Tools to help you build your career Luke Stevens-Burt Head of Member Services @LukeSB81 Hello, I am .....<talk about yourself>...and I am delighted to be here today talking to you about some key services offered by CILIP membership, that will help you to think about your career path, assess your knowledge and skills, create a development plan, and build on your potential. Even if you are not planning to make a big career step any time soon, it is just as useful to assess where you are and whether you have all the relevant knowledge and skills that you require to carry out your current role. [CILIP is the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals – the professional membership body for those working in LIS]

Why might we be considering career planning? Changing jobs or career Promotion Transfer Cross-sector move Return from career break Annual assessment and planning Any others? Before we get into the detail of what resources you can use to develop you career, it is worth considering why you might want to undertake this process. The following list provides a few ideas that might relate to you at some point in your career. There may be other reasons too. Planning to change jobs or career is one of the more obvious ones, and you might do this for a number of reasons, but typically includes things like: you are looking to get promoted (which may require you to move out of your current organisation); you want to transfer into a different team, department and/or role; or you may even be looking to move into a new sector within the profession, something that is happening more and more, even to the point that it is expected to happen several times in the modern career. You might also be undertaking career planning as you wish to end a career break, for instance from maternity leave, a long sabbatical, undertaking extended care duties, electives, or other personal reasons. You may also want to simply reflect on how you are performing in your current role and whether you are developing the skills and knowledge that you require to fulfil it. Doing this will also help you during appraisal time when you can either demonstrate the steps you have taken to improve your self-development and contribution to the services you provide. Overall having a plan in place will not only give you a clear direction to focus on, but it will also help you to understand what you need to do and give you an idea of how long you would ideally like to do it in.

So what resources and tools are there? Yourself World Wide Web Professional Networks Careers Advisers CV and Interview Advice PKSB Qualifications and Professional Registration I am now going to describe some of the main resources and tools that you can use to help develop your career plan. There are no absolute right ways of going about this, but there are wrong ways. It might seem an obvious or strange one to suggest, but the first thing to consider is you. Be honest with yourself, both in terms of what you want to do and also what you need to achieve it. I’ll go into a bit more detail about that shortly, but the point is to be clear with yourself on where you want to go and the reasons why. You can then go on to making use of various resources to build up your confidence. The WWW is awash with helpful websites, blogs and CPD resources to assist you, but it can be difficult to select the right one for you. As you are probably confident in your information search skills I won’t go into any more detail on searching for and assessing these resources There are also your professional networks and these have more than one use, something that I will cover at the end Careers advisers are also a useful way of getting expert insights and support in a variety of aspects of your career path. They can be pricey though. Advice on your CV gain be done through careers advisers, but there are professionals who will help write this for you, this can be costly but may have benefits in ensuring your CV stands out from other candidates. We have been running a programme of CV advice over the last year, partnering with a professional agency, so keep your eye out for these. You might also want interview support too in order to give you more confidence and shed those interview nerves! Whilst you can get face-to-face, paid-for support for both CV and interview skills, there are of course free resources available that you can use. CILIP’s PKSB is also an invaluable tool for developing your career plan and I will be covering this in detail as it forms the focal point for this presentation Finally there are qualifications and PR to consider as both of these can assist you in developing your career path. I’ll say a little about these at the end

Professional Knowledge & Skills Base (PKSB) A tool for analysing your development CILIP’s Professional Knowledge and Skills Base identifies the professional expertise and generic skills required for those working in Library, Information and Knowledge sectors. It is represented by this wheel with Ethics and values at the heart, the 8 areas of professional expertise and 4 areas of generic skills set within the Wider Library Information and Knowledge Sector Context and the Wider Organisation and environmental context. It is a really fantastic tool that you can you can use this for professional registration as part of your career planning to contribute to your appraisal process at work

CILIP’s PKSB This gives you an idea of the rating process that is used for self assessment when using the PKSB ...PRESENTER TO READ THROUGH EACH ONE if time/desire allows...

CILIP’s PKSB Here is an example from the original version where part of a particular section is detailed. As you can see there is a full explanation of the section as well as each specific knowledge/skill area. I won’t spend too much time on this, as we will be taking a closer look at this in the online version. Please note that, in terms of content, both versions of the PKSB are the same, so you will not lose anything in terms of creating a development plan if you use one or the other.

CILIP’s PKSB This is an example of the PKSB spreadsheet, AKA “mapping”. It shows clearly where certain skills and/or knowledge are lacking.

CILIP’s Online PKSB Now that you are a little more familiar with the PKSB, let’s take a look at the online version.

CILIP’s Online PKSB Simply log in to the CILIP website

CILIP’s Online PKSB Live demo...

Other resources for career development Whilst the PKSB is an invaluable tool for working through your development areas, I would like to spend a little time talking through some other resources that you can use for career planning. The idea is that you should be looking to build up a full range of resources that you use in conjunction with the PKSB in order to ensure you get the best approach.

Member Networks Perfect for: Developing your skills and knowledge Finding out about opportunities A critical friend Getting experience through committee work You might have an existing professional network through work, LinkedIn etc, but CILIP offers ready made networks throughout the UK via regional networks and special interests. Our MNs run a host of activities and there are lots of opportunities to develop yourself professionally and personally through training, and engage with other, like-minded professionals. In short, it is an excellent source of CPD, but in addition you can build up your career resources by: Broadening your skills and knowledge through the various activities and events that are run by the member networks Finding out about possible job opportunities Using your colleagues as a “critical friend”, i.e. Using their sector expertise to helping out with applications, giving realistic feedback on your development areas Experience is quite often one of the most challenging aspects to develop, particularly where opportunities are not afforded to you in your current employment situation. There are many different ways you can get involved in voluntary roles within the wider CILIP community and by getting involved in these will give you a chance to develop other skills and knowledge, e.g. Finance, leadership, event planning etc; vital experience that will set you apart from others when applying for new roles

CILIP’s Careers Hub CILIP’s new resource that has all your career development needs in one place! There is also a resource that is hosted on the CILIP VLE. If you have not used it before, I will be giving you a preview of what it will look like. <<GIVE DEMO OF A COUPLE SELECT AREAS; this is merely to give a flavour of what it will contain>> The value of the Careers Hub is that it provides a centralised resource for helping you make decisions about career progress. It is aimed at all career stages, not just new professionals. If a member has had a career break for whatever reason, or perhaps you are considering a cross-sector move, the careers hub will help support you in gaining the confidence you need to make the next step in your career.

Professional Registration The perfect way to demonstrate your commitment to your personal development and the profession Provides you with further skills, knowledge and experience to take your career forward Professional Registration is internationally recognised I would also like to take a moment to mention PR as part of the tools that you can use in developing your career plan. As a confidence booster PR works really well in gaining a better understanding of the role you play and the changes that you help bring about. It is also a way of demonstrating your commitment to yourself and the profession, because of the way PR works, it is not a case of doing course work, but rather thinking about your personal contributions and development on a regular basis, i.e. Through revalidation The PR process will also take you on a journey that you can develop your skills further in order to make yourself a better prospect as a candidate As a registered professional information/library worker, your skills and knowledge will be internationally recognised through PR ACLIP MCLIP FCLIP Revalidation

What’s the Value to me? Becoming Chartered felt like recognition of my achievements and inspired me to challenge myself further Being professionally registered and demonstrating our skills are being updated shows we have an ongoing commitment to our profession It has enabled me to contribute to key strategic developments and I have adopted a lifelong approach to professional development. The process has been very rewarding and encouraged me to strive further. Subsequently I have secured a senior post within my organisation John, Public Librarian Dan Livesey, Library Supervisor, North West Mental Health Trust Since completing Chartership , I’ve become much more aware of how many skills I gain at work and in my day-to-day life and that's helped me to be more effective in my job as well as more confident in my own value as an information professional Here are some quotes that reinforce the statements made in the previous slide. <<READ THROUGH>> As you can tell there are distinctive benefits to holding a level of PR. Annmarie Lee, Head of Library Liaison – Enquiry Services Birmingham City University

Concluding Remarks Change can be good and exciting You have a lot of transferable skills... ...but you need to be able to demonstrate it You can achieve your goals... ...but you need to ensure you have a plan Loads of resources via CILIP to help you... ...but you need to actually use them Good luck! <<Read through each points with some ad lib where appropriate>>

Questions and Contact Details Contact details: memberservices@cilip.org.uk 020 7255 0610