Thing 20 - careers

I've just been looking over some of the links on the Library Roots page & it struck me that there seem to be a lot of us librarians who went through a period of not knowing what exactly we wanted to do, & doing lots of other jobs before ending up almost as an accidental librarian or as Jennie puts it in her Dumpling in a Hanky blog 'it all started off a bit randomly'. All of which just adds more proof to my theory that many librarians are born with some kind of underlying almost genetic predisposition to be a librarian & will end up finding their way into the profession somehow, everything in between is just a valuable information & experience gathering exercise allowing us to develop transferrable skills to support our new roles in libraries or archives. My main piece of advice for people starting out in their careers or thinking about becoming a librarian is that you shouldn't be afraid to take on other jobs in the meantime or worry that all the experience on your CV absolutely has to be library related or it's going to be harrder to get a job in the field. As long as the experience proves your commitment to basic principles such as customer service & you have had at least some experience in a library-related field, either paid or voluntarily & you can demonstrate you have the skills they are looking for like customer service, organisation, etc then you WILL find a job somewhere in the field. Just don't permanently shut any doors along the way.