April was a blur of travel and conferences, leaving me little time for much of anything, much less blog posting. Now that the semester is officially over and the only conference on my plate is ALA in June, I have a bit more time to write and reflect, which I always enjoy.

One of the conferences that kept me away was the Texas Library Association’s 2013 Conference in Ft. Worth. I was thrilled to spend a few days in my sunny home state, but was even happier to have the opportunity to co-present with Abe Korah, an awesome colleague from Lone Star College-CyFair Branch. Our talk focused on re-imagining your library job search and taking a more active role in your own professional development. So not only did we encourage attendees to do all of the standard things job seekers are told to do (network, be prepared for interviews, etc.) we also urged them to really think about the profession they are about to join and begin engaging in activities that a demonstrate a real interest in librarianship and that “do-something-ness” that sets the great applicants apart from the good ones.

We structured our presentation as a mock-interview, which gave us some great interactivity with the attendees and I think made for a more entertaining presentation. The 90 minutes just flew by! I thought I’d share my presentation slides below. I realize they don’t make much sense since they’re so graphic and simplistic, but I like my presentation aids to be just that: aids, not the center stage of the presentation. If you’re interested in the content, let me know. We also created a website to accompany the presentation which includes some really good resources for job seekers.