Getting corporate library jobs
I’ve been looking around for topics for this week’s post - I thought it might be interesting for those people reading the blog who are still in library school to see how some of us got jobs in corporate libraries.
I got my first corporate library job, a temporary job which became permanent, through a placement agency, Pro Libra. I’d signed up with a few agencies after library school: Heller & Associates, Inc., William Harris Associates, Wontawk. A few tips: let the agency negotiate the salary if you’re hired on a full-time basis, and keep in mind that the agency just wants you placed - therefore they may pressure you into taking a job you don’t feel you want. The agencies I named are mostly NYC-area, so look around for others as appropriate for your region. SLA has a list, though it’s US-dominated (with one UK agency).
My second job was a result of experience from my first job. I used TFPL for my staffing needs, the agency my ex-boss had used. I’m also getting more calls from executive search firms with my experience at two jobs now.
So what have your experiences been? And students, what questions do you have?
August 8, 2006 at 5:38 pm
I got my first professional and corporate job through the placement service at the 1982 ASIS Annual Meeting in Columbus, Ohio. (Gee, was it THAT long ago! Gawd, do I feel OLD!)
I interviewed in Columbus and was called back for an on-site interview a couple of months later. I had one more on-site interview and was hired.
I had sent out about 50 resumes and had 2 or 3 interviews before this. It was almost exactly a year from getting my MSLIS to starting my first job. (I wasn’t in any hurry since I already had a job.)
August 9, 2006 at 9:32 am
Since this is my second career, I decided after one class that if I really wanted to get a great job and to get the most of my library school education I needed to get a paraprofessional job while in school. Therefore, I started temping for a small company that specializes in law libraries. From there I got a good feel for a variety of corporate libraries from law firms to an insurance company to an accounting firm. I was hired at the insurance company library after nine months of temping. After that library closed, I briefly worked in an academic law library. Then six months before graduation I finally got my “real” library job in a corporate library.
When talking to students I always emphasis the need to get some experience while still in school. I know it’s not always easy. I had to take a huge cut in pay to do this, but the sacrifice was worth it. Personally, I would never hire someone just out of school without some experience.
Also network, network, network! All my library jobs I’ve gotten because I knew people.
August 18, 2006 at 12:59 pm
Hmmm. Do you mind if a public librarian asks a question? My first job out of grad school was at a public library in Texas. I’ve been here a little over a year, and plan to move back to NYC in spring 2007. But I quickly realized that I will not be able to support myself on a NYC public librarian’s salary!
I’m interested in corporate librarianship, but to be honest, I’m not sure where to begin. What skills should I develop to make me an attractive job candidate? If anyone has any advice it would be greatly appreciated.
August 23, 2006 at 10:34 pm
Elizabeth - I got hired with little more than library school experience, so I may not be the best example. Experience with online information services (DIALOG, Factiva, LexisNexis) and commercial databases would be good. My impression is that taxonomy/ontology/metadata is becoming more important for organizing corporate data. Can’t go wrong with basic cataloging and reference skills.
Anyone else?
August 28, 2006 at 11:02 am
I work in the corporate library of a large pharmaceutical/medical corporation. Experience with taxonomy and online information services are definitely a plus. We also look for people with patent research and contract management experience. I would highly encourage students who might be reading this to get some internship experience before they graduate.
August 31, 2006 at 10:13 am
I ‘m in my final semster of library school and I really appreciate your comments and suggestions. I currently work in an academic library but I am interested in working in a coporate or special library. I was laid off from a corporate job 3 years ago and really miss that corporate paycheck.
Thanks for sharing!
February 13, 2007 at 3:37 pm
[...] library jobs Job-seekers (who hit my blog with gay abandon) might want to check out the first brief post I did on how I got my job, mainly for the comments to the [...]
June 12, 2007 at 3:03 pm
I graduated from library school 11 years ago and worked full-time for 3 years as a cataloger in a corporate library while attending school. After being laid off from that 3 year job at around the same time I graduated, I STILL don’t have another library job 11 years later.
June 13, 2007 at 8:48 am
I am in the same position and have been looking to no avail for corporate or research librarian jobs in Tampa FL. Someone suggested using a recruiter but I have not been able to translate my ‘degree’ into other business fields. If you have found any resources to help transition into another career please pass them on.
Good luck in your search
June 19, 2007 at 7:08 pm
LJ: What job do you have? Perhaps you can translate your cataloging work into something involving your knowledge of database systems or the like?
Hilary: You might look into outplacement firms, which often offer career transition guidance. I’m assuming you’ve tried networking with friends, relatives, former co-workers, fellow alumni, etc? The only outplacement firm I’ve had experience with recently is DBM - here’s the contact info for their Tampa office:
2502 Rocky Point Drive Suite 890
Tampa , Florida 33607
Phone: 813-281-0225
Fax: 813-281-2305
August 3, 2007 at 7:50 pm
I would like to gain employment as a corporate librarian and eventually start my own research business. I got my MLS in 1997. I have worked in public, academic, and school libraries. Currently, I am working in an elementary school. I hope to begin an MBA program online. I want to relocate to Atlanta or Raleigh, North Carolina. How should I go about breaking into the corporate environment? Help!
January 13, 2008 at 9:23 pm
I acquired my Master’s in Library and Information Science in May of 2006, and have NOT been able to secure full-time permanent library work since then. I am VERY frustrated. I have retooled and retooled my resume numerous times, I am constantly seeking input about my cover letter formats, and I scour job sites daily.
However, from what I have told and am seeing, the qualifications employers ask for are OUTRAGEOUS to expect from someone just out of library school. I can’t even get a part-time job as a shelver, obviously, since I have my MLS, but I am also not qualified for a good 80% of the job postings I see. EVERYONE wants management experience. WHAT MLS grad is going to have that???? Up until this point, I have worked as a library assistant, but what else could I have been?? I am more than willing to get into corporate, public, or special librarianship, but since my experience has been in academic libraries, I am having trouble branching out into new areas. Of course I wouldn’t NEED to branch out if an academic library job was at all attainable. I just don’t know what do at this point.
I have worked in libraries more or less steadily since 1999, but NO ONE seems to care about that. So, I’m switching gears, and looking for any old permanent benefited job I can get at this point (not that that is going to be really easy either) but I’m trying. I’m ANGRY that what I learned in library school has done little, if anything, to prepare me for entering the job market as a professional. I seem to be overqualified or underqualified for EVERYTHING.
WHERE ARE ALL THE ENTRY-LEVEL JOBS????
January 16, 2008 at 12:18 pm
Steven - I would love to do research, I don’t want to do cataloging again - I’m planning to apply for an entry-level research analyst position with a private investigation firm and we’ll see how that goes.
January 22, 2008 at 1:15 am
Hi Doug,
Try a temp agency… even it’s a short-term assignment, there is always the possibility that it will lead to something more permanent. My current job started out as a one month temp assignment which was extended for a couple more months, then a couple more months, and then as one year contractor position.
Good luck!
January 25, 2008 at 9:34 pm
Hi Doug and Stephanie,
I’ve been out of work for several months now and haven’t been able to get any kind of library related work, temp or otherwise. It’s funny (and when I say funny I mean completely maddening) when I first graduated three years ago I had trouble finding work because I had no experience. Now that I have a few years under my belt I’m being told by employment agencies that the only jobs around are entry-level and clerical.
Doug, if you’re in the New York City area and haven’t tried Infocurrent.com, give them a shot, apparently they have junior level positions available!
February 25, 2008 at 5:02 pm
I have 20+ years in the corporate library environment, mostly in technology companies, but also in consulting/financial service. I do not have an MLS and I don’t have “traditional” librarian skills e.g. I am not a cataloger. What I have always had is the ability to a.) understand business problems b.) understand technologies and translate to and from “tech speak” into information retrieval solutions.
Most corporate library users, in my experience, are focused in a number of areas: sales/marketing, strategic planning, product planning, corporate finance, legal and corporate communications. You need to understand those functions and their typical information needs.
Most any corporate library job is going to entail doing company research of some sort, including financials, M&A searching, building comapny profiles, etc. You need to understand how that type of research is done, as it’s basic and applicable in any industry. If you are aiming for a specific industry. you need to understand the basic economics of that industry and the “standard” sources of information for it: who collects that statistics, how is it regulated, what are the typical products, who are the main competitors, what is the technology, etc.
My last job (at a large tech firm - recently laid off in post merger restructuring…
managed the back-end taxonomy that indexed content for the info center’s content aggregation portal. That’s right, no MLS but I in effect managed the thesaurus for a bunch of librarians. This was a good fit for my “intellectual” skills and tech understanding. Believe me, nobody else wanted the job…
Now I am freelancing, but working in an IT dept. doing IA and content management.
especially the SDLC process, and how to express things in terms of use cases, etc.
I would suggest to anyone seeking to enter this world:
* learn to speak the language of the Business Analyst (search wikipedia…
* take an entry level DBMS course, especially for Oracle (you can download a trial version of Oracle 10g from their website, and they have free tutorials). You’ve been searching DBs online, right? You should learn a bit about the nuts and bolts of them, not just how to use the controlled vocabulary and write searchs, though of course you must be able to do that. You could get by doing an MS Access tutorial, but Oracle is better.
* learn some HTML and other web tech if you haven’t already. It’s absolutely basic now. If you don’t know MS Office get up with that as well, esp. Visio. If you know how to set up styles in Word, you are well on your way to learning the concepts of HTML.
* learn more about the various enterprise search tools and content management systems e.g. Google Search Appliance, Autonomy/Ultraseek, FAST, Sharepoint, etc. Some offer free downloads to test. Go here to learn about things: http://www.enterprisesearchcenter.com/
* understand the basics of XML. It is the future (and present) of content management and search results presentation.
All of these things will make you more valuable in a corporate information center environment and “cross platform” with the IT people who often control the systems the library group uses.
Not everything is “on Google”: it’s true that there is actually more need than ever for people who can organize and synthesize. Often you need to do it in more of an IT environment though.
Good Luck!
Dave G.
March 1, 2008 at 6:25 pm
Dave sound like good advice but a lot of hard work to obtain thos skill sets. With them whout woud you say is a “general” salary expectation? My goal is to be in the 75+ range. I’m currently employed in a Public Library where i feel overqualifed and i do not want to become outdated and the industry emerges.
I have my bachelors in Business Admin and my Information Studies Degree (MLIS) from FSU. As i’ve turned 32 this year i feel the pressure to make a career path quickly. I love doing research and embrace technology, but my public library system does not. We do not even have wi-fi in any of our branches… So im looking to persure a career as a corporate or legal librarian. In order to get to that 75+range in legal it seems a JD is required. In corporate do you feel a MBA is desired?
March 1, 2008 at 6:55 pm
Sorry for the typos I was in my bed