Opportunity knocks

I recently had the pleasure of hiring a librarian for a year long contract position. It's funny that at the start, I was terrified of the impending vacancy. One of our key people has been seconded for a year to work on a Very Important Project and we were faced with the task of trying to replace her! Ack! The librarian in question is highly skilled, absolutely brilliant, and has (obviously) become indispensable to our operation. The likelihood of finding someone with a similar skill set and knowledge for one year seemed bleak ... until I remembered a key fact: when we hired this librarian of whom I speak so highly, she had almost NO experience at all, and was fresh out of library school - and I mean *fresh*.

With this renewed outlook, I decided to look on the bright side. Here I was with this awesome opportunity to find another brilliant young mind - how often does that happen? As with the original hire (also originally a short term replacement), all we needed was someone who could demonstrate that they were technically savvy, logically minded, and able to learn quickly - REALLY quickly! Who better than a new grad? Especially in this tough job market, didn't we at least want to encourage that as a possibility?

We were certainly overwhelmed with applications - many of which I will admit we weren't able to give much consideration to, but nevertheless, we had several very strong candidates - many of whom had little to no specific experience. Too often we get hung up on that detail instead of trying to read between the resume lines. Holding out for the candidate that has it ALL doesn't do anyone any good ... much less the new grads who are keen, smart and dare I say it ... need a job! Practicum placements and job shadowing programs are wonderful, but nothing can compare to the "real mccoy" - even if it is only for a year. This position is the full monty - systems, resource management, instruction, reference, collection development - the whole shebang. Why wouldn't we want to offer that to the right new grad?

I am happy to say that indeed, that is what we did. So far so good - she hasn't run screaming from the building, and her brain seems intact. She's up for the challenge - that's for sure. And at the end of it all, she will have a solid year's experience upon which she can build from as she sees fit. And, from where I am sitting, there will be one more smart librarian who knows what it's really like to work in technical services in an academic library. HINT: she won't be cataloguing! ;)