 All right, hello, everyone, and good evening. Thank you so much for joining me tonight. My name is Jill Cleese, and I am the iSchool Career Center Liaison. And as your Career Center Liaison, I want you to know that I am available through the email, through phone, and through video chat to work with you on your career-related questions. I can do things like critique your resumes, we could set up mock interview sessions, or basically I'm really here to help you with whatever you need that has a focus on your career and job search. I do always recommend that you check out the resources on the Career Development site first, and here's what that site looks like, at least the main page. And if you can't find what you're looking for there, then by all means, feel free to contact me. So how many of you who are on tonight have visited this site, or are familiar at least with this section of the website and seen this page? How about just a show of hands, or smiley faces, so just a couple people. All right, we've got three. Good. Good, we've got four. All right, so just a few people. So I'm glad that I pointed this out. This is right on the iSchool's career, I mean, the iSchool's home page. You can see the tabs right across the top. Career Development is one of those prominent tabs. So do take some time at some point, and just check out the resources that are there, and just familiarize yourself with that process. All right, so moving on, here's what we're going to do tonight. Tonight, we're going to talk about marketing yourself for the LIS job search, and in terms of how do you represent yourself to the world? So the first session that I did last month was how do you represent yourself to the world online? We talked about social media, and we talked about LinkedIn. Tonight, we're going to talk about how do you represent yourself to the world on paper. So in that process, we're going to talk about filling out the job applications, supplemental questionnaires, talk about your resume a bit, and talk about cover letters. And then the third session, which will be next month, we'll talk about how do you represent yourself to the world in the interview. So just again, by a raise of hands, how many of you attended the session last month in talking about social media and LinkedIn? All right, so again, just a few people. So if you do want to check that out, that is available on the career sites. Let me go back here, actually, the career development site. Right over here in the green box where you see it says career webcast and e-newsletters, in that section right there is where all the recordings to the workshops that I do are available. So you could go back and you could review that session one, or you could go back and even review the session that we're doing tonight. So I want to point that out so that you know that that is there and that's available for folks. So we are recording this workshop, as you know, and do feel free to ask me lots of questions. You could type them in the chat box and feel free to type them in there at any time. I really like to get your questions. I think it keeps our workshop interactive and it helps me identify what it is you really want to know. So feel free to type them in there as we go through. All right, so for tonight, as I talked about marking yourself on paper, we're going to talk about these areas. But let's first start out talking about applications and supplemental questionnaires. So here's my main tips. And I've got a lot of information covered for this section. So you might have your questions, so again, feel free to type them in. But my top 10, or my top tips I should say for filling out applications and your supplemental questionnaires. This comes from, let me give you a little bit of background here too, so I came up with a lot of these tips. I was talking with some folks in the San Jose Public Library. They had seven positions open at one point. And for those seven positions, they had 350 applicants. That's a lot of people, right? But here's what you need to know, half of those 350 applicants did not even make it through the initial screening process. And this is why, these top tips I have on here for you are exactly why half were cut out, right, from the beginning, didn't even make it through the screening process. So number one, when you're looking at job descriptions and you're identifying if you should apply for the position or not, you must have the minimum qualifications to make it through that screening process. So you need to really look carefully at the job description. And if it's saying that you must have an MIIS and you haven't graduated yet or you're not that close to graduating, don't apply for it. Or if you're close to graduating, then you might want to contact the library, contact an HR person with that library and ask them if it's okay for you to apply for it now. Will your application be considered because you're going to be graduating say in two months? So that is a really important question. Now I have, I'm going to ask all of you a question and I want to get your feedback on this. Think about if you're right now working in the library and there's a position that comes up in that library. Just because you work in that library where you are now going to apply for that job, are you guaranteed an interview? Yes or no? What do you guys think? Type it in the chat box for me. Yes, I mean no, you are absolutely correct. The answer is no because you still must meet the minimum qualifications. And the reason I actually asked you that specific question is because that's come up from people. People have thought because they worked in the library so that the folks in the library already know them, the position comes up, they felt that they should have been guaranteed an interview. But you're not, if you don't meet the minimum qualifications, you're not going to get that interview. I also received some interesting feedback. This was from a position in a law library that was posted on Sparta Jobs, which is the San Jose State University job database where a lot of the library positions are posted. So hopefully you all know about that. But this was from a person who was posting a position in the law library. And I got the feedback from her that many of our students were applying for this position, but they weren't following the directions, meaning they weren't understanding the minimum qualifications and they were applying for the position even though they weren't qualified. And the reason she felt really compelled to let me know that is because it was a very large number of students. So I want to just point out, again, the importance of really understanding the positions that you're applying for, looking carefully at those job descriptions. And, again, if you don't meet the minimum qualifications, don't waste your time applying for it. Because the downside of just randomly applying for positions and then not hearing back really starts to take a toll on your confidence. That's really the downside. So you're just applying and you're hopeful every time you do that. Your fingers are crossed every single time. But when you don't get those callbacks, it takes a little more kind of toll on your confidence. And so that's not even worth doing right there. I have a question here from Elaine. Elaine is saying, many library pages, oops, let me go back here. I got scooted down. Here we go. So many library pages that San Francisco public have master's degrees. And I would guess at least 25, but they don't get called for interviews. So they may have met that first minimum qualification of the master's degree. But they need to also meet whatever the other minimum qualifications are. And I just happen to use the degree as one of the examples. But you do need to look carefully. And if you have, if a library has 350 applicants for a couple positions, that means it's going to be fairly competitive. So not only then are they looking at the minimum qualifications for the people that they will put into the yes, let's call for an interview pile, but now they'll start looking at their preferred qualifications. And that bumps it up a little bit in terms of who gets the interview and who doesn't. And I hope that makes sense. Rebecca has a question. How do you get experience if even the most basic jobs require skills you don't have? That's a really good question, Rebecca. And that's something that comes up often. Some of the things you have to think about are are there, what are the other ways where I can start to get some of those skills? And again, even if it's volunteering somewhere, even if it's taking a job that's not necessarily related, but it allows you to develop some of the skills that you're interested in developing so you can move in the direction that you want to move into, sometimes that experience, and I'm putting air quotes around the experience, sometimes that experience of those skills can be gained from some of the coursework that you've taken in the program, and that might be from some projects that you've done. And using and including projects or group work on your resume is an important thing to demonstrate your experience. So you can certainly do that. I often find that students don't realize that they can include that kind of thing on their resume, and you absolutely can. You could also volunteer and get involved with professional associations, and they may have opportunities for you to develop certain kinds of skills that are needed in the kinds of jobs that you want to go into, and then again, that information can be used on your resume. So I encourage you to think big, think outside the box, how can you gain those skills and how can we then put that on your resume to show and to demonstrate the experience that you do have. Elaine has another question. What if it's ambiguous? Should you air on the side of not applying? So that's a good question. So here's the rule of thumb that I go with. If I look at the job description, and I feel like I have 75% of the requirements that they're looking for, then I would go ahead and apply. But if I have less than that, then I would probably think, now it's probably too much of a long shot, and I may not go for it, depending on how competitive that kind of job is. So I used to go about that 75%, and I hope that helps. Cindy, volunteering is a huge plus where I work. Oh, thank you for saying that, because I do think that's important for people to hear that and for people to know that, that is a very, what's the word I want to use? It's a very valid way for people to get experience and to get skills and to network with people, but you can put all that information on your resume. Rebecca says, I've been doing volunteer work at two places now, a small town museum and a special collections archive in my alma mater's library. That's fantastic. Good for you. And even if, you know, you're volunteering and you have the opportunity to do something once or something, you know, it's small, and it's not even part of the actual job description, but it's something with one off that you did, but that one off relates to the kind of work that you want to go into. Well, I would include that one off on my resume, and I would, you know, talk about that experience and give it some accomplishment statements. OK, so that was a lot of conversation, just on tip number one. All right, so let's have the minimum qualifications. Number two, when you're filling out supplemental questionnaires, each question is intentional, and it serves a purpose. I mean, the questions are not just fluff. I've heard from students sometimes, like, why do they put this question on here? It doesn't seem like there's a purpose behind it. Like they'll say it seems like it's fluff, but the questions are not fluff. They're intentional and they're purposeful, and they serve a purpose for that library for the screening process. The main thing is that the questions that a particular library chooses to include on a supplemental questionnaire indicates what's important to that library. So it gives you a clue based on those questions, what they're really looking for, and what's important to them. So number three, when you're filling out applications or you're filling out the supplemental questionnaires, do not leave anything blank, even if you have to put an N-A in there because it doesn't relate to you. That's better than just leaving it blank, because sometimes leaving something blank can read you out or screen you out of the process right away. So do, again, every question is intentional, so do put something in there. Another important point, point number four, when you are answering supplemental questions, don't overthink it. So I've heard this from public librarians, the managers there who are hiring, they're saying don't add citations, don't give me footnotes, don't go on and on and have a very long answer. Just answer the question, don't overthink it. They don't want, they don't, you're not trying to show them how you know how to do citations and footnotes, just answer their question. That's what they're looking for. Number five, your answers to the questions demonstrate to them why you want to work there. So think about your answers in those terms, because that's what they're looking for. And again, it's going to be a team of people, a committee of people who are going through the supplemental questionnaires. So on some level, your answers and the person looking at your answers, it may be slightly subjective because it's different people who are looking at it. But overall, the committee and the team are looking for the same things, the same types of qualities. So again, think about how you're answering that question and how that demonstrates to them why you want to work for their particular library. So where Becca has a question, what if you draw a blank because you can't answer a question? Well, then give yourself some time, you know, sit back, walk away from it for a little while, come back to it, drink some caffeine if that helps, but, you know, kind of step away, get your brain in a different place, and then come back and try to answer it. So again, just don't leave anything blank because that could be an automatic, your screened out of the process. Number six, again, the questions are designed for the librarians who are looking at your answers to really learn a little bit more about you and from your answers to try to determine if they think you're going to be a good fit for their organization, for their culture. So there's a lot that goes into your answers, but again, they just want you to be true to yourself and to not overthink it. Number seven seems so common sense, but it feels so very, very important. Absolutely proofread your answers because grammar and spelling are definitely used to weed people out. So be very, very careful. Look over what you've written several times and make sure that it is grammatically correct and they're not spelling errors because that's the silliest reason to get weeded out of a job applicant pool, but it happens all the time unfortunately. And the last point here is save a copy of all of your documents. They're one of the librarians at San Jose Public shared with me that somebody had, you know, filled out their questionnaire and sent everything in, but one of the pages for whatever reason didn't come across correctly. So it was missing one of the pages, but the librarians actually called the person and said, hey, we're missing one of the pages. Can you go ahead, can you resend that to us? So it's not that they just weeded the person out right away. They thankfully let the person know and the person had saved the copies of their answers so they were able to give them the copy. So I thought that was just a really good tip to keep in mind. Definitely save all of your documents. Okay, any last questions regarding filling out applications or filling out your supplemental questionnaires? And if you still think of things you could certainly type them in afterwards too. All right, so the next section I want to talk about are applicant tracking systems or ATS. So applicant tracking systems are those systems when you apply online and your resume goes directly into a database or the applicant tracking system. And the ATS kind of reads, and I'm using air quotes again, reads your resume. And it's looking for certain words, keywords, key skills. And those key words and key skills are determined by HR or by the hiring manager. But here's some things that you want to look out for. So the goal for you submitting online is for your resume to basically be a match. And you do that by using the same key words and verbiage that you find in the job description. And that's what I call tailoring. So if you work with me on your resume, I use the word a lot. You're going to tailor your resume to the jobs that you're applying for. And really what that does mean is it means looking carefully at the job description and identifying the verbiage that they're using and changing it up on your resume. You can change out words to be a match. You can use the same language that's on the job description. That's a fine thing to do. But that's kind of your goal in getting past the applicant tracking systems. And again, that kind of goes back to meeting those minimum qualifications. So for example, if a position you're applying for, a minimum qualification is having your MLIS. But yours is not finished yet. It's not completed yet. And you apply for the job. The system could pick that up. And you could be weeded out right off the bat, meaning your information will never even get in front of the hiring manager because you've been weeded out. So you do need to check those things very carefully. Number two, so I just said that. The system's designed to screen out those who don't meet the minimum qualifications. But the piece I wanted to add to that is your documents, your resume, could be a supplemental questionnaire. The documents are actually automatically scored through the ATS before the hiring manager even gets to look at a resume, meaning the applicant tracking system can rank the top 10 to 20% of candidates. And those are the ones that will go over to the HR person or to a recruiter. Now, it doesn't mean that every organization or every public library or academic library uses one of these systems. But I wanted you to know about them and basically how they work. It's just an important thing to know about. And when you're applying online, if you notice there's a qualifying question. So that means you go to a particular company's website and you're going to submit or apply for a job online and you maybe upload your resume, you cut and paste it on there. Then there might be a question that pops up that you need to ask. So you answer the question and again, I'm just going to go back to an easy example. Say the question is do you currently have Masters of Library and Information Science? Based on your answer right there, you can either be weeded in or weeded out right there based on your answer. So if you get an automatic rejection message that pops up right away, that's a good sign for you that you didn't pass that auto screen. So you actually do have the option, depending on what the question is, to go back in, resubmit and, you know, if you're still being truthful and that's you could change your answer. I'm certainly not suggesting that you go in and lie to make it pass the system. But I'm just kind of, I want you to let you know how the system actually works. That you might go in, answer your question and then it goes, okay, thank you, but you don't meet our minimum qualifications or something like that. You know already you were weeded out. Questions about applicant tracking systems, APS systems for anybody? All right, if you guys think of something, please do type it in and let me know. All right, so let's talk a little bit about resumes. Looks like Elaine's typing a question and so I'll see when that pops up too. But I will continue on. I see a lot of resumes and generally these are some of the things that I see. So I just wanted to point out kind of at a high level some of the things that I'm seeing with student resumes. The first thing I notice a lot is there's poor formatting and from poor formatting that really means not using the white space on the page effectively. You want your resume overall to be visually appealing. You want it to look contemporary. You want it to be very easy to read. You want to have a nice flow of information. So I think I've got an example on here. Well this looks kind of squished because it's on the slide. But just as an example you can see how the page is used. There is enough white space but not a lot but there's enough that it's still easy to see things. Things are written in such a way that it has a nice flow and it's easy to find things. So think about formatting. It's very, very important to have on the resume. Another thing that I see is that resumes are too general and what that means is that they're not really tailored towards any particular job and they lack focus. So you want to put in enough information so that the reader gets a really solid idea of what it is you've done so they can determine if you can do what they need you to do in the future. So for me being too general is, you know, three or four word statements, shelved books, took customer inquiries or answered customer inquiries. Those kinds of things are far too brief. You've got to tell more. You've got to get some more skill words in there and what am I trying to say here? Words that really describe what it is that you can do and you know what those words are by looking at job descriptions and again identifying the verbiage and bringing those into your resume. So another thing that I see is people making assumptions, meaning they won't go into a lot of detail on the resume because they will make the assumption that the reader or the employer or the HR person, well they must know that I have done this and this because I was a library page. But nobody's going to make assumptions when they're going through the screening process on your resume. Again, you have to be very specific and you have to say what it is you need to say, not figure out or guess that somebody's going to know what you did because they will never take the time to do that. So don't make assumptions, just be very clear about what you want to say. Another thing that I see again is that the content of the resume is not tailored to support the objective. So the objective again is the job that you're applying for and you want to make sure that everything in your resume has purpose. But everything you've chosen to include on your resume adds value towards the type of job that you're going for and again you do that by how you write your statements and the words that you use in your statements. So overall I think that your experience on your resume, it should tell a story. It should tell a story in terms of the progression of your experience and your skills as you have developed them and the different types of jobs that you've had. Another thing that I see is there is too much non-relevant information on a resume. So most people who come into the program have had a career before they chose to come to library school and it's important to include the work that you've done in the past because there's some really solid skills in there that can transfer over into the LIS environment. So what you don't want to do is fill your resume with a lot of statements that relate specifically to what you had done in your job in the past. For example, so you worked in the insurance field and so part of your job was looking through claims and identifying if claims were going to be processed or how much money people were going to get back. And so you might be putting that on your resume because you're like, well that's what I did in that job. But even though you did that in that job, that doesn't relate over into the LIS environment. So what you want to stop and think about is what skills did I use in that job or what skills did I develop while I was in that job that can be used in the LIS environment that can transfer over and that's what I want to write my accomplishment statements about from my insurance job. So maybe what you focus on is your communication skills or your listening skills or your ability to do in-depth research. Well maybe it's your customer service skills. So you really think about what are some of those things that you did that do relate and that's what you focus on. So I hope that makes sense to people. Something else that I notice that students will oftentimes leave off of their resume are the projects that you've done in your coursework and frankly that's a missed opportunity because you have done so much great stuff in your program, I mean in your coursework. And a lot of it obviously is virtual. You're working with virtual teams. That's a skill in itself right there. So thank you Heather. Where you put those projects, here's, let me see, let's go to this example here that I had. Here we go. Okay, so right here is a section for Sally's projects. So basically she's got education up towards the top which you would all want to have your education towards the top right now because you're currently in a program so you want somebody to see that right away. Relevant coursework is something that's optional but I think if you lack a lot of related experience this is a very important piece to have. You can also list some of your skills right up here at the top and then before I get into my experience I often list my projects. So I give the project a title. It doesn't have to be an official title, just kind of a title to identify what you were doing. You could put SJSU so the reader gets a sense of where you did this project and you could put the date so you might have 2014 or maybe it's a project that you're doing right now so maybe you'd write in progress. And then you can write some bullet point statements. So you might, this one says independently designed and implemented a collaborative teaching strategy that the librarians can use to teach patrons how to take advantage of new technologies, present findings to a virtual focus group, create an interactive environment and successfully facilitating a Q&A session. So that's one way to talk about a project and some skills that you've got. Here's another one, government documents project. Analyze the availability and ease of use of the legislative history documents in traditional depository libraries, compile the results, made recommendations for the 25 page report. So those are just two examples but I typically will put the projects up here and then I will get into the experience. Okay. So think about what projects you could include and think big. Use as many as you can, again especially if you're lacking related experience. This is a great way to really show and give value to what you've been learning in your MLS program. I'm going to get a drink of water real quick. So Jordan has a question, is it likely an employer would want to see a copy of the course project? No, it's really not likely. What they most likely would do would be ask you some questions about it. Oh, so I see Jordan on your resume that you worked on a virtual team putting together a or how about planning an event for students at a conference. So tell me a little bit more about how you were able to coordinate a team virtually. If you weren't there with people, you know directly in person, how are you able to coordinate that? So they're going to ask you some questions perhaps based on what they're seeing on your resume, but rarely would they ask for the actual course project. I haven't even heard of anybody saying that, but they will ask you questions. So you want to be able to, you want to remember the project and be able to talk about it for sure. Other questions about your projects and how you would include them? And people, students actually, I find that you all often forget that and I have that as a last bullet point, that working in a virtual environment, doing a virtual online program, working with folks via distance learning is definitely a skill. And there's few people out there, honestly, who have that skill set. So don't take that one for granted as well. That's something that you could use to your benefit, particularly based on the job that you're applying for and what they're looking for in somebody, but that could be a real, real important selling point for all of you. Another thing that I noticed that students will forget and leave off are their technical skills or their computer capabilities. And again, I find that students kind of forget about that or take it for granted. But the fact that you all, depending on when you came into the program, we used to have Illuminate. Now, obviously, we have Blackboard Collaborate. People might be using D2L. All the different technology that you're using just to get through this program, those are skills, and you can put that information on your resume, certainly, or basically depending on the job that you're applying for if it relates, but I'd probably still put it on there too. Okay, so let's kind of check this out. This is just a sample of a resume. It's even a little chopped off, but it gives us a place to talk about resumes. So this is kind of a basic resume format. There is no one exact way to write your resume because you all have different skills and experiences that you're bringing into the program. Some of you are career changers. Some of you have been working in the field. Some of you have been home providing care for family members before you decided to come back to school and everybody is, you know, somewhere even in between all those things. So you all come in this graduate program with varied backgrounds, which means your resumes are going to look different as well, as they should. So this sample for me really just provides a good example for us to look at, and it does give us that starting point to kind of talk about some of these sections here. So when you all look at this, what do you notice about this resume? Or what do you like about this resume? Or what do you dislike about this resume? So go ahead and give me some comments and we can start chatting about it. So Elaine says this resume looks a little crowded, but do you think it's formatted clearly? It's a little, honestly, it's got a little squished in the way it looks when I put it on the slide here. So if it wasn't, didn't have that squished look, I honestly think it's okay. The borders around the sides, and again, it's all cut off here a little bit, and the top, of course, is cut off, but you don't need to go one inch all the way around anymore on a resume. I'll usually take it down to about 0.8 all the way around, and that usually gives me plenty of room. I use the space of the page, which means I don't indent things really far into the center. I want to use that space on the page, but as long as it's visually appealing and it's easy to read, then you're good to go. So you are always writing and formatting a resume, one for applicant tracking systems, typically, depending on what kinds of jobs you're applying for, and then you're also always writing it for the human eye, because the human eye is always going to look at it. So you do want it to look good. Heather's question is the relevant coursework that relates to the job that she's applying for, yes. So what is she applying for? Reference librarian. We have reference information, research methods, design, and infrastructural stuff. Yes, so when I, for me, when this is relevant coursework, it is. It's relevant towards the job that you're applying for, or if it's related coursework, it's related towards the job that you're applying for, which means you wouldn't list every single course that you've taken. But I'll tell people, think about the courses you've taken that you would want an employer to know that you have foundational knowledge in. And that can help you determine which courses to put on there. Okay. Let's see what else. A couple of just basic things about formatting. So we talked about the margins on the side. For font size, the smallest that you'd want to go is 10. The largest that you'd want to go is 12. So don't go any larger than 12. No need to make your name, you know, 20-size font. But just bring it all down. Keep it all in that same sort of, same flow. You want to pick nice, clear font styles, something like Times New Roman, Calibri, Verdana, Aerial, those work really well. So things that have nice, clean lines. Definitely use some bolding, because when things are bolded, that's where your eye goes to it. So the bolding just helps certain things stand out. Bullet points are fantastic for your statements versus a paragraph form. Again, you want it to be easy to read. Employers give you maybe six to 10 seconds when they're looking over a resume. So you want things to stand out and pop out and be very easy for them to find it. So let me see if there's some other sections I want to talk about here. Objectives are optional. I kind of leave it up to you. But if you choose to use one, you want it to be very specific. Like this is very specific. Seeking a reference librarian position in a public library. Or maybe it would be seeking the reference librarian position at the San Jose Public Library if you're applying for a specific job. Heather has another question. I usually put related experience and then other experiences. Is that acceptable? Also, your statements need to be limited to one page. Great questions, Heather. So the first part about how you have related experience and then other experience, I think that's fabulous. I love to do that myself. So I do recommend having it divided. Again, that doesn't work for everybody's resume. But if it works for your resume out there, I like it separated that way. That way you're bringing focus to all of the experience that you have that relates to the job that you're going into. Usually that's going to be kind of the top half of the resume or that first page. And then we'd have the bottom half or a second page is kind of the other stuff. That's good for someone to know. So that goes and Heather's question about does it need to be limited to one page? It does not need to be limited to one page. The answer really is if you have enough good, solid information that is relevant information to go to two pages, fantastic, go for it. But if you have one page and you've got just a little bit on the second page, then I would try to play with it to get it on one page. But it's not a hard and fast rule, mainly because so much stuff is online now that it's not that we're having all these paper copies of things. So it's fine if you have a two-page resume. Okay, let's see. What else do I want to tell you about this resume? So we have coursework with skills. So for me, your technical and computer skills, if they directly relate to the kind of position you're applying for me and they're important for that position, I'd like to have those up here towards the top. If they are less important, then those could be bumped down towards the bottom. And then again, we talked about projects, the positioning of projects. Now here would be another thing. If you're looking at this example, if Sally's related experience was more important than her projects, then I might flip it around and I might have the related experience first. Then I would go into projects, then maybe I'd have additional information with some, you know, other random jobs on there. So again, no hard and fast rule. Kind of play with it to see which format does the best job of representing what you have to offer to an employer. Okay, so I'm going to move on. If you have some other questions, certainly ask me. But I'm going to move on to show you a job description. And the reason that I want to point this out is because I do talk a lot about tailoring your resumes to a job description. Well, I think part of that is how do you read a job description? What are you actually looking for? So this is a real job description. And what's in red is where I went through and I looked for themes. I looked for certain words that kind of kept popping up over and over, which tells me those are important areas to the hiring manager or the HR person for this job. These are the themes that I'm seeing throughout this job description and that's what's popping out. So that tells me then that those are some key words. Those are some areas that I would definitely want to focus on, on my resume and that I want to make sure I've identified, for example, that I am creative, that I am a tech savvy, that I can work in an online environment, that I'm collaborative and I can work part of a team, that I have good communication skills and interpersonal skills. So if you look through this, you definitely see the theme and the key words and that gives you a very good idea of what you want to focus on. And then this one also does a good job of showing us here's required skills, right, so we talked about that you've got to meet the minimum qualifications. And then the next section is, okay, here's the preferred. So it goes back to the question I had early on about if you've met all the required skills but you're still not getting an interview, well, that's because there may be plenty of people who are applying for that job. So now the employer has bumped into the preferred skills. So now I can take it one step higher and I can look for the people who have these additional skills. So hopefully that makes sense. Jenny has a question, how much of this should be reflected in your resume or cover letter? So that's a good question, Jenny. And I have a couple cover letter examples in here too. The cover letter, you really only need to include the cover letter if they ask for it as part of the application process. If they say just submit a resume, then by all means just submit a resume and you're not doing yourself a disservice, you're just following the instructions. If it does say include a cover letter and resume, then of course you want to do both. So for the resume, I'm absolutely including as much of these skills, these keywords as I can that are true to me, right? I want to include those. On the cover letter, let's jump to the cover letter actually. Okay, let's cover letter quick tips but let me, do I have a sample on here? Let's go to this one, okay. So cover letter, this is kind of basically a format that you want to think about for a cover letter. Think of it in three paragraphs or three sections. The first one is we're calling it your statement of intent. That's basically where I'm saying, I was excited to hear of the position for a reference library in the San Francisco Public Library. I'm currently a student at San Jose State University iSchool. We graduated in December of 2014, something like that, right? That's just my opener. But the second paragraph, the summary of qualifications, that's where you're really going to connect what you have that they're looking for. So if we go back to this job description, in the cover letter, I might say, and this is just coming off the top of my head so let me see what I can come up with, but I might say something like, I might even use some of those words. I'm a creative tech savvy professional with over two years of experience working, you know, if you're a new grad, two years of experience working in the library setting. I have had the opportunity to complete my master's degree in an online environment where I became very comfortable with using distance learning technology and collaborating with people in a virtual world. I have developed strong communication skills and have had the opportunity to develop an innovative online instructional library guide. And then maybe I go into more about that, you know, I collaborate with a group of four to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I hope that made sense, but that's where I might pull out some of these key things that relate to the job, but I don't want to repeat what's in my resume, but it's a way for me to sort of summarize the best of what I've done as it relates to that particular job. So I hope that made sense. Just let me know, Jenny, if that works for you. And then going back to the cover letter, that third paragraph is really good. Okay. The third paragraph is really just the closer. I look forward to talking with you further about how my skills of the qualifications can be a positive, make a positive impact in your library. Thank you for your time and consideration. And that's it. You wrap it up. So what I had back here were some cover letter quick tips. So definitely following the business letter format, we talked about targeting it. You need to target and tailor it every single time, which means you might have a general cover letter format that you work with, but you've got to tweak it and customize it every single time for each job that's asking for the cover letter, because if it's just a general one that you send out, just don't even waste your time. Employers are not interested with general ones. You want to address the cover letter to a specific individual. If you do not have a particular individual's name, then your last resort is to use the Deer Hiring Manager or Deer Search Committee, something like that. Always talk in terms of what you can contribute to the organization, not how the position or the organization will benefit you. I see that so many times. I am interested in this position because I can learn so much about blank. I would like to develop my skills further. They're not going to hire you because of what you want to gain from the position. They're going to hire you or talk to you in an interview because of what you can bring to them. So always make your cover letter employer-focused versus you-focused. Let's see what else. Keep it brief. You don't have to go on and on, but keep it brief and make sure it's free of errors, check the spelling, and it's got to be professional. And one full page, a full page is probably too much. Unless you are applying in an academic setting, usually writing more will be okay. So we're getting close to our time. I have a few cover letter statements here that I just wanted to point out to you. And the reason I want to point these out is because I hope you pick up that the tone of these statements is very confident. They are strong in not in annoying, overly assertive way, but they're very confident. And that's important to have that come across. So I have, it's okay to say, I have exceptional research abilities and strong foundational knowledge in blah, blah, blah. I know how and where to quickly find accurate and reliable information. That's confident. People like that to come across. The next one, I am able to directly apply, you know, what I have learned, right? I'm able to do that. The next one, I can work successfully with people at all levels. The next one, I have excellent leadership skills as evidenced by my involvement in. And then the last one, as a, you know, whatever, in turn, my favorite projects involve legal research, and I love helping other associates and partners. So everything is very confident and strongly stated with assurance. So I want you to have your confidence when you write your cover letters and you write your resumes and you go into interviews and you talk to people. All right. So that brings us to the end here. We have about five more minutes and I'm wondering if any of you have any last burning questions for me that relates to supplemental questionnaires, applicant tracking systems, filling out applications, writing your resume, or writing your cover letter. So if a couple of people type in some things in, I know this was a lot of information tonight, but it's all good information. So if you think about it and you come up with some questions later, certainly do email me. My email address is here and I'll be happy to get back to you. Rebecca has a question. How do you address your online program education on a resume or job application when the space or tabs don't fit? Well, that is a good question. It will fit on your resume. You know, it may not fit on the job application and that would be okay. I think for me, the resume is more important than the job application. Oftentimes, a hiring manager never sees the application. That's something that stays on the HR side, but they will definitely see your resume. So you can have, you know, San Jose State University, Master of Library and Information Science, you could say, 100% distance learning program or, you know, online program. And where it's important or when it's important to include that is when that directly relates to the kind of job that you're applying for. Otherwise, you can just put the, talk about your skills, working in a virtual environment, down in your projects or maybe in the skills section. If that makes sense, I hope that makes sense. Elaine's question. Do these tracking systems track the supplemental questionnaires or the resumes? Typically, those are just tracking the resumes. Human eyes, a human person needs to go through the answers on the supplemental questionnaires to really determine how you've answered the question if you've answered it to the way that they would like you to. So it's going to be focused on the resumes will be the applicant tracking systems. I'm sorry about the spelling error. It's no problem. Rebecca, my concern is location. I'm not sure what that means. Do you mean like geographic location? I'm not sure what you mean, Rebecca. I'm sorry. Heather, how do you deal with federal jobs that ask for very specific qualifications that you can definitely demonstrate knowledge in, but perhaps you do not have the skill 100%? Is it okay so that you're qualified in something and feel that you can back that up? Absolutely. Yes. So, I mean, for us to have a skill that's, you know, 100%, you've had to work at that for a long time. So the fact that, yes, you can demonstrate that you have knowledge and some skill level in a certain area is absolutely worth it and very important. So, again, give yourself some confidence for what you do know. And you have to learn the situation thinking, well, I'm familiar with this or I have some basic knowledge of this and I know that if this became my job, I'm going to learn it, you know, I'm going to become proficient in it. I can develop my skills even further, but I have enough to get myself started. And you have to really think about it that way. How soon can one apply for a librarian job before graduating or does one have to wait until after? That's a great question. I'd say if you're going to graduate in December, I mean, I would absolutely be applying for jobs because by the time, one, I think you're pretty close. And if you're questioning whether you're close enough, again, call the HR department or contact the people who are posting a job and find out, hey, I'm going to graduate in December, I'm interested in the job, can I apply for it now while I still make it through the process if I have all the other qualifications. And then the other thing is, you know, the hiring process is depending on where you're applying, whether it's a public library or academic institution. Those typically take longer than corporations, typically, can't say always, but. So, I would go for it and hopefully the timing really works out. So, I guess my question is don't, or my answer is don't wait until after graduation. You want to get it started. In terms of putting out an address on the application form, I'm going to have to go back and figure out what we're saying, Rebecca, I'm so sorry. Let's see if I can make sense of this. I still don't think I get it. Sorry. I'm not following that one. Jenny, on a resume, do you suggest including the months and years? You were in a position or is only the years okay? Good question. Either one is fine. I have never heard, I've asked employers this if it matters to them, one way or the other. And I've never, either way, seems fine actually. If you want to include the months or if you just want to include the years. I tend to just go with years. I don't put the months on there. Yeah. So, I think either one is fine. Yeah. I'm sorry, Rebecca. I would not follow that. And let's see. Jordan, is there a time limit on how long we can access SJSU Career Resource after you graduate? Yeah. So, thanks for asking that, Jordan. Typically, Dr. Hirsch has given new grads a period of time after you graduate. The period's gotten shorter, so it might be a couple of months after you graduate for you to activate a career center membership. So, what that means is the iSchool will pay $25 for you to have a career center membership. And with that, then you have access to Sparta jobs. So, you can go into Sparta, the job database and check out jobs. And then you still have access to work with me, send me questions. I can look at resumes and things like that. So, you will still have access. And once you have that membership, the membership lasts for a year. And then after that year, if you wanted to pay the $25 and continue that so that you still have access to Sparta jobs, the database, you could certainly do that on your own. Oh, thanks, Karen. So, Rebecca, if the education is online and not located in a geographic location, I was wondering if that was it. So, thank you. I get it now, Rebecca. You know, so I wouldn't worry about it. You're going to have your say you're in Florida. And, you know, we're here at San Jose State. If there's a concern or you're wondering if employers are going to wonder, hey, how did you that? That's where you'd want to then say that the program for San Jose State was online. So, it might say San Jose State University online, maybe, if I'm thinking of if your space was limited to put that in there. But that's how I would just indicate it somewhere. I still wouldn't worry about doing it on the application. I might just do it on the resume like I said before. I don't think it's an issue on the application. But if we need to talk about that further because I'm not still understanding it, we can do that. All right, you guys, our time is wrapped up and I don't like to keep you past 6.30, but we did start a little bit late. That's true. But again, I thank you for your patience earlier on. If you do have some questions, please do feel free to contact me. I'm very happy to help. Thank you for joining me tonight. I absolutely appreciate your questions. Thank you. I'm glad it was informative. I always appreciate the interaction. You're very, very welcome. It was my pleasure. All right, have a great evening. Thanks, everyone.