's because that person's on their cell phone and they're, you know, just trying to type a quick email. It's not always, you know, that you're doing something wrong or that they're mad or something. So, you know, that's also something to consider. And then I also put a link down here to San Jose State's, you know, kind of link to their virtual internship pages. There's tons of great information on there. Dr. Frank's contact information is on there. She is the moderator, coordinator of the virtual internship program, and she's wonderful. So, highly recommend checking out that page if you're really interested in pursuing a virtual internship or job. Some great places to look for virtual internships or jobs. The best place is probably the San Jose State iSchool Internship Database. There is an area on there where you can strictly look for virtual jobs. And I know I was just on there a couple days ago and I've noticed that they have added a lot since I was looking for an internship. So, it seems like, you know, that's becoming more and more common to have virtual internships. So, I highly recommend looking there. Another great place is inelj.com or I-N-A-L-J, however you want to say that, dot com. They have a link for virtual jobs. They also have jobs in other states. So, it's just a really great resource. It's all run by librarians and people in library schools. It's all volunteer. I actually am going to put in my plug here because I'm an assistant editor there. It's a great, great opportunity to volunteer and, you know, kind of get your name out there in the library community. And another great place to check is maybe look at some other library school's career pages. You know, look at their job or their internship opportunities. They may have things on there that San Jose State doesn't, you know, and maybe just contact them directly. And that's another way to go to find internships. Okay. How to secure your virtual internship. So, once you've identified one internship, you know, maybe you're interested in one or two that you're looking at, definitely start looking early. Some of them are going to have different class requirements that you need to have before. And not just San Jose State's requirements, but some of the internships will say, you know, maybe you need cataloging as Mighty Nut does or maybe, you know, you need some kind of tech background or tech classes or something. So really, you know, start looking early and try to plan out and see what you want to, you know, maybe start pursuing. And, you know, the earlier you find something, the better. It's also great to apply early. Contact the internship coordinator maybe a semester before. Just let them know, you know, say, hey, I'm looking at this internship. Is there any more information? You can kind of give me on it. These are the classes that I've taken or, you know, this is the direction that I kind of want to move in my career. Does this seem like a good fit? Just get your name out there to the coordinators and they're going to remember you. Also, some of them may require reference letters. So make sure to give the people that you've contacted or that you asked to write reference letters. Make sure you give them enough time. You know, nobody wants to rush and write a reference letter for you in a day or two. And also, definitely make note of the deadlines and stick to them. You know, if you turn your application in a day or two late, they may not even open in and look at it. And then you may have missed out on a great opportunity. So, you know, make sure that you definitely know when the deadline is to apply and get all that in early. And my virtual internship experience, as I said before, I did my internship with Mighty Net Library Services in the fall of 2013. And I was one of four interns, but I was the only one from San Jose State. So I got to interact with other library students from other universities, which was nice. We had a short orientation process and we went through training. And the internship itself, we did a lot of cataloging. And that's what Mighty Net does. And I'll get more into, you know, what exactly the internship was later. But as far as the experience for me, it was difficult at first, you know, to learn a whole new system, obviously. But the, like it says on here, we had a bi-monthly conference called with Tom. And so he was the internship advisor. And he was really helpful. We could call him at any time with questions. You know, we'd just kind of check in and see how everything was going. And he, you know, gave us updates on our progress. And so, you know, I've noticed in these records, maybe you're doing this wrong and, you know, let's tweak a little bit. So he was really great with that. We also had to do a weekly blog about our experience. And that was for San Jose State. And at the end for Mighty Net, we did a position paper. And mine focused on cataloging as an essential job function. So I really looked at a lot of different library job descriptions and looked at the skills that they were asking for. And I noticed that a lot of them had some type of cataloging, you know, either preference or you had to have some kind of experience in cataloging. So, you know, that really kind of solidified my, you know, knowledge that cataloging is still around. It is still relevant. And it's not just for technical librarians. Okay, so some takeaways from my virtual experience or my virtual internship. I really got great experience doing both copy and original cataloging. And that was, that's really important, I feel like. I had, I get a lot of experience creating metadata, assigning LC classifications, Library of Congress, subject headings, Sears. You know, they're just getting to know a lot of the different classification systems and subject headings and, you know, how to assign those, how to, you know, look at the tables, the LC classification tables and figure out, you know, how they build those numbers. I also learned a lot of professional communication skills, as I mentioned before, with, you know, tone and email and things like that. And it really gave me a chance to hone my professional email skills, which are, you know, quite different than if you're just emailing your friend. You're going to, you know, try to tidy up your emails a bit more if you're, if it's in a professional setting. I really acquired a lot of time management skills, as I did throughout my entire career at San Jose State, but definitely with Mighty Nut. We had a very, we have a very strict deadline there. Once you get records, you know, you have a week to finish them. And, you know, you could start them all the night before, if you wanted to, or, you know, as most people do, they kind of, you know, spread it out so you're not doing a lot of work all at the end. And since I finished my internship, they hired me on as an independent contracting catalog, sorry, independent contracted cataloger. It's very hard to say sometimes. So I've been working with them since then. And I really use a lot of the skills that I learned during my internship and my full-time job as a law librarian. So it was a really great experience and I highly, highly recommend it to everyone. And here is my contact information. There's my LinkedIn profile on there. And my email, feel free to contact me, ask me anything you want about, you know, the internship process in itself, even the application and anything like that. I'm more than happy to talk to you about that. Okay. So I am going to also present Tom's portion, so I hope I haven't bore you all too much yet. I'm going to go through this a little quicker than I did the last one, just because, you know, this isn't my presentation. So bear with me and I'll try to get through this. Okay. So Tom is the Content and Systems Librarian at MightyNet and he is also the Internship Program Manager. So he does the hiring and, you know, goes through the application process. And he did tell me before I started tonight that he wanted to really stress that MightyNet has a really great relationship with San Jose State. San Jose State was actually the first university that they contacted about having interns. And so a lot of the ICCs that I work with now are San Jose State graduates. He said they are summer's full, but they are looking for three interns for the fall and three for the spring. So he wanted me to stress to, you know, if you're interested to please submit applications, they love having San Jose State students. So an increased demand for quality metadata has created a shortage of knowledge management professionals. Really, in our field, so what MightyNet does, we get books, mostly children's books, from a publisher. And then we create the metadata and the catalog record, the mark record that you see in a library catalog. So if a library decides to purchase that book from the publisher, they can, you know, say to the library, we already have all the cataloging done. So then the library doesn't have to have one of their technical services librarians or, you know, if they don't even have one, maybe just another librarian or even a staff member to input all that. So that's really what MightyNet does. And, you know, Tom, I know has mentioned that he's really noticed a shortage, especially in the library field, of people that know how to catalog and create quality metadata. And the Role Center is where we work out of in MightyNet. It is a web-based user interface and we get PDF versions of the books so before they're published. And from that book, you know, that's where we get all of our information to catalog. So some of them come with Library of Congress classifications already so we can do some copy. Cataloging some have absolutely no cataloging done whatsoever, and then we really have to start from scratch. So it really just kind of depends on the publisher and what, you know, what stage in the polishing process we get those books. And this is kind of what it looks like here. This is the home page and the login screen. So this is what we see when we go in and then this is also what our customers see. From here, this is the attribute screen. So when we get a record, this is the information that we're going to have. This isn't always all filled in. Most of the time it doesn't look like this. You know, this is pretty filled in so this would be kind of a good record to get because there's not too much left to fill in after that. And then what this does from here is it puts it into an edit screen where we can then add in the rest of the information that's needed and we can change the field numbers and things like that. Okay, this is kind of what I went over earlier, just kind of pros and cons and as virtual internships what makes a good virtual employee really need to be flexible really with especially with technology and software you really need to be adaptable with that. I know since I've started at MightyNet this is our second interface and it changes quite a bit. The cataloging rules change quite a bit. We get constant updates from our bosses and you know that things have changed. So it's really you really have to stay on top of technology and and nutrients. Also as I said you know if working from home you know you may not be working nine to five you know you may be doing a lot of work on on the weekends especially with MightyNet. It's just kind of whenever you have time. So you know I work a full-time job and then sometimes I come home from work and do some cataloging or you know maybe on Sundays I'll do cataloging so it really just kind of depends on on what works best for your schedule. Yeah move on to the next slide here. Okay you also need to be motivated as I said before. You know you don't have a manager constantly looking over your shoulder telling you you know this needs to get done this this and this. You really have to set those goals for yourself and as far as MightyNet goes you know if you have a really slow week you could say okay well I only wanted you you know four records this week or you know if you know you have a ton of free time you could say I can get ten done this week. So it's really just about knowing your own limits what you can handle and you know and not pushing yourself too too much to get to get work done. Again you also have to be organized as I said before you know the cataloging rules change quite a bit especially from publisher to publisher so it really kind of depends on you know what what books you're cataloging that day. So you really need to be detail oriented as I'm sure anyone who's taking cataloging can attest to that and you also need to be able to you know take the corrections you know really take note of what corrections you're getting on a consistent basis and be able to make those corrections and reduce your errors. So you know when you when you put the records into the QC the quality control process they you know they're not having to go through and correct every little mistake that you've made. So the program itself they have about four to six interns per semester and the interns work the same as the ICCs do they assign the real items from the publishers they use the same software and the company's specific guidelines so the internship program I mean you're really kind of working as already as an ICC which is nice and they bear on teams with other ICCs you know so they can help them out as well. Again same as I said before they're submitted records they're reviewed the interns are given feedback on their records and they completed a position paper on their experience or on a topic of their choosing regarding cataloging or metadata. In order to apply for Mighty Nets internship program you submit a letter of interest your resume there's a profile survey questionnaire and then there's also a statement of proficiency saying that you've completed cataloging which I believe it's still 248 so you just get a letter of proficiency from your professor and you know just submit all of that and definitely with Mighty Nets the earlier the better I know they get a ton of applications but like I said before they love seeing as they state students so they always give priority to us. And these are just some of the participating schools that they've had like I said before seeing how they state is the first one that that they've partnered with so they really like us. And just here's some of the highlights from the ICC program so as you can see in 2012 they started with three interns that was the first year 2013 was the year that I completed mine there was four of us and of the four of us I believe three possibly four are still working for Mighty Nets as an ICC so it's really kind of a pipeline right into the ICC program which is great. And so Tom just wanted me to talk a little bit about the future of virtual careers he said that you really need some the corporate culture and support to be successful meaning as far as the virtual career goes you really need to feel like you're part of a team and I think Mighty Nets does a really great job with that we have email chains and we Skype and we try to make everybody feel like we're all working together as a team. Employers also see benefits of virtual work their employees can have a nice work-life balance with flexible schedules flexible geography if you will and really the technology is what makes the virtual career work you know if you don't if you're not technically savvy it's probably not going to work for you let's see oh he's got a report down here I'll link to really what virtual careers and what virtual work is kind of moving towards so maybe check that out and there is Tom's contact information again as Jane said I know he's more than willing to answer any questions he's he's really personable he loves questions he loves talking to students so definitely reach out to him if you have any questions about Mighty Nets or you know maybe what they're looking for in an intern or anything like that he's more than happy to answer those questions for you okay and that's it that's it for me thank you um this is Laura from Bandera and I am the Instructional Technology Specialist with CRETA Reference and I'm also a mother of two boys so that's one of the things that is really nice about working virtually that it can fit with your schedule so a little basic about what I do so I for being the Information Technology Specialist you know I really create online tutorials you know we work a lot with our customers to give them information literacy modules tutorials videos and really help them with the library's goals and needs for the instructional needs I do a lot of professional development for myself by attending conferences but also presenting publishing things like that CRETA has a really great corporate culture that really encourages professional development and working remotely about half of our staff work remotely the main office is in Boston and everyone comes to Boston to the main office once a year in October for our offsite which is one big company meeting it's a lot of fun and it's really nice you know working remotely it can be lonely but you do when you work with the same people again and again you do form the regular workplace attachments so it's nice to see people in person and then last thing we really focus on is really process improvement so while CRETA is a library vendor and it's still within the library realm it is an alternative library career it's not sitting behind a desk or doing cataloging or something like that it's very different so a lot of the corporate processes and cultures really seep in so we focus a lot on process improvement also so I just wanted to give a quick basic about what is instructional technology I had to put this picture of the librarian from Monster's View on here because I was really offended and I hope everyone else was also but basically you know it's not you know education changes so much so fast so everyone's trying to keep up and everyone's moving their stuff online whether it's classes and obviously as to who knows that since everything's online but libraries are really trying to keep up also so we help and we create information literacy videos and tutorials to do that we use a lot of tools at our at our fingertips we use Adobe Suite Captivate Photoshop After Effects HTML JavaScripts jQuery PHP we have to be sure about accessibility also so because we're going to state libraries and lots of other people that we have to make sure that they can all access our stuff so you can use a lot a lot of tools to make your instructional technology thing so I'm kind of moving into a new position for an integration specialist the thing about working remotely for an alternative library position is that you it's not like getting in a tenure library position or a tenure track position where you're going to use the same job for five years and you work at it so you know you have to your corporations they react to the market very quickly and it's a very agile position so you have to be able to change to learn new skills to react like the company does to the market so one thing that we're doing is we just put out some course where for information literacy really just this last year so I've really been taking a role in integrating that with learning management systems doing tech support for customers and being that first line you know translating libraries speak into technical speak working with the developers translating that back to the customers so it's very much a a role that changes a lot when you're in an ultimate library career and I'm sure it does in regular libraries also but more so when you're working remotely and for a corporation so what do I do as an integration specialist well we work with the VLE which is the virtual learning environment as well as learning management system maintenance and testing so platform D2L Sakai Canvas there's a whole list of learning management systems that we work with and I get to make tutorials on how to embed things for the faculty host faculty webinars on how to put things into their learning management system and things like that so it's a really great skill to have I'm also the first one technical support for customers so they call in and we have a nice support help desk system so we get tickets and emails come in straight to us and we can answer the emails we're working on getting a chat widget which would be fun and also you know we translate the librarian speak into the techno speak so often what librarians say does not always correlate to what developers need to hear they're not always on the same slide and also it works backwards for customer service because developers do not always have the best bedside manner so you know they kind of need someone to interpret between the two so that's really nice to do you know really focus on customer service and being a go between and the liaison between the development as well as the customers and then like I mentioned I did some faculty librarian training so I can chain whole rooms of faculty as well as one-on-one trainings for librarians on how to input our courseware into their learning management system or how best to use it in a foot classroom depending on whatever their needs are so I just wanted to give some tips for telecommuting I know Sianne really covered a lot of the pros and the cons so I'm not going to go over all of them again but I second everything that she said but you know one thing that is really important is that you have to be flexible like I mentioned it's not a you know you're in a job and you're going to stay there and you're going to always do the same thing the market changes so your job has to change to match the market and you have to be flexible you know you have to continue your professional development I like to attend library conferences because in my job I don't actually work with very many librarians it's very much a corporate thing so it's nice to go to the library conferences to kind of like go back to my roots and remember what I am and you know what's going on in the library sphere so you don't lose any of your skills and you can learn new things and bring them back to the corporate world where other people don't have those skills or they haven't been to this conference so it's really good to keep up on your professional development when you're telecommuting it's also important to keep your work by balance in balance it's easy to say oh I'll just do that over the weekend or I'll bring my computer on vacation with me and you know work when I'm on the beach or something but that can be the burnout really fast and it's really not healthy at all so you know you have to be able to say it's five o'clock I'm turning off Skype I'm turning off my whatever form of technology used to communicate with your team you know I'm offline I'm turning off I'm out of the office for the day it's really important to keep that work by balance in perspective otherwise working remotely it's really really easy to just let your job become your life and have there be no line and you end up just working all the time every day so the the last couple things I want to mention you know it's not necessarily a con prepare for isolation because I am a very much an introvert I'm one of those people who would like to say just stick me in a basement and let me get my job don't talk to me so telecommuting is really nice because there are some days that go by where I actually don't talk to anybody I just do my job so for some people like me that's really fantastic and it fits really well for other people and we've had people leads who haven't been able to handle it you know they need to interact with other people they need to see people face to face so you know if you're thinking about a job in a virtual job or an internship you know you have to be prepared for it's going to be isolated you know it's not going to be like working next to the one in a cubicle and because of that you need to be communicate you need to communicate very clearly you know like Dan mentioned it's really easy to misunderstand things when you're typing or instant messaging or emailing the tone never comes off quite correct or as you mean so you know it's really important to work on your communication skills and be very direct but at the same time professional and with that I'll hand it over to Jessica she also works with the at credo all right thank you Laura so hello everyone my name is Jessica Creighton and just a brief personal note about myself to begin I currently live in Texas with my husband our three and one-year-old daughters as well as our family dog and I enjoy reading running and having tea parties with my daughters and there are many many dolls so as Laura said I also work for Crudier Reference I'm also an instructional technology specialist alongside Laura and I know Laura provided some information about what we do so I just wanted to go into my background about how I came to this position so if you'll all bear with me I wanted to conduct a quick little poll if you wouldn't mind as you can see my pointer on the screen use the drop down it starts with an A and then you'll see A, B, and C and then the question I'll have you all answer prior to entering SGSU's program how would you rate your experience in the librarian field again this is prior to entering the program so select A if you believe you had a good foundation if you had spent more than three years in the profession as a professional on the field B if maybe you had put your toe in the field we'll say less than three years or C if you had no experience in the in the librarian field prior to entering the program it looks like we're getting a lot of responses already I'll go ahead and publish the responses everyone can see okay it looks like a good majority 40 percent had no experience in the field and I'm happy to say that was me as well I was in exactly the same boat prior to entering SGSU SGSU's program I worked as an administrative assistant at an insurance company and was simply attempting to follow my interests in fact the reason I decided to apply for the program was a bit unorthodox while I was working at the insurance company I knew I wasn't happy in the field but I wasn't sure what path I wanted to take so I began perusing job descriptions on monster I know that's a bit weird but I browsed job descriptions on monster I made a list of the job descriptions that sounded interesting to me basically the ones that I wanted to pursue is ultimately a career and then I further divided that list into the necessary skills and education required for each of those jobs and an overwhelming amount requested a master's in library and information science so I applied to a SGSU's program and then once I began the program I decided I would continue the same line of thinking I carefully studied the course descriptions listed on SGSU's website along with the syllabi that were archived from previous semesters and then I highlighted those courses that I believe to be aligned with my interests and then I took those courses and I further cross-referenced this list with the school's list of career pathways and I have the URL right here on the screen and just taking a look at these these pathways and kind of the what courses aligned with what jobs helped me give a bit of a a bit of direction for myself so I had them included on the screen a list of the top courses that ended up being on my final list of courses that I wanted to make sure that I completed during my time at SGSU and these courses ultimately led me to the emerging technologies pathway and as you begin to peruse the pathways on the website yourself just keep in mind that the pathways are meant to be used more as jumping off points you'll find that sometimes the pathways may overlap and sometimes they may include courses in their recommendations that may not be pertinent to your ultimate dream career I believe the best thing that you can do to help you find the career that you would be most happy in is to choose your courses based on your specific interests and then once I reached the midway point in SGSU's program I began to look at internships that also aligned with my interests since I had already outlined the courses that aligned with my interests I was able to take the skills I learned or would learn in those specific courses and then use those skills to locate the internships that I wanted to pursue so basically I had my interests which I used to determine the courses I wanted to take then I took the skills I obtained from those courses and used those to look for internships that required those skills so I hope everyone solid my line of thinking there and basically it just made sure that everything led back to being based on my personal interests and Krita reference was one of many internships I had applied to that semester and in my resume I made sure to highlight the skills that I had learned thus far in the program and even those I planned to learn in the program I felt it was important to illustrate to hopefully my future employer that I had continued plans for learning and growth also in my application I drafted a cover letter that was different than the standard format and also I felt a bit more straightforward instead of writing a paragraph filled cover letter I created more of a table like the one on the screen the first column was numbered the second column listed the specific skills that they were looking for in applicants and then the third column demonstrated specifically and concisely how I met or had plans to meet in upcoming courses the skills that they were they were requiring from applicants and also it helped to even throw in maybe some of their desired skills that I met just to give me a little bit more of a boost but I felt on this way I not only stood out from the pack of resumes I'm sure they have received but I made the recruiter's job that much easier I made the connections for them between what they were looking for and what I could provide as well as illustrating the level of commitment I would ultimately bring to the position simply by drafting a cover letter that was unique to their application and not using the same generic couple of paragraphs that I could have used for any other application I wrote it specifically for them and one thing I noticed as I was applying to these positions employers are very excited when you the applicant seek to acquire skills on your own so these skills would be in addition to those you acquire within the structured setting of the classroom within SGSU for example programs such as Jing QuickTime Prezi even LinkedIn and Google Drive employers like to hear that you were able to explore and even master such programs on your own and in your own time especially when you're pursuing a virtual career you have to remember that you're on your own for a good part of the day like Laura said so make sure to demonstrate you're capable of learning and even troubleshooting on your own and that you would thrive in that virtual setting finally I wanted to talk a bit about transitioning my internship into a full-time position again this involves backing up the claims that I made in my resume cover letter and interview that I have the skills they're looking for and that I would thrive in that virtual setting so you have to prove in those instances the resume of the cover letter in the interview that you're able to master programs on your own like Laura said without your employer sitting next to you in the next cubicle because when you're in that virtual setting your employer doesn't see the behind the scenes they don't know if you're sitting in your pajamas they don't know if you're taking notes when they're talking they don't know if you're locked in a basement basically the proof is in the pudding or in other words the proof is in your work and the quality you put forth and then for further reading I also included the link to a blog post that I wrote over two years ago it was during my internship I think I was halfway through my internship when I wrote this and it's listed on die school's virtual internship blog it's titled how to survive your virtual internship and it just contains some helpful tips that I used throughout my internship I actually use quite a few of these still in my full-time position so thank you everyone for listening and taking part of my brief poll I also provided some contact information on the screen as well as the two links that are listed on the previous slides and please feel free to contact me with any questions you might have or send me a request to connect on LinkedIn okay I just want to thank everybody this was fantastic I'm so impressed with how you all of you thought about where you were going to go and what classes you take and the work you would do and what you shared we have 15 minutes and I'm going to open this up to questions yeah I actually have a question for the I'm so sorry I should remember the name for the first presenter she mentioned cataloging and I was wondering well how would she evaluate more in terms of classes to take cataloging or metadata I guess it kind of depends on what area you're really wanting to go into in terms of you know whether you want to do traditional cataloging as far as MightyNet goes they really wanted us to have cataloging so that was 248 I didn't actually take metadata so I can't really speak too much to that class I've heard good things about it though the cataloging class the 248 that I took was really more of you know how to create the mark data and RDA was kind of coming out then that's the new standard for cataloging so one or the other I'm not really sure I think it kind of depends on what what area of librarianship you want to go into if you want to go into strictly cataloging and technical services I would say cataloging is probably going to be your best bet but if you have time you know maybe take both thank you thank you good idea well while we're waiting for other people I'm going to bring up a question that may be on others minds and nobody's mentioned and that's how salary and pay do you feel that it's comparable to other jobs are you paid by the piece are you paid by the out I mean how does it work I'm curious and anybody any one of you can answer that please feel free well I know that for credo reference at least we are salaried employees as opposed to contractors so we have the full regular salary as well as like benefits to the 401ks and stock options and everything so it's very different from being a contractor the interns are considered contractors so we have probably about maybe like eight to ten interns and they are contractors but once you become an employee you're a regular salaried employee for us yeah and as far as mighty net goes since we are contracted most of the ICCs that we work with do you have other jobs whether it's part-time or some of us do work full-time jobs we're paid by each record that we complete so each record on a normal you know if you're sitting down and you're just going to town on that record I can usually get them done in about a half an hour so I can usually do about two per hour I forget what the interns make I know it's slightly lower than what we make as ICCs but we make five dollars per record so I mean it's really not something I mean unless you're doing it non-stop that you know would really be a full-time career per se but I was actually in between jobs for about a month earlier in last year and it was really nice to you know to still be working for mighty net to have some you know some extra income and also I know other people who do work by the item and the more they do it the better and faster they get at it so at some point it begins to be a better rate of pay but I think that depends on how fast you are and how accurate you are anybody else questions go for it so Heather asked are there other classes or outside skills that you recommend for current students and I'm going to let any one of you respond to that place one thing that I would recommend coming from being a secretary with SwissConnect while I was going through the SJSU program there's the 23 things that SwissConnect offers it's a small program that I think you can go through I'll find the link for everyone but I definitely recommend going through the 23 things we have listed they're very helpful I agree with that and I also wanted to say being coming from the technology part that you know 246 and really the technology classes even if it's the basic you know web technologies I went all the way into the PHP ones but it's important because it's so such a marketable skill these days and really any kind of industry that you go into so I think it's a valuable skill that can give you a broader reach in your job search even beyond the library border and then I see the next question about being the first line of service so yes we actually do talk to the customers so it's a mix of everything so I have librarians who practically have me on speed dial and then I have some who email me like 10 times a day and then some that we just email back and forth so it's really a mix go for it again Arianna yeah I actually wanted to ask Laura you say that you are an instructional instructional technology when you took those classes like when you were a peer mentoring in 298 were you thinking of maybe teaching or something and you just fell into this job or what were you thinking of doing with before you had this job I don't know if it makes sense for me I was actually really interested in being a web programmer so I had already done a whole lot of technology things prior to even coming into the service program so I graduated in 2012 and so as soon as I came in you know I already had the basic foundational skills and I knew that I could build on them and be more marketable and I already had a broad corporate background so it was really easy to go straight into the corporate realm for me Kathy asked a really good question do any of you know of companies hiring graduates who haven't been interns with them so would your companies hire people who haven't been interns and do you know of other companies I know it's a credo reference that we definitely do hire outside of interns being an intern is however a nice way to get an insight check I think just I don't know if the statistic is off hand but I think like probably like 30% of jobs don't even get posted because they're filled from within so you know it's always a good way to get your feet wet to make sure it's the right fit because even if it's the right fit for you there might be personality conflicts and things like that so being an intern first is a really nice way to gently use interest but we definitely hire outside of interns a lot yeah and as for my net I'm actually not positive how they hire ICCs from outside of the internship program all of the ones that I currently work with have been interns in the past so like Laura just said you know it's a really great way to kind of see if it's for you you know and get a feel for what the work would be but I mean of course there's always you know virtual jobs and stuff that you can find that don't have internships beforehand or that you know that you don't have to have done an internship with I typed a question for one of our participants Lisa McDonald because she said in the chat that she was working part-time remotely and really liked it so I don't know Lisa if you're still in the room you are maybe you can respond and I think Lisa's trying to chat and respond to us but we'll take more questions we have a few more but Lisa doesn't work in the library field but she does work remotely and she enjoys it okay I know there are remote jobs in fact think about all of your library school instructors these are remote jobs we teach remotely that's what I think okay I'm going to leave it for other questions anybody I just want to say something from my background which is that in my long career in a variety of jobs a lot of them in education and in librarianship often a full-time job that was a physical job would turn into a job with telecommuting possibilities with more remote possibilities and as people got to know you and what you could do and saw how you could communicate from a distance and get your work done more and more was I allowed or enabled to work remotely so you can also think about that kind of mix because as students in our school you have so many skills that you have developed simply by going through the program and being successful you handle technology you handle change how many different learning management systems have you cope with all this stuff is just incredibly competitive competitive advantages so when you go looking for work think about the competitive advantage of having been successful in an online program I'm going to give the mic back to any one of our speakers who wants to close with any words and then I'll say good night I would just like to say thank you to everyone who came tonight and for bearing with me trying to present to presentations and just another kind of plug for Mighty Nutt they're a great company to work for it's a wonderful internship and it's paid internship which is you know always a plus and you know they're real good about hiring after the internship so come join us we love we love San Jose State students yes absolutely thank you Deanne you did great and absolutely if there's anyone who has any follow-up questions something that you think of later if you feel free to email any one of us or find us on LinkedIn thank you I'm going to say thank you to everybody who came and to all our wonderful presenters so we'll be on for a few more minutes and then we'll hang up but thank you all for being here and thank you Pam