Professional Development
Anastasia
Gould is in her first term at Western. She still considers herself a Maritimer
and Acadian, even though she has spent nearly as much time in Ontario as New
Brunswick. After more than a decade as a policy analyst with the federal
government, she looks forward to making a difference as an information
professional—ideally near water, where she prefers to spend most of her time
outside class.
One
of the reasons I joined the UWO student chapter of the CLA was for its focus on
professional development. So you can imagine how thrilled I was to learn about its
plans to host a daylong professional development workshop in June with Ulla de
Stricker, a respected leader in the information industry—see her website for
details: http://www.destricker.com.
I
was unsure what to expect, really. We certainly had a full agenda:
- Where do you “fit”? Understanding your
career type. What elements of culture and personality
figure in a good organizational fit?
- Cover Letters – Do They Do Us Justice? Transforming
ineffective cover letters into a powerful marketing device.
- How to Construct a Superb Résumé: Ways
to make the résumé stand
out visually and make an impact in the first 3 seconds.
- The Job Interview: Projecting competence, confidence and fit with organizational
culture … making yourself the perfect candidate.
- Could You Be A ... ? Other employment
opportunities in which our skills are applicable, and how to translate the
description of those skills into terms meaningful for potential employers
(e.g. business analyst, stakeholder relations manager).
All the many practical points, which I have since
adopted, exceeded any expectations. What I found surprising, though, were all
the intangibles. It reminded me of our orientation, when the Acting Dean Dr. Nick
Dyer-Witheford welcomed us to the
program and the university: he invited us to set aside our preconceived notions
of where we thought we belonged as LIS professionals or the strengths we might
eventually bring to bear. He recommended we try, instead, some courses outside
our area of concentration. He suggested we prepare to be surprised by which
courses and issues may resonate with us—which may lead us, in turn, to follow
an entirely different path than the one that had brought us to the MLIS program
in the first place.
Thanks to the UWO-CLA professional development
workshop and to Ulla de Sticker’s motivational style, I am inspired anew to
reconsider which co-op postings I apply for and which courses to select for the
next semester. Granted, it is early still in my academic preparation, so who
knows where it will take me professionally. Yet I am much more open now to the
possibility that I will find myself working as an information professional
rather than a public or academic librarian. In fact, that has become an
exciting possibility!
Participating in an association has been positive
and productive in other ways, encouraging me to look beyond classes for
professional development—be it to volunteer, join other student organizations
or simply exchange with my peers around LIS topics and issues.
All that to say that already professional
development has become more than making myself the ideal candidate, more than
finding the right professional fit. It is now about being engaged with the
issues that define the profession—and those who would advocate for it. This
first semester has shown me what makes LIS a profession. It has given me many
welcome occasions to commit—and recommit—to the responsibilities we bear to our
profession and to our communities.
With that, gentle readers, I wish you your own
inspiration –
Anastasia.
