I am qualified...

[niccig]

Ugh...so the person at the museum that wants to give me a part-time job, still hasn't gotten things together to write a job description and get things moving with HR. They also "might" have some consuting work on updating their library, as the librarian recently passed away and they have a 1960's card catalog. But none of these job prospects are anytime soon. Maybe as in, yes we need to do this, but it'll take 6-12 months and up to 5 years to get things organized.

I had agreed with DH that I would then look to local college libraries for part-time library work. Great, my local college has an applicant pool for librarians. So, I start to apply. My library degree is from Australia, it's recognized in Australia, and the American Library Association recognizes that recognition...but as my qualifications don't have the word "Masters" in it, I'm not sure it'll be accepted. UCLA Law Library accepted it, I worked for them as a professional librarian. But the local community college has more hoops to jump through than UCLA did...so now I'm writing an equivalency statement telling them that I am qualified, but my qualifications just have a different name and please please look at this link from the American Library Association and look at the bottom of the page as it says that Australian qualifications ARE acceptable, and if you click on the link to the Australia page, yes my university is listed but they now call the course "MASTERS" My qualification doesn't have Masters in the name, as I did it a few years ago, but my old course is still accepted by the Librarian governing body in Australia. And If I was considered qualified for UCLA, won't that count for something with Glendale Community College??? I hope he does.

Ugh...

[mommyp]

That *has* been a long time since that original job was in the works. How frustrating! Hopefully when they see all of your experience they'll realize. Would it help to get one of those degree equivalency places to prove it? When I was getting my work visa, the lawyers had my degrees checked to prove that my Canadian B.Sc and Ph.D were equivalent to those awarded in the US. But I don't know how much that service cost.

[niccig]

That *has* been a long time since that original job was in the works. How frustrating! Hopefully when they see all of your experience they'll realize. Would it help to get one of those degree equivalency places to prove it? When I was getting my work visa, the lawyers had my degrees checked to prove that my Canadian B.Sc and Ph.D were equivalent to those awarded in the US. But I don't know how much that service cost.

It *has* been a long time. The problem is that there is no job, they have to create a position, and it's not top of a long list of priorities that keeps getting longer. I wasn't in a hurry for work, so I was willing to wait. I don't *need* to go back to work, but I want to. I only want part-time work though, another reason I was hoping the museum job would materialize as it would be largely research work from home. The most annoying thing is that she offered me a job TWO years ago, and I wasn't ready, but she had a job already open, so I could have walked straight into it. Now I'm ready, and she doesn't have the time to get it together. The consulting work on their library is another project that they want to do and are talking about...but it could be 2 years later and still talking, so no guarantee that would come through. If it does, they've said they would get me to work on it. But again, it's a maybe...

I'll need to look into one of those accrediting agencies. The difficulty I think will be that Australian courses are now becoming Masters level, Australia still recognizes my old course, but for current students it's now 6 months longer and says "masters". I'll put in my job application with my statement of equivalency and see what happens. It's general reference work, which I've done at a higher level for several years, so it's not a difficult job. I don't even know if I want to return to full-time library work, but I thought a part-time job for a few hours a week would be a nice gig for now. I'll put in my application and see what happens.

[bethie_73]

I"m in the same boat... kind of, except people keep calling me and wanting to interview. Then they "love" me, yes surprisingly everyone has used that term, but they are unsure if there is a position. I mean I get that there is a recession, but why are you calling me in if there is not a job? ugh!


Good luck, I hope it all works out for you.

[pb&j]

I'm sorry. I left the library field b/c although I had a Master's in a closely related discipline, I was "not qualified" for many of the positions I really wanted b/c I didn't have an MLS. The positions I was interested in weren't even librarian positions, and my degree was probably more relevant to the work than an MLS would have been anyway.

I hope things work out for you.

[niccig]

Thanks everyone. DH thinks that if UCLA thought I was qualified, that should say lots to the local community college. I actually called my old boss at UCLA as I need references. When I left, they said they would be interested in re-hiring me when I was ready to return to work after having DS. I'm going to set up a lunch with her, just to be back in contact

I don't even know if I want to go back into library work full-time. So if there's difficulty over accepting my different qualifications (non-USA MLS course), it might push me to find other work. I'm one of those people that if I have a safe fall-back position, I'm less inclined to go for what I want.

But now after having DS, I'm not sure what work I do want to do. My answer would have been different pre-DS, but now having DS and wanting to be home more and to have flexible work, I can see the benefits of my old job - I worked with great people, I had different projects, I got to mix my interests of IT and research, and we had the money to do the things we wanted. Oh, and as it was mostly female staff, no one batted an eye when someone had to leave to pick up a sick-child. We all got it, and would cover for that person, and they would work later another day to make it up.

[niccig]

I"m in the same boat... kind of, except people keep calling me and wanting to interview. Then they "love" me, yes surprisingly everyone has used that term, but they are unsure if there is a position. I mean I get that there is a recession, but why are you calling me in if there is not a job? ugh!


Good luck, I hope it all works out for you.

Good luck for you too. It is frustrating. But something will turn up eventually.

[elektra]

Maybe it will work out at UCLA (my alma mater ;) ). I have a feeling universities like that are much more open to international professors, librarians, etc. They are probably more used to dealing with top talent from around the world and have the capacity to evaluate an applicant based on their actual qualifications as opposed to their proper paperwork.
It reminds me of when my college boyfriend was trying to get a teaching job. LA Unified has way more hoops to jump through than the private schools. He ended up at Crossroads, BTW and has been there for probably close to 10 years now. I was wondering if that was on your list of private schools. ;) He also taught at Brentwood for awhile.

[niccig]

Maybe it will work out at UCLA (my alma mater ;) ). I have a feeling universities like that are much more open to international professors, librarians, etc. They are probably more used to dealing with top talent from around the world and have the capacity to evaluate an applicant based on their actual qualifications as opposed to their proper paperwork.
It reminds me of when my college boyfriend was trying to get a teaching job. LA Unified has way more hoops to jump through than the private schools. He ended up at Crossroads, BTW and has been there for probably close to 10 years now. I was wondering if that was on your list of private schools. ;) He also taught at Brentwood for awhile.

Crossroads and Brentwood are too far across town. We're in Glendale, near the Pasadena border so we're looking for schools within our area. We may end up at our local school, which rates really well. We just don't know.

I filled out an online application for the community college, and oh my gosh was it painful. Everything had to be copied from resume into their format. And their strict format doesn't allow for differences. I had to say on the drop down menu that my library qualifications are Masters as that's all they gave. I tried to put something else and it would not accept the input. I could attach documents, so I put my cover letter, resume, qualification equivalency form, and scanned PDFs of my transcripts. But the PDFs were too large in size, so those got rejected, had to redo etc. I've done a lot of work with user education of online tools, and there were no instructions, difficult to navigate - it was awful. And then when I hit submit, I got an error message, and I had to call and ask if it had actually been submitted. But it's done, so we'll see.

[niccig]

Maybe it will work out at UCLA (my alma mater ;) ). I have a feeling universities like that are much more open to international professors, librarians, etc. They are probably more used to dealing with top talent from around the world and have the capacity to evaluate an applicant based on their actual qualifications as opposed to their proper paperwork.
.

This was true when I was first applying for job in 2003. I applied for quite a few jobs, and no one would give me an interview. I did think it was because my qualifications were different. I knew once I was in an interview, they would see that Australian libraries are very similar to USA libraries. We use Library of Congress, same cataloging rules, same systems vendors. Everything they had at UCLA, I knew about and had worked with. Plus they got extra value from having a law librarian familiar with British Commonwealth jurisdictions - some of the international law professors liked that.

I'll have to see how the community college takes my experience and qualifications.