Signing Savvy for Libraries

Today applications for new jobs are increasingly offered exclusively via websites. With social media and our entire lives online most employers know quite a bit about you, including your reputation and writing skills, before they ever meet you face to face.  References have also become more important as references are sometimes the first people that interviewers speak to. 

Are you representing yourself well? How do you decide who to ask for a reference?

Here are 5 tips for laying the foundation for your job hunting and finding a good recommender:

1. Connect with Others

• First impressions matter. Put your best foot forward.
• Be personable and establish bonds with colleagues.

2. Represent Yourself Well Online

• Who you are online reflects how people see you in person.
• Don’t put anything on FB you aren’t proud of.
• Go through your Facebook and delete anything (pictures and words) that gives you pause.

3. Send Professional Messages

• Keep emails professional and purposeful.
• Put thought into each email you send.
• Re-read your emails before hitting “send.”

4. Choose a Good Recommender

• Be realistic in assessing your relationships.
• Choose people you respect and who respect you.
• Be sure the person you ask has a good reputation themselves.

5. Communicate with your Recommender

• Contact your references before you put them down.
• Be positive, respectful and grateful to the person writing you a letter of recommendation. 

Being an educator of deaf children for over twenty years, I know the frustrations that occur when you are working with a student and continue to find gaps in their understanding of certain concepts. It’s shocking to find out that your second grader doesn’t know something like their middle name or their address. It’s easy to say to yourself, “Why didn’t the parents or the teachers before me teach this child this information?”  

Instead of pointing fingers, there is a simple way to keep track of these gaps - it's what I call a “Swiss Cheese Folder.” Anyone that interacts with the student can document information gaps and record them in one easily accessed folder.  The teacher or parents then help provide the information to fill in these information gaps, then ANYONE (teachers, parents, interpreters, therapists, social workers, paraprofessionals, bus drivers, grandparents and families) who has interactions with the student can open up the folder during their time with the students and help “fill in the holes in the Swiss Cheese.” Much of the information isn’t hard to learn once the child understands what the concepts are about, and often times many students are struggling with some of the same concepts.

Some very common things found in some student’s Swiss Cheese folder:

1. Full Name
2. Birthday
3. Address
4. Telephone Number
5. Family Member’s Names
6. Pet’s Names
7. Days of the Week
8. Months of the Year
9. How many minutes in an hour?
10. How many days in a year?
11. How many items in a dozen?
12. Telling Time
13. Seasons
14. Weather
15. Colors
16. Shapes
17. Numbers
18. Letter identification and matching upper and lower cases
19. Emergency Information
20. Answering questions about favorites…(what it means to have a favorite color, food, sport etc…)

These are also great topics that parents can work with their kids on over the summer.

When people work together, good things happen. “It takes a village to raise a child.”