Atlantic Provinces Library Association 2021 Conference

New graduates and early-career professionals are being faced with a difficult task: entering a job market defined by part-time, short-term contracts and a persistent lack of job security. This precarity often leads to problems in the personal and professional lives of those seeking work (Henninger et al. 2019). From the job interview to your final project report, knowing how best to budget your time and where to expend your energy is important to develop meaningful work experience relevant to your career goals. This presentation will encourage those in the early stages of their careers, or who are about to start looking for work, to reach for their goals within the constraints of the current short-term contracts. I have recent, relevant experience navigating the job market and working in short-term roles within the last two years ranging from 8 weeks to 10 months. This session will include strategies and tactics to get the most out of a short-term contract, build lasting relationships, and ensure relevant project experience. I will include a workshop-style handout for participants to follow along, prompting them to note what experience they are looking to gain and how they can attain it. This will follow the structure of the presentation and allow participants to make connections with their previous work experience, as well as examine how they could implement these strategies in future work opportunities.

Henninger, Ean, Adena Brons, Chloe Riley, and Crystal Yin. 2019. “Perceptions and Experiences of Precarious Employment in Canadian Libraries: An Exploratory Study.” Partnership: The Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research 14 (2). https://doi.org/10.21083/partnership.v14i2.5169.