 Hello, my name is Kim Doherty and I am the advisor, the career advisor for the San Jose State University Information School, or the iSchool. And I am going to be talking with you today about getting ready to launch your career after you have gone through the program. The cool thing is that you can actually be working on this all the way through the program. You'll see that there are things that are applicable that you can start doing right now if you're just starting out. But my goal is to have you feel confident and comfortable that as you're getting ready to graduate, you've sort of got everything, all the pieces and parts in the order that you need to have them. You've sort of done all the things that you need to do to be prepared to move out and start your profession, your career. All right, with that, let's start with a concept. And this is the concept that I would encourage you to keep in mind throughout your entire career. As you go from being a student to becoming a professional and growing your career, you are going to be building what I would call your professional equity. And that comprises three different pieces. The first piece is what you know. That could also be your domain knowledge. If you think of all the things that you're learning or have learned as you've gone through the program, think of that as your what you know circle. That's all the things that you can do with your LIS skills. The second piece of your professional equity which you will be building over the course of your career is who you know. That's sometimes called your network. We call it your community of colleagues. It's all those people that you have come into contact with built relationships and continue to stay in touch with. One of the things that you will find as you go through your career is that many of your jobs will come through people referring you for those jobs. So the more people you know, the likelier it is that opportunities, professional opportunities, will just sort of walk in the door and find you, which is a wonderful place to be. And then the third piece of your professional equity is what I would describe as who knows what about you. Otherwise known as your professional reputation or brand. It's it's what you are sort of creating through literally every single interaction you have with anyone in grad school in your job and your volunteer work who remembers your name. Each one of those people have built an assumption about who they think you are and how they think you contribute and how much respect they have for you and your abilities as a professional. So, as you're going through grad school, or as you are starting off launching your career, assume that what you want to always be building whenever you have the opportunity. After you've recovered for a brief spirit, period of time from grad school, what you want to be building is, again, what you know, and what you can do with that knowledge. Who you know, your community, and who knows what about you, and, and quite frankly, how many people know it. So how visible are you to the profession and to colleagues who you would like to have respect you, or value your judgment and your contribution. So that's, I want you to leave with that takeaway of when I, when I am a student, or when I am building my career, I am building always my professional equity, and these three aspects of it when I have the opportunity. All right, so now we're thinking though about specifically moving out, we are going to transition from being a student into profession into a professional, or into a professional setting. And so I would say that what we need to do is lay the groundwork, and that means sort of figuring out, where are you starting from, do you already know a lot of people, or do you need to work on building your community. Do you already have experience that you can speak to in an interview, or is that something you want to add. So I want you to think about as you're getting ready to move forward, figuring out sort of where do I need to do some more work. And as part of that you want to identify the steps you need to take to develop that domain knowledge, what you know, your connections, and your visibility in the target areas where you would like to be hired quite frankly, because if you come from a different profession. It's great that you have a lot of visibility and connections in that profession. But if you for example have said I really want to work in public libraries, and you don't have any connections or visibility in public libraries, then you're going to pivot and start developing them in that target area. And then we're also going to talk about tonight, putting together an action plan to make these things happen for you, because one of the things that we all tend to do is say okay I need to do this and this and this and this. And it sort of all gets jumbled into a mix of okay I need to do that thing and I need to do this thing and this other thing. So another thing we're going to talk about today is how do you actually organize an action plan that helps you move from where you are to where you want to be. And the reason I'm emphasizing that today is because this is a process. It is a practical tool that you can use throughout your entire career for any career goals that you have whether it's pivoting into a new type of information work, or moving into a new account and sort of starting from scratch you know how do I, how do I make that happen or asking for a promotion. All of these things that you are trying to make happen can be addressed by putting together an action plan. So we're going to work on that a little bit. Let me start by introducing you to this bad boy, Carl von Klauswitz. So Carl was a Prussian general. He was a theoretician of battle tactics, and he wrote the most. How would I put this? I had to read this book for one of my clients. He wrote a very ponderous and big and long book called On War. And the premise of On War is that people who go into battle, up to this point or up to Carl's day, would just sort of say, okay, let's get a whole bunch of people and a whole bunch of archers and people and horses and you know just sort of rushing and smash each other and see who does a better job of smashing. Carl on the other hand said, no, no, no, no, no, we can develop battle tactics. And the way we will do this is a three pronged approach of setting a goal, setting our strategies for accomplishing those that goal. And then identifying the tactics or the action items that will enable us to implement those strategies. So creating a goal or a, excuse me, creating your career plan. This is your career launch plan. Versus executing your career launch plan. Two different mindsets and I want to call them out now so that you don't wonder why is this not working for me if it's not. And it may be because of this. There is a difference between creating a plan and executing it. Some of us are terrific at creating a plan. Others of us are terrific at executing a plan. Here's what the difference is. When you are creating a plan, you are setting out what you want to accomplish. You are identifying sort of the broad strokes of what do I need to accomplish that goal. And then for those each of those strategies, you are identifying the tactics or action items and I will give you examples of all of those. However, when you are executing a plan, say you have said, I'm going to, this is my goal. And I'm, this is how I'm going to get there. And this is what I'm going to do. There is an entire discipline around how to actually execute against your goals. How do you, it's called change behavior or behavioral change. And it's how do you get yourself to do the things that you have said that you are planning to do. When it's easier, quite frankly, I think we all know this. It's way easier to say, Oh, I'll do that next week. I don't really need to do that this week. So what we want to do is think about when it comes to executing your career launch plan. We want to think about creating the environment or the incentives that best support your ability to do that. And on the other hand, we want to lower what's called your barriers to action, which means a lot of things are going to going to get in the way. You don't get sick, or you'll have a vacation for a week in Mexico, where you don't do anything but body surf, or you will have your mother-in-law come and visit. And it basically hijacks you for the month that she's there, and then three months of recovery afterwards. Anything can happen. And so we just want, as I'm talking to you about creating an action plan. And that's my way of saying, don't take it personally, don't feel like you're a failure if you set up a plan to accomplish these things, and then they get derailed. Because all you need to do is say, Okay, that was interesting. But because I have my plan, I can go back to it now, and just pick up where I left off. Okay, if you're interested in the best book on behavioral change, the book by Chip and Dan Heath, who are two brothers called Switch is the absolute best thing I've ever read. All right, so I'm going to give you my fantasy career launch action plan. You can see how all of these ideas tie together. So my goal, that's that's the thing I'm trying to achieve is to become a backup singer for Beyonce. It's clearly, as you all well know, something I could certainly achieve. So remember that you have your goal. Then you have your strategies, which are sort of like your big overarching things that you need to accomplish in order to achieve your goal. So for me, I'm going to have three strategies. First one is learn how to sing. My second strategy is learn how to dance. And then my third strategy is to figure out how I'm going to get Beyonce to hire me. And then for each one of these strategies, I have to have a set of tactics, my action items that I'm going to undertake to respond to or drive forward each one of those strategies. So okay, let's let's look at strategy number one, learn how to sing. Here are my tactics. Three singing coaches choose one. And you'll note that I've said choose one within six weeks. When you are putting together an action plan, it helps if you make it quantifiable. So if I'm interviewing three singing coaches. Within six week period, I can very quickly know if I'm on track. Did I actually interview those three singing coaches, and did I actually get that done within six weeks. Probably not, but that's what I'm shooting for. And then I'll sign up for singing lessons. And then I'll practice singing two hours a day. Just as the person will say, I'm currently trying to practice my drums that my son gave me for my birthday, and I'm taking drum lessons. It's hard to practice a half an hour a day. So this was before I put in practicing singing two hours a day before I realized how hard it was to even do a half an hour day. And then last and probably most important, soundproof the basement so I don't get sued by my neighbors. So, as you can see, all four of those are action items that support the strategy of learning how to sing. All right, number two strategy, learn how to dance. And then here are my tactics for learning how to dance. Again, I'm going to be interviewing dance coaches, going to sign up for lessons, going to practice. And again, probably most important time going to purchase a back brace and many, many, many pain meds prior to beginning my dance lessons. All right, so then strategy number three is to figure out how to get Beyonce to hire me. So just to recap that my goal is to become a backup singer for Beyonce. I have three strategies. This is the third one and tactics for each strategy. So let's see what my tactics are here. First is that I knock off her current backup singers. So there's clearly a job opening. And then I explained to Beyonce that hiring someone like me gives her an entirely new market demographic, which I would describe as old white broads who got kicked out of their current kindergarten dance class for lack of coordination, which is actually a true start. Probably again, most important, I will offer to pay her double her Superbowl fee and triple if I fall off the stage while I'm performing. All right, so that takes us through a sort of imaginary career launch action plan. Now, let's see how this will work for you as you're getting ready to have what I consider I'm assuming is your goal, which is landing a an LIS job. After you graduate. Here are the strategies I would suggest will be most helpful for you in order to do this. First one is to understand the responsibilities of the target position. And that means more than just I read the job description. We will go into each one of these in more detail. What we have heard at the high school from a number of hiring managers is that one of their biggest challenges is that people come in for an interview and they don't understand the job. Responsibilities well enough to really be able to speak to them. So strategy number one in terms of you landing that job is really understanding the job you're applying for. Second strategy there is to understand your fit for that job and its responsibilities so well that you can then do strategy number three, which is to prepare the business, the key decision maker, either hiring manager to give you the desired position. You cannot do that if you haven't completed the first two strategies. So let's look at how we want to do that. I've got some recommendations here for how to understand that the strategy number one how to understand the responsibilities of target position. The thing that I would do, if at all possible, is to talk to people who know about the job or do the job. Even if you're doing an informational interview with someone who has that job at a completely different organization. If at all possible you want to go deeper than just the description in the job posting, you want to talk to people who have done this work, and you want to understand what kinds of issues come up. You understand want to understand what things have surprised them about the job. You want to understand any things they might want to share with you about what they love or don't love about the job so that you have a practitioner's viewpoint then of a sort of a deeper, broader take on what that job is all about. And I would also encourage you to read additional descriptions for that job with other employers. The reason I would encourage you to do that is that if the job says, here's the job title, and this job requires you to do these four things. Read 10 similar job descriptions, and those job descriptions mention another five things that didn't show up in that job description that you're looking at and you're targeting. That gives you some ideas of things to talk about in your interview. In other words, you can say, you know, I've been researching this job, and one of the things that I found interesting was in this job, some organizations ask this role to do these other things would that be helpful for you. If the library or the nonprofit or the government agency, or the special library, would this be helpful for you if we added one or two of those things to this job. That tells your hiring manager that you've done the work necessary to really think seriously about the job that you're applying for. And then, if it's at all possible, and a lot of times it won't be but sometimes it will, because you may know with the organization. Talk with someone, three-someones if possible, who've held the job previously, and ask them again similar questions of what did you love about this job, what did you feel was most challenging about the job. What were the things that you wanted to do on the job that you never could quite get to. What do you think the most important attributes are for someone who's doing this job. So, strategy number one, understand the responsibilities of the target position. These are the ways I would, if I were doing this, I would approach that. Strategy number two is, and this is incredibly important, understand your fit for the job responsibilities. This does not mean that if there are 12 requirements for a given job in a job description, and you've got 10 of them but you don't have two of them. This does not mean, oh, I don't fit this job. In fact, you might be the perfect fit for the job. But you need to think about it. So the first thing I would do is basically say, here are my areas of skill, expertise, expertise and professional strength, and then here's what this job requires. So I would encourage you in point number two there, not to just look at your domain skills, because you are going to find when you apply for jobs, that one of the things a hiring manager is looking at most closely is, how can a person fit in with our organization? Do they have self-management, self-knowledge skills? Do they have good collaborative skills? Do they work well with the public? Do they have the ability to be adaptive and responsive when all of a sudden the project we were working on has to change? Do they have a good sense of humor? Everybody's nervous in a job interview, but are they willing and willing and able to comfortably smile and say, you know, that's a really good question. Let me think about how I would answer that. They're not looking for you to be perfect, and most likely they are not going to get the perfect job applicant. But what they will be paying close attention to is your soft skills, especially as it relates to the job that you're applying for. For example, if you are applying for a job as a reference librarian, they're going to want to know about your ability to deal with a diverse group of patrons. Your ability to make someone feel comfortable and at ease if they're feeling anxious about being in a library for the first time. Your ability to diffuse uncomfortable situations that may come up now and then. And also, always, always, always, your ability to work collaboratively as part of a team. And then if you see what I would call a skills gap, if you see a gap between what they're asking for and what you have. Again, I wouldn't let that deter you unless it's like the main piece of the job. We're looking for a cataloger and you've never cataloged before. It's more of the sort of, it's four bullet points down in the job requirements. I would address that off the bat. I would say, I think I'm, I would be comfortable saying and this is what you want to think about as you're determining how to handle this is, I realize you've asked for two things here that I don't consider areas of expertise yet. But here's how I plan to address that immediately when I'm hired for the job. So what you're signaling is, I know I'm not everything you're looking for, but I'm a good learner. I can learn on demand. I take the initiative and I'm taking responsibility for what I need to learn. So again, don't feel like if you see that skills gap, or there's, there's not a total alignment that you're not a good candidate, you may be a terrific candidate. You just need to determine how you're going to handle the missing areas. All right, strategy number three for prepare to convince decision makers. This is, is critically important because I have been told by a number of hiring managers. Again, will, which will give you an idea of how often I hear from hiring managers that one of their challenges is that people who come into apply for a job. Tell the hiring manager why they would be a good fit for that job. So you've done. Number one, you've understood the job. You've done number two, you've understood what makes you a good fit. Number three is where you put those two pieces together. So as you're preparing to do this, you want to have what I would call a back pocket list, which means that's sort of like a virtually back pocket list. You're not actually going to pull this out of your back pocket, but you've got a mental list of here are five examples of great, relevant student or professional projects or work, or collaborative team efforts or initiatives or whatever that I can talk about that address this job that there are relevant to the job that I'm applying for. In addition, you want to have stories at your command that document your unique strengths. So part of this is what Alicia is going through right now, she's putting her portfolio together. She's looking at, okay, how do I, what do I pull in to document what it is that demonstrates I'm really good at this or I have, I know how to do this. So what you want to be able to document through your stories, if you can, is not only what you know, but what you have been able to do with what you know. So as you're preparing to convince that hiring manager, and you're thinking all these pieces through these are the kinds of things you want to be prepared to respond with. So part of that, I cannot encourage you strongly enough to work with the mock interview platform that the San Jose State career services group has available for all of you. In addition, I have noted there, with my asterisk, you have one of the most capable, competent career resources, I've ever met in Kerry McKnight. Kerry is our liaison between the San Jose Career Services Center and the iSchool. And, and I will just say it out loud Kerry likes the iSchool students best of all. She and I work together frequently and she tells me how cool you guys are. And she can do an amazing job for you on your resumes on your cover letters and on your LinkedIn profiles. She can coach you on how to use the mock interview tool. You don't want to graduate until you've had a carry session. She's just, she's so helpful I can hardly begin to, to recommend her strongly enough and thank you Ariel. Kerry is truly amazing. You are always going to feel nervous when you walk in for a job interview. That's a fact of life. All of us are that person. But the thing is, the more you know about what to expect, and the more prep work you have done answering any questions, sort of going through that process, then if someone throws a question at you. That's completely out of the blue, like, if you were a tree, what tree would you be. People know, oh, okay, they're not really asking me what tree I would be. They're asking me how I think, through a question like that. And so that's when you can tell them that you would be a mighty oak because you are strong and capable or, or just whatever. And, and this is part of what the resources will help you with is how you do these different kinds of, of interviews. This is the third strategy I would encourage you to keep in mind in terms of convincing decision makers. Assume that they have no clue who you are, or very little, because they've been looking at, you know, 400 applications to start with. And then they've narrowed it down to maybe 10 interviews, and they can't remember, are you the person who was that or are you that other person that was whatever. Your job is to take responsibility for the outcome of the interview, and to be prepared to step in and talk about your strengths, your expertise and why those things will be so valuable to the organization. You're not going to be a potential employer, because honestly you're the person who will know that the best. And, and this is not bragging, it's simply saying, I would really do a wonderful job for you, because I would be excited to do X, Y and Z, and help the organization meet its goals. So, okay, those are your strategies, your three strategies and then your tactics for landing your post graduation job. This is just sort of putting that all into a more of an outline form. If it's easier for you to see it all together like that. Again, those are the strategies and tactics that I would use. If I were going to be out looking for my, my first or my next LIS job, you may have other ones that work equally well for you. My only recommendation is that you put together some sort of a, almost a project plan for how you intend to do this. Identify your goal. Identify your strategies. Identify your tactics. And one of the reasons we've spent so much time on this is that I have had probably I think like 12 different jobs. I've worked on probably eight different startups and projects. And every time I wanted to make a change, this is the process I used. And I haven't actually put together a resume for the last 30 years, because using this strategy, it resulted in my being able to get the work that I wanted to do. Right. So now, however, I'm going to hit you with your pre graduation checklist. These are the things that I would strongly recommend you do before you graduate. And I'm just going to go through the list and again, you will have them you can be able to you'll be able to see them online as soon as we publish this. This presentation and also if you have questions about any of them again, I'm here for you to answer those questions. But here is is sort of a quick tour. The first one is to secure and or strengthen your key relationships that you have built as you've gone through grad school. So for example, that could be a relationship with Kerry. That could be a relationship with me. That could be a relationship with your advisor. That could be one with someone who mentored you through grad school, or with whom you did an internship as part of the program. But equally important is the relationships that you have built with your fellow students. If at all possible, I would encourage you to do the work to maintain those relationships. Connect with each other on LinkedIn. Exchange emails after you're no longer on the San Jose State email account. And always touch with each other because all of your fellow students as you go through the program and and who you've survived this incredibly traumatic and challenging and and wonderful and an amazing experience. You guys are all survivors together, and you know each other. And that's the basis of building a professional community. So I can't, I can't recommend strongly enough that you guys all stay in touch with each other. Another thing you want to do before you graduate and start applying for jobs is to vet your professional reputation and visibility, essentially, and most importantly, online. And here's why. 75% or more, but 75% is the minimum 75% or more hiring managers, looking at your resume or your application and making a decision about whether or not to invest the time in interviewing you are going to check you out online. They're going to look to see what information they can find out about you. If you have a LinkedIn profile online, and if you don't carry is a great resource for getting that done and I can help you as well. If you've got a LinkedIn profile online. That's the first thing they'll see, which is greatness for you, because a LinkedIn profile basically says, Here's what I want you to know about me. And all the stuff that wouldn't fit into that two pages on a resume. These are the other things that make me an amazing human being. And you can put it on LinkedIn and you don't really have to feel like you're bragging. And that way, if they're trying to check you out at midnight, they can find something at midnight about you. So, Google, Google yourself or use your favorite browser, put your name in and see what comes up. If bad stuff comes up. One way to deal with that is to paper it over. And that is what that what that means is, you do a whole bunch of stuff online. And that the things that are negative are bottom are start, excuse me, start getting buried on the page, so that they don't get to that, that horrible Facebook post or whatever that you did when you were young and not quite as professionally adept from years and years ago, shall we say, you don't get that to that until it's like page 10 by then they've given up. And so you're good to go. But you do want to see what information is out there so that you're prepared for it. If there is any negative information. I would recommend that as part of your pre grad checklist. You narrow down your job hunting focus, if you can to no more than three job types, or three career paths. This is only to start. One of the cool things about LIS careers is that you can have like 40 different careers and still be doing LIS work. That's pretty much killing. So, I would say, you don't need to say, Oh, I'm, I'm going to look for these three kinds of jobs, which means then that I'm giving up these other 12 that I find quite fascinating. All you're doing is trying to get a foot in the door. You are just getting your career started. And from that foot in the door career, you can pivot any of a gazillion different directions. So I would say it just makes it easier for you, and especially if Kerry's trying to help you to be able to say these are the three kinds of jobs I'd like to go after, because what's going to happen is, you're going to probably do a like a modular resume and a modular cover letter, and then you'll tweak it, depending on the job or the career path that you're applying for. And then next I would say, make sure you've prepared your marketing materials. And your marketing materials are your resume, your cover letter, your LinkedIn profile, as I mentioned earlier, and if possible, LinkedIn recommendations. LinkedIn recommendations are when you reach out to someone who knows you well, preferably a superior but if not a peer or a colleague, and ask them if they would be willing to write you a recommendation. This assumes that they're on LinkedIn. They can only do this if they're on LinkedIn for you. But one of the cool reasons to do that is it functions almost like a letter of recommendation, or like a recommendation that that hiring manager would call, because it will show up on your LinkedIn profile. So if someone knows your work, and you know that they would be comfortable recommending you that something you'd like to do as part of your marketing materials. I recommend that you start doing your preliminary job hunting research before you graduate, just so you feel like when you do graduate, you've already started the process. You'll feel like you've knocked down a few of the things you knew you were going to have to do. And so just having done some of that preliminary work gives you a sense of momentum that you might otherwise not have. I would also recommend that you beef up your interviewing skills and and you guys can do that with each other. You can do that with your siblings, where you, you know, interview each other to work on your skills. And keep in mind that these days, interviews are all over the board. So assume the first interview might be a telephone interview. It might be a zoom interview. It might be over lunch if you guys like live down the street from each other. It might be a one on one interview, but it also might be a group or a panel interview. And the thing that's most important to know about a group or a panel interview is that when you walk into a group or a panel interview, or even if you have one on a video call, the normal rational expectation you might have would be all of these people will know who I am because they've read my resume and so they're going to have targeted questions for me. That is not the case. Everyone on your panel or group interview will have no idea who you are. They will not have read your resume. They will have been handed right before they showed up a question that they're supposed to ask you. It may be to be prepared if it's a group or a panel interview to give more background information, to tell more stories, to be more detailed, talking about who you are and why you're applying for the job and that sort of thing. Then you might if you were in a one on one situation. And then also another type of interview is a traditional versus behavioral interview. A traditional interview is more along the lines of tell us about when you were at this job, what did you like, why did you leave that kind of thing. Behavioral interview is more along the lines of how would you handle it if a patron walked in and did this strange and bizarre thing, or the famous and ever popular, what kind of a tree do you want to be when you grow up. Behavioral is looking at, how do you think about things? How do you process information? How do you deal with something out of the blue? How do you think through a response? Does it totally derail you? Or do you take a step back very commonly and say, interesting question, let me think about that. I think here's how I would respond to that. So part of what you want to do as you're thinking about interviewing is realizing that your interviews could fall into any of these kinds of categories. And I just the other day read an interview article about the fact that they may be automating this. So now you may be talking to an artificial intelligence robot, I guess. So, I'm not sure those are in play yet, but I would say you do want to be prepared for that. Next thing is to renew your professional memberships. If you don't have them already, get them now. Two reasons. The first reason is, when you're a student, almost every LIS profession we can think of, including archives and medical librarianship and law librarianship and all of those people, they're trying to recruit students. And so they have steeply discounted membership fees for students. I know that the iSchool pays for one of them for you, but I would say if you've got three different interests, career interests, join three different groups, it will cost you a little bit of money, but not nearly as much as a full professional membership would. And also you want to, no matter when you join, renew as a student the day before you graduate. The second thing is that if you have professional memberships, you have access to their membership directories. You can see everyone who's doing that kind of work, and as a member in your neck of the woods. So if you're trying to build your connections or you'd like to do informational interviews, this is a great way to be able to reach out and do that. Another point is, and this is very strongly, if possible, try to make sure that you've done some work in a library or information-based work setting if you can before you graduate. Because one of the things that you will find is everybody is asking for experience. I want you to have two years working in a library, or at the very least volunteer experience or whatever. Sometimes going back to what I said earlier, none of their applicants are going to have it. And so don't let that stop you from applying for a job that you are otherwise absolutely perfect for, but it will just make your life way, way easier if you do this before you graduate. Alright, and then wrapping up your pre-graduation checklist. The thing I would strongly recommend, and for those of you who are starting or midway through the program, I would encourage you to be willing to take an A minus rather than an A in your courses in order to do more information interviews if you can. They are golden for you. So here's what the student halo is. Student halo is, when you're a student, you can call up or email just about anyone in the profession and say, Hi, I'm a graduate student getting my MLIS, and I would love to talk to someone who really knows the profession. And I read the article that you wrote or I heard you speak or I live in the same community or state that you do. Would you be willing to give me 20 minutes of your time and answer some questions I have about this type of work? And I understand if you can't do it, but if you can, that would be so wonderful and I would really appreciate it. Usually, most people will fall all over themselves saying, Ah, you're a student. Of course, I would be happy to chat with you. And it's a wonderful way to learn more about potential career paths, but also to start making professional connections. And to have people start getting to know you, because when you ask them wonderful questions, and you are very appreciative, and then lo and behold, you send them a thank you note, they will remember who you are. And then when you graduate, you can follow up with, Hot damn, I graduated, I just wanted to take a moment and say, Thank you again, I really appreciated that. And I would love to, you know, I'm going to be busy looking for jobs. But at some point I would love to be able to take you to lunch or out for a cup of coffee. I didn't actually ask them for a job. But you've let them know that you've graduated. So who knows, a job may come across their desk, or they may be talking to a colleague at a different library, or organization who's looking for someone just like you. The second point there is to help people help you. You are going to say to your community of colleagues that you've diligently built up. Okay, I've graduated help. I need help looking for a job. What you want to do is say, I am looking for this. That means what kind of a job are you looking for. What, what are some titles that might be relevant. What type of an organization might you be looking for, or are you looking for a specific organization, I want to get a job with Google, do any of you know anybody at Google that you could introduce me to. So when you tell people that you're looking for a job, people who like you are going to want to help you, but they can't do it if they don't know how, and you're the only one who can tell them that. The second most important, be able to understand and articulate your value proposition that the clearest way of saying that is, is if I the hiring manager say to you, why should we hire you. I would be really comfortable saying, here's why. This is why I believe that I would be an incredible asset for the organization for the department for this specific role. And by the way, it also helps to be able to do that when you graduate with your MLIS and people start saying to you, why did you need a graduate degree in librarianship aren't libraries going away. You know everything's on Google. The first thing I would encourage you is to make sure you have a good sense of humor. To be able to to sort of pivot and not take that question personally. I'm here to tell you that you are graduating with one of the most valuable degrees and skill sets known to man. And when everybody else is out of a job throughout your entire career you're going to be able to pivot and find the job that you want to do. I am a testament to that, and given any other degree, or any other knowledge base that anybody could have had. I have loved my career because I'm an information professional. Okay, with that, I'm going to throw it open to questions, and I'm happy to stay with you and answer questions for as long as you want or by Ariel, or I am happy to feel questions for you via email. If you want to follow up with me at some point. So, let's say, I'm not saying questions. Can I ask you. Sorry, go ahead. How do you answer the question about why, why did you get your degree or aren't like libraries going away. The way I answer it is, I do several things and I'll give an example, I was actually at one point, one of the startup projects I was leading was I was asked by the CEO of an online university to create the first virtual academic library. And I did that working with over 100 subject specialist academic librarians from around the country. And I was interviewed by the business editor for the Denver post. And he was asking me about the project and I was telling him, here's what we're doing and blah, blah, blah. And his response to me was librarians, you're working with librarians, and I said, yeah, why. And he said, well, I think of librarians as people who take the book down off the shelf and put it back up. And, of course, you know, no matter what you say it's going to show up in the newspaper the next day. So, you're responding very carefully. And my response to him was, I think you have perhaps some misperceptions about the work that librarians and other information professionals are doing these days. So, you're thinking about the way libraries were like 20 years ago, or 30 years ago. What librarians are doing today is to actually make the world of information make sense. They're helping people understand what's real and what's not. They are helping in a crisis when someone's turned to Google and realized they have no way of finding out what it is they're trying to find there. We're the real Google. We're the people who know the difference between information and not real not information. The people whose information skills basically are the keys to the kingdom for anyone who is trying to do anything. There is not an organization in the world that cannot do a better job strategically in meeting their goals by having strategic as access to their information. I don't see anybody or throw things. You know, I try to smile and I don't say oh that was so cute that you asked things like that. But I would have to admit having I've done this for a really, really long time now. It's so easy for people who don't understand the strategic value of information and how much difference it makes to underestimate something and think Google is good enough. And I would say, you know, if you look at the world around you, we can see what misinformation does. We can see how damaging it is. We are on the front lines of that fight. Every single day, trying to make sure that the good guys win. Well I'm inspired. Thank you. I'm glad I, I really do believe it and, and I love the work that I do. Next question. I can, I have a question about transitioning you mentioned briefly like the possibility of moving to a new city which is what I'm going to be doing after graduation. So I was just wondering if you had any advice about like the timing for jobs, like I'm working full time now and finishing my portfolio, and then I will be moving. And so if you have any advice about how to navigate that transition timing wise while, while trying to do the checklist and all of the strategizing and everything involved. So Kathleen, I'm just assuming that you're young and you don't need to sleep for the next four weeks. Seriously, here's what I would recommend. What you're needing to do is very possible. So I would say don't, don't be worried about it. What you're going to end up doing is sort of building a bridge of connections into your new community. And an easy way to do that is through the professional associations and chapters that are located wherever you're going to. For example, talking to doing informational interviews with the local public librarians in the community that you are moving into, or if it's a special library, joining the Special Libraries Association and and becoming involved in the local chapter. I'm just doing some volunteer work for them. Essentially, for anyone who's moving locations, your challenge is to build the bridge from here's where I am now what I know who I know what I've done all those kinds of things. And now I'm moving over here to this other state. There are things like looking at your network and just saying, does anybody know anybody in Omaha, Nebraska in the information field that I should connect with, and that I can talk to there. That's just an example off the top of my head. But basically what you're going to be doing is building connections for where you're going. You don't have an opportunity to do that before you move. Don't worry about it. I, you and I can brainstorm ways to do that at any point. Wonderful. Thank you very much. I really appreciated this very helpful. Anybody else, those are two really good questions. That was kind of an extension on Kathleen's question. If you don't mind and it might be kind of a weird one. What about trying to find a job internationally. Have you got any experience with that or finding job internationally. I think that if I recall correctly, I actually wrote a blog post on how to find international jobs. I have neglected my poor blog, which is infanista.com so badly in the last several years that it's, I mean, I can, I'll have to go back and find it. But if you will send me an email reminding me to do that. And that way I've got your email, I will track that down and send it to you. And basically what you want to think about when you are thinking, excuse me, I'm going to stop share what you're thinking about when you're making that kind of a change is what are all of the different ways that libraries exist or information exists in the world. So it might be that there's a library with an NGO, a non governmental organization. It might be that a company that's based in the United States, but has international settings has an information opportunity for their job. It might be that you work in a school library at an international school. So it's not, it's, there are many different ways to be an international librarian. But it, I'd have to refresh my memory on that. And I'm sure you're probably already aware of if the International Federation of Library Associations. I have information, if I recall, that's available as well. But another thing you can do is just go on the different job search engines and go on to LinkedIn jobs, put in librarian, or whatever type of library or information work you want to do, put in a country and see what happens. Okay, yeah. Thanks. I'll, yeah, I'll send you an email and read that blog post because I'll track it down for you. Yeah, that'd be great. Thank you. Sure. Other questions. I have one more. Just a slightly technical question. You mentioned Carrie McKnight and the services available to us as students. Are those available after we graduate as well or no? So your goodness for the day is yes. Yay. I think that I was recently on a conference call with Carrie. I think I remember Carrie saying that they are open for like a year. And you've got access to me as well as a graduate of the high school, but, but I think the career services deal is their services are open to you for free for a year after you graduate. And as I said, Carrie really likes us. So it was more than a year she might sneak you in anyway. Oh, fabulous. Thank you. Other questions. And I have to give a shout out and say hi to Kelly, because Kelly and I've worked together. Hi Kelly. I know, I just, every time I see something that you're doing, I have to hop on. It's been delightful talking to all of you. And as I said, please let me know if any of you have questions I can help with your success is my success. I love this career and I want you to love it too. So I hope you do wonderful with where you are now and where you're going and consider me a resource on standby for whatever I can do to help. All right, take care everyone.