Transferable Skills: Identifying and Marketing Your Unique Value to Non-LIS Employers

© 2012 Kim Dority & Scott Brown

Kim Dority & Scott Brown

SLA Rocky Mountain Chapter

November 15, 2012

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Where are we going today? Today we’ll focus on:

Identifying your skills that transfer into multiple career opportunities

Translating those skills into non-LIS language

Finding opportunities (i.e., job openings) for which those skills are appropriate

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What are all of your qualities and roles?

Last time: Roles & Skills

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Exercise: Roles, qualities & skills What are the details of those skills?

Volunteer

Event planning

Planned 14 continuing education meetings over an entire year for 200-member regional association, bringing in revenue to the association treasury

Recruited, scheduled and coordinated speakers for each event

Sought and secured funding from local, national and international vendors for events

Managed registration and advertising for events

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LIS + Nursing

Medical librarian

Patient advocate

And…..

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How could your skills combine?


• Competitive intelligence specialist for bioinformatics, medical research, pharmaceutical company

• Information director for clinical research/academic health center

• Records manager for managed healthcare company

• Content developer for consumer health website

• Business analyst, medical industry venture capital group

• Librarian for healthcare-related professional organization

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• Research-guide developer for consumer health topics

• Current-awareness research for clinics, doctors, patients

• Consumer health specialist for public library

• Grant-writer, prospect researcher for community health organization

• Teacher of medical-research course for nursing program

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Learning more…about invisible jobs

Invisible LIS jobs are sometimes tough to “unearth,” but more and more LIS professionals are ending up in these roles

Embedded librarianship

Embedded/integrated information professionals

What are these positions called?

Sample keywords and job titles

“Off the beaten track” sources

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Invisible jobs – where do I look?

A few examples

“Off the beaten track”

EDUCAUSE: http://jobs.educause.edu/jobs

Non-profit:

http://www.coloradononprofits.org/career-center/nonprofit-jobs

http://www.redcross.org/about-us/careers

Employer sites: http://nikeinc.com/pages/careers

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Invisible jobs – where do I look?

A few examples

Local

Oregon: http://www.oregonlive.com/jobs/

Twitter lists

https://twitter.com/scbrown5/infojobs

http://listorious.com

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Yes, they’re really there

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Yes, they’re really there

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Translating LIS language LIS-Wording Non-LIS Wording

Reference Information needs assessment

Research (possibly research and analysis)

Customer service

(see also Research)

Cataloging Information analysis

Metadata assignment

Records management / access and retrieval

Taxonomy-building

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Translating LIS language LIS-Wording Non-LIS Wording

Acquisitions Contract negotiation/management

Content licensing

Purchasing management

Vendor relations

Research Research analysis and synthesis

Business or data analysis

Market research

Product development support

Competitive intelligence

Donor/prospect research

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What do you do? Contrast: Cataloger

“I know MARC and XML, and I’ve cataloged books,

videos, periodicals, and other media in a public library.”

“I make sure important information is findable by making it as accessible as possible through tagging and cataloging quickly and efficiently.”

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Contrast: Cataloger

“I know MARC and XML, and I’ve cataloged books, videos, periodicals, and other media in a public library.”

> This one says: “Zzzzzzzzz….”

“I make sure important information is findable by making it as accessible as possible through tagging and cataloging quickly and efficiently.” >This one says, “I kick ass!”

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What do you do?


Back to your skills - Keywords Look for the jobs you want and synch them up

Job postings

Resume/LinkedIn

Targeted to one job

Targeted to the types of jobs you want

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Keywords

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Keywords

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Keywords In LinkedIn, use them in:

Summary

Specialties

Experience descriptions

Volunteer work

Education

Interests

Skills (if they match up with LinkedIn skills)

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Transitioning across borders Things to keep in mind

21 © N-Media-Images - Fotolia.com


Watch for words that hide specifics Trained

Taught or instructed

Assisted

Provided

Participated in

Oversaw

Worked with

Served (on a board or committee)

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Multiple “identities” in social media

LinkedIn – what do I do if I’m transitioning, or combining multiple “lives”?

Write about your experience and skills more generically – more skills-based than industry-based

It’s possible to create more than one LinkedIn account, and this may be a best option – but consider those searching for your profile, and how to manage in the future

You may not have a perfect solution – and so maybe blogging or Twitter may be a better option

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Pop quiz: key take-aways?

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Your information skills can be broadly applied (transferred) across a multitude of job opportunities and industries

To identify your strongest (or most rewarding) transferable skills, consider all the aspects of current and previous roles, both professional and personal


Key take-aways (con’t)

Then research potential areas of interest to see what words are used to describe your “LIS” skills – this will also help you discover those invisible jobs

Also - you may have developed and mastered additional transferable skills that have nothing to do with your LIS knowledge/expertise – don’t hesitate to embrace these opportunities as well

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Upcoming webinars

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• So Tell Me About Yourself: Personal and Professional Branding for LIS Students and Professionals, December 20, 2012, 2pm ET

Sign up at http://rockymountain.sla.org/tag/virtual-programs/


Questions

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Documents

Transferable Skills: Identifying and Marketing Your Unique Value to Non-LIS Employers