Maybe may be my least favorite word.

I've mentioned before that I was starting to get interviews after the five year mark of looking for a library position (although incidentally, that "two and counting" for 2014 can be called now-- that's staying at 2).  At that point the upside was that at least I'm getting interviews now and then.  Just a couple a year, but it gives me a better fighting chance than zero, right?

That was the upside.  Now, however, I'm looking at it as possibly being another negative, most likely due to the pessimism I can't help but feel.  Here's what I'm thinking now:

Before I was failing without even getting the chance.  Now I'm being given a chance, and still failing.

You ask someone out on a date who says no, and it doesn't hurt your ego a whole lot, hopefully.  Worst case scenario they didn't like your appearance, but that's a subjective thing so you can shrug it off.  You know you're gorgeous.  When you send out a resume, same deal.  They judged you at a glance, and who knows what random, snap decision they had to make to narrow down the candidates.  You know you would have been perfectly competent to do that job.

But when you get a yes to that date, go out, have some long, deep conversations and you think things went well, and then you never hear from the person again, and this keeps happening over and over, well then you can't help but wonder what's wrong with you.  This time the person gave you a chance, sat down with you with an open mind, listened to what you had to say... and did not like it one bit.  Not a snap judgment made at a glance, but a sound judgment made after peering into your depths and recoiling in horror.  Same now with these interviews: they met me, shook my hand, asked me things about myself, and decided then that I should be rejected.

Where this metaphor breaks down is that when it comes to dating, sometimes being pretty is enough to hold someone's interest (and how lucky for me, since that's really all I've got).  But when it comes to those interviews, sadly, being pretty will not be enough to win them over.  I'll admit it has occurred to me that the fact that I'm eye candy could be good marketing for their library, but I'm obviously not stupid enough to claim that in an interview >.>

This is going off the rails a bit, circling back to my point now.  Before it was easier to shrug it off and think: "they're not rejecting me, they're rejecting a very small snapshot of me that they gather from my resume and cover letter.  Now, though, some of them are spending hours-- hours!-- with me in person, listening to what I have to say, and saying: "nahhhhhhhhhhhhhh."  Now I can really, truly feel like it's "me" they're rejecting.  Is that really a step up?

Obviously I'm still getting the interview experience, and I'm still getting a chance rather than none.  But that only makes me feel better if I believe it's really going to help me get the job someday.  If I don't get the job-- and it is entirely possible that I won't-- all I'll have gotten from this is more personal rejection and the opportunity to look back at the end of my life and think "if only I'd checked my hair after taking off my sunglasses in the car, maybe...," or "if only I'd elaborated on this one point, maybe...," or "if only the three hour drive hadn't drained me so much more than I thought it was going to, maybe..."

Will my interview opportunities lead to something good?  Maybe.  But then again, maybe not.

Not very great expectations

We who have been looking at postings for librarian jobs for a long time have long been aware of how laughably optimistic some employers are of the kinds of applicants they're going to find.  More than a decade's worth of experience, a second Master's degree (in a specific particular field, no less), and willing to work 50-60 hours a weeks for just under 30,000 dollars.  That's a worst case scenario, of course, but I've actually seen postings that hit three out of four of those.  Clearly, some people would do well to lower their expectations.  Yes, this is an employer's market and you've got your pick of the litter right now, but sometimes the future Westminster winner you're hoping for just isn't going to be out there.

Now, we job hunters often have a snicker over those job posts, typically before sighing heavily, taking another belt of our favorite drink (hemlock), and throwing ourselves off the roof.  And yet, I rarely hear laughter, complaints, or head scratching about employers on the opposite side of the fence, and it's strange to me because I see them constantly.  I mean those employers who pretend to have no standards whatsoever, even though they clearly need someone with a pretty substantial wealth of experience.

These jobs are extremely easy to identify.  Any time you see a job described simply as "Librarian," you've just found one.  What kind of librarian?  Reference?  Instruction?  Collection development?  Cataloging?  Would this be a supervisory position, perhaps?  Would I be in charge of the website, or be the liaison to the instructors?  The answer is all of the above.  "Librarian" more or less means "you're gonna be the only one here. do it all."  Now that's the kind of job I wouldn't expect to get without 5 years or more of progressively greater responsibility in the library world, having moved my way up to a management position at the very least.  Maybe I wouldn't expect to need a second Master's in Oriental Medicine or whatever, but obviously I should be ready to tackle a huge range of tasks with little to no direction.

I see these jobs all the time.  "Librarian."  "Librarian."  "Librarian."  That vague title that simply means "every kind of librarian you can think of, you're running the show, champ."  And yet every single one of those jobs I see asks for the exact same qualifications: "An ALA accredited Master's degree in Library Science."  That's it.  As if someone who just walked out of library school is perfectly capable of captaining the ship themselves.

What I'd like to know is, are they honestly considering people with no experience?  Is what they list as their qualifications really all that matters to them?  Or are they doing a complete 180 from the laughably optimistic employers above, so afraid of raising their standards too high that they drop all standards altogether for the initial job posting, and simply weed out the inexperienced ones once they've collected the resumes?  In short, just what the fucking fuck is up with these jobs?  I don't suppose anyone in the know can shed some light on this for us long-suffering job hunters?

And if these jobs secretly do have standards, could we maybe see more middle ground between the "I expect a librarian who can ride in on a unicorn, holding the Holy Grail" employers and the "we need someone who can do everything, but fuck it, we're too afraid to ask for more than a degree" employers?  Please?  I understand your perspective as someone who is concerned about raising the bar too high, but maybe you could understand my perspective as someone who is a little burned out after spending over five years applying for job after job after job afterjobafterjobafterjob,  and maybe agree not to waste my time if I don't have the experience you're secretly looking for.  Just an idea, throwing it out there.

FML

So, my hard disk died.  I had almost nothing backed up.  The disk is so thoroughly fucked that it would cost 1200-1500 to even attempt to repair it.

What does that have to do with this blog?  Well, aside from having had several blog posts written out in a word doc in advance, I also had my cover letter templates on that disk.  Yet another beautiful setback in my job hunting, like I needed one.

I also lost some statistics I was keeping, such as a list of every job I applied to.

This is all really the least of what I lost, but it's the only part relevant to my blog, so I'll leave it at that.

Member$ only

I got that dreaded email today.  “Renew Your ALA Membership.”  This email signifies another 65 dollars out of my pocket for absolutely nothing.

I’m not hating on the ALA.  I’m sure a membership is a nice thing to have if you’re working in the field.  But for a severely underemployed person who doesn’t actually work in a library?  This is pretty useless.  The ALA joblist is visible to me with or without a membership, so there’s only one reason for me to have it:

I keep renewing my membership in hopes that it looks good on my resume.

When I was in library school I had a professor who said that if she had the power, she’d make it mandatory for us all to have ALA memberships simply because it helps our resumes.  But as you know if you’ve been following my blog since the beginning (and I understand that’s not all of you… or any of you… or anyone because there is no hypothetical “you” and I’m talking to myself >.>) I’ve given up hope that it’s possible for me to get a job in this field.  It’s over, throw in the towel, I am a failure.  Despite this, I am still sending out resumes because, crap, I didn’t waste all that time and money not to try.

This is my first time being asked to renew my ALA membership since officially giving up, and I’m not sure exactly what to do now.  Do I waste my money on something I know is futile, or do I keep paying because, if I’m going to keep sending these resumes out, I ought to put my all into it?

How exactly is it even improving my resume, given that I have done precisely dick with it in the 5 years I’ve had it?  Wouldn’t it be just as well to write “I’d purchase an ALA membership if you gave me a reason to have one”?  Of course I’m speaking practically, and practical is not always the same as realistic.  Of course that wouldn’t look good on a resume, but for all intents and purposes it would be the same thing except I wouldn’t be wasting money that I desperately need.

I will grant you that 65 dollars for a year isn’t a lot of money.  In return, I hope you will grant me that it is a lot of money when I’m already operating under a yearly net loss from bills alone (thank you, student loans for a career I now know I can never hope to have!).

Is $65 in my current predicament worth the ability to tell myself that I did all I could, or is it time to cut another loss in a loss-filled life?