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| 'Two Little Ducks 22'. Image by Kugelfish |
The idea of volunteering in libraries is one which came to mind earlier this year after I was made redundant. I had never considered it before this time. When job hunting, there were all manner of complicated clauses attached to my redundancy package. In reality, when it was all stripped down to nuts and bolts, it meant after leaving my old job I could not start work in a new job for 5 weeks. When I had the interview for my new job I felt quite anxious about mentioning this to them, but a member of the interview panel was from the Human Resources department and was familiar with such clauses. Nobody else on the panel had heard of such things, so I was glad the HR officer was there to verify it! I worried that this would make me appear less attractive as a potential employee, so I offered to work for them on a voluntary basis during these five weeks. In the end nothing came of it, but I was quite prepared to do so if it helped secure me a post. I was interviewed in February but could not accept a start date before June, and I very lucky my new employers waited so long for me.
Last year one of the interviews I attended was in a hospital library. I received good feedback regarding my presentation but didn’t get the position as they felt my knowledge of medical resources was restricted. If I’d had some relevant voluntary work on my CV it may have helped. At the moment I am still settling into my current role, so taking on an additional voluntary position would likely cause my head to explode! Should I start to feel the need to address my career direction, I would happily consider volunteering in a different library sector in order to strengthen my experience base.
(Only 1 ‘Thing’ left to go…!)
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