ALIA Resume Build Workshop

At the beginning of the course I subscribed to the ALIA New Grads Facebook page and email list. I have never been part of a professional organisation before so it is nice to know that ALIA has programs available to support library students. I was alerted to the resume workshop via the Facebook page, it just happened to pop-up on my newsfeed. At the end of 2013 I had applied for role as a library assistant however I did not get the job. I needed to address selection criteria and having never done this before, I was unclear about how to go about it. I thought going to the ALIA resume workshop would be a good opportunity for me to ask questions and assess my current CV.

The ALIA team organised for those attending the workshop to have about 20 minutes with a professional working in the library field. I was lucky enough to speak to a lady who had significant managerial experience in a large academic library. My resume was forwarded to her upon my application so she would have time to look over it and bring out points for discussion.

Meeting in the cafe at SLQ probably added to the conversational tone of the workshop. Usually I am nervous about letting people see my resume but I was very comfortable in this situation. The manager gave me a number of key points to look out for when writing up  my resume, they were:

1. Show personality. The manager said that when she looked at my resume she could see what I had achieved but she could not see what my personality was like from merely looking at dates and names of degrees. The majority of this would be conveyed in my cover letter but it could also be added to my descriptions of work experience.

2. Contextualise. This was in relation to my references, which I had just listed without any indication on their role or how they were related to me. I needed to give more contextual hints so the reader of my resume didn’t have to do any guess-work.

3. A unique resume. The biggest point my managerial mentor emphasised was the need to tailor my cover letter AND resume to every job I applied for. While I had been told to tailor just my cover letter, my mentor suggested to tailor my resume as well ie. descriptions of work detail and achievements.

Overall I found the information passed on to me as very useful and something that will benefit me in my future search for employment. Attending the resume workshop not only validates my efforts in professional development but also justifies the ALIA New Grads group as being helpful to new librarians. I enjoyed meeting other library students and chatting with other library professionals over coffee, it was a great networking opportunity.