We answered the questions that the students asked, which happened to focus on committees and publications. But you make an excellent point that maybe we should have also answered the question behind the questions in terms of what types of skills they should be putting an effort into developing. I like your list.

The best thing you can do when it comes to professional development is to spend your free time acquiring real technology skills and/or learning a language other than English that is commonly spoken in your area (Spanish, for example). Those are the skills that are most in demand, and very hard for libraries to find.

Secondly, expand your social network, and impress the people who know you. Good letters of recommendation are like gold.

As a person who hires librarians, I don’t care about the committees they have served on, the blogs they have written, what they have done for ALA, etc. I care about how well they can serve our patrons, how quickly they can adapt to new technologies, how professionally they can act, how well they know the literature for their area of specialization, how friendly they are, how good they are with PR and advertising, and other essential things.

We wanted to have a space to think critically about issues, but also to provide our pro-active ideas and solutions. Instead of Lead Pipe being a place for rants, we wanted our posts to incite change with constructive criticism. Not to toot my own horn, but I think my first post, On the ALA Membership Pyramid is a good example, as are countless other Lead Pipe posts.

Also, thanks for talking about privacy in FB, I think your perspective here adds a lot to the discussion.

I have some additional thoughts for students about Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc. I agree in theory that a potential employer who is scared off by strong opinions may be one to be avoided. But, as a member of a search committee, I do want to see that you can present a professional image. This means that if you are ranty and political, do it under a pseudonym or at least don’t connect it to your full name. If you have a professional website or one you developed for your LS program, don’t link it to your knitting tumblr. Knitting isn’t bad, but I don’t want to see your quirkiness when I’m evaluating you for a potential job. Show me that you know the difference between a personal and professional online presence.

And *please* lock down your privacy settings on Facebook. If you don’t, it makes me think you don’t really understand social media. And don’t friend every librarian out there if you are mostly personal on FB. Sure, it’s great to have coworkers as FB friends, but only accept those requests of people who you might actually see socially unless you are always and only professional on FB. Not managing your online identity well doesn’t demonstrate a very sophisticated understanding of these technologies–and this is relevant to librarians’ jobs.

Similarly, think carefully if your professional blog is ranty about ALA, not finding a job, LS school, etc. If you are really negative online, that tells me you might be a really negative person in general.

Now, if you have a professional blog that has strong opinions about electronic resources, publishing, library instruction–that’s great. That won’t scare me off if I think it’s constructive. But please don’t mix in your listings to your crocheted spoons on etsy, okay?

I hope this is helpful and not overly prescriptive. I think too many students struggle with the transition to a professional, online presence and think, “But I’m not ashamed of who I am!” It’s not about being ashamed. It’s about not telling us everything about you before we’ve even read your resume.

I particularly highlight Lead Pipe when I can relate it to job requirements (like working collaboratively across distances), but leave it as a short line item otherwise.

This also relates back to #6. I’m not sure I would want to work someplace that thought Lead Pipe was points against me. Though I’d totally be fine working someplace that didn’t care about ellie <3s libraries.