Category: A New Career In A New Town

A New Career In A New Town, Libraries

A New Career In A New Town: Close The Curtain

Justin Hoenke

 

For the first time in a few months I can say that I currently have ZERO resumes submitted to libraries for possible new jobs. Right now, I’m going to close the curtain on this part of my journey. Let’s get more into the reasons why.

My big goal this time around, one that I knew was going to be a long shot, was to attempt to secure a job in New Zealand. I tried for quite a few. Sometimes I heard nothing back from the library, other times I got the cookie cutter rejection letter, and twice I got personal messages that more or less summed up what I was thinking would happen with this search: you’re a great candidate, but our HR/organization just can’t hire internationally right now. A big part of me gets it…it is tough to immigrate a whole family to another county and also the financial and paperwork side of it is probably a huge task as well. So for now, I am setting the NZ dream aside. I have learned something in this process…..that things take patience and sometimes a bit of luck. I have to keep my heart and head open for a possibility and then leap on it. We’ll get where we need to go.

When I was looking for jobs in New Zealand, I couldn’t help but take a peek at what else was out there in the USA. I saw some good jobs scattered throughout the country. Our idea as a family was that if we were going to relocate in the USA we wanted to be in a place where we really wanted to live. For us, that meant looking at the middle of the country (Colorado, Utah) as well as New England and maybe who knows just maybe if it was the ideal job, California. Salary was also very important to us, as after almost 3 years of having a job that paid a lot lower than other roles in the state and having to rely on food stamps to make ends meet we wanted to get to a level where we were not struggling anymore. Being poor is difficult and a major stress on an individual and a family. It feels a lot like having an extended illness…you keep trying to get better, but no matter what the illness continues to eat away at you because the root issue isn’t being fixed. (FYI: I make $35,000/year as a Library Director, and the average in Pennsylvania for a library with a similar service population is around $42,000/year. I’ll get to that more a bit later).

There was one job that I applied to where I made it through two interviews. After the first interview I felt a little better about the job, but there was something off in my heart. The second interview went really well, but that lingering feeling was still there. It took me a day of serious thought to realize that, yup this path was not for me. I messaged the board, thanked them for the interviews and conversation, and moved on to the next step in my life.

To the jobs that I applied for who kept me updated at every step of their path: THANK YOU. As I said in an earlier post, good communication is key on both sides of the story. That communication minimizes the stress and anxiety on the job seeker, which allows them to give the employer a better interview and idea of the kind of person that they are.

To the jobs that I applied for who didn’t say anything or only offered cookie cutter responses: YOU HAVE SOME WORK TO DO. I think that we can all do better when it comes to giving feedback and open communication to the job seeker. (***)

To myself: STAY POSITIVE, CONTINUE TO BUILD AND UPDATE YOUR RESUME, AND DON’T GET TOO UPSET. Humans beings can’t help but feel  down or a little angry when things don’t work out. Haley tells me and our sons this all the time: it is OK to feel your feelings and in this case she is once again right. Overall, I feel pretty good where I am at despite this job hunt not ending up with the Hoenke family living and wandering around New Zealand.

So what is happening right now? Here are a few projects and ideas that are very exciting to me.

It is time to remedy the low salaries at my library. As I said above, being poor is difficult and a major stress on an individual and a family. My situation is where I did not think I would be at age 37 as a library director and a husband and father: educated, employed, qualified, and in the prime adult stage of my life but having to rely on food stamps and paycheck to paycheck to stay alive. I’ve dove into the PA State Library data from 2016 to look at salaries and see where we are when measured against others of similar sizes. I’ve already met once with some members of our finance committee to discuss this and once budget season comes up we can discuss this in more detail.

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Imagine all of these bushes gone and in their place lots of beautiful flowers, bees, and butterflies.

It is spring and pretty soon summer will be here. These months bring birds chirping in the air, vegetables and plants growing, bees in the borage, and so much other natural joy to the world. At the Benson Memorial Library, we are also planning a pollinator garden on the side of the library. It is going to be BEAUTIFUL.

As tough as it has been to restore and build Fidelia Hall, we will continue to make progress on all of our projects. Much like the garden project I mentioned above, I can see that our family future this summer being one where we work on and enjoy the gardens of Fidelia Hall as much as possible. We remain committed to transforming our land into a place that produces beautiful vegetables and flowers. We welcome bees, butterflies, birds, and all sorts of nature into our living space. This will be our 4th summer in our home and each year has brought many beautiful surprises as we’ve let it grow all around us. Eventually, we’ll get the money we need to finish up things in the hall. Right now, we need to get the funds to put in water lines and finish wiring the space for electricity. Good things come to those who wait.

Thank you to everyone who read this series. For now, this is the last piece in the A New Career In A New Town series, but if I ever look for another job in the future I’ll be sure to continue this series.

(***): Yeah, I know my words were harsh and if you read them you probably thought “why in the hell would I hire this guy?”. That’s OK. I’ve made my peace with the fact that anything that anyone says, especially on the internet, can and will be used against a person at some time in the future. All that I can say is that my words/thoughts/actions are always coming from an honest and pure place. I’m not trying to hurt anyone. I’m just trying to ruffle up some action in order to promote change. In 99% of every situation that has ever existed on Earth, this kind of behavior is looked down upon because human beings crave order and want to keep things the same. I think we have a lot to fix and in order to do so have to ruffle up some action. I’m just doing my little part in an area that I think could use some change. Thank you.

 

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A New Career In A New Town, Libraries, Life

A New Career In A New Town: The Rejection Letter

Justin Hoenke

“WE REGRET TO INFORM YOU THAT YOU WERE NOT CHOSEN FOR THIS PARTICULAR ROLE. WE THANK YOU FOR YOUR APPLICATION AND WE WISH YOU THE BEST OF LUCK IN YOUR FUTURE.”

Every single person reading this post who has applied for a job has received these two sentences or some variation of them at some point in their career. Be it through email (the preferred choice of employers these days) or the postal system, these two sentences are never what a job seeker wants to hear. But if you want to find a job, you have to face the fact that you will see these two sentences at some point.

My recent job search has found me encountering the many wonderful variations of the two sentence rejection email quite a bit. I’ve gone through all of the emotions that someone who didn’t get the job will go through: sadness, a dash of anger, a lot of confusion, some conspiracy induced paranoia (convince me that there’s not a library cabal made up of folks that get together at conferences and have huge Facebook message threads where they gossip about everyone), and a whole lot of introspection. Here’s what I’ve told myself about all of those emotions: I’m totally supposed to be having them. No emotion is better than the other, and all of them together are part of the whole picture. I’ve found this approach to life in general to be quite exhilarating. When you give yourself permission to feel, you get the full experience of what it means to be a human being in the modern world.

But I’m getting off topic here. What we’re talking about today is the rejection letter. And once you’ve seen a few of them over the course of a few months, you start to have ideas about how you can make them better. I’ve only got one idea on how we all can make the rejection letter a better experience for the job seeker. It’s a big idea, but here goes:

WE SHOULD BE OFFERING FEEDBACK, NOT FORM LETTERS

The two sentence, cut and paste cookie cutter language, ending with the logo of the library that you just applied to rejection letter needs to die. We are not helping anyone but ourselves and our own time when we hit send on these types of rejection letters. I get it…time is precious, we only have so much of it, and there’s so much to do. But for a profession that believes so much in the power of sharing and mentoring we’re doing quite a poor job of it when it comes to communicating with those who we did not select for the job. Instead we’re giving them even more fuel for their sadness, anger, confusion, paranoia, and introspection and while emotions are healthy, direction and guidance is needed.

Job seekers will often wonder for hours on end why they didn’t get the job. Was there one little spelling error that threw off the person reading the cover letter? Was the candidate just not qualified for the job? Was there something else underneath it all that led the job panel to pass on this applicant? Instead of a cookie cutter rejection letter, try to imagine a rejection letter that was clear and direct on why the person did not get the job ending with some feedback from the panel. Here’s an example that I’ve cooked up.

Dear Sally Struthers, 

Thank you for your application for the Librarian opening at the Everytown USA Library. The panel has concluded reviewing applications and has decided to move ahead with another candidate. We are sorry but your application was not selected for this role. 

Your resume was very detailed and your experience in libraries shows a great deal of unique situations which have no doubt helped you develop into the librarian that you are today. For this role, Everytown USA Library was seeking an applicant with more customer service management experience, whereas the experience detailed in your resume was more rooted in behind the scenes administration. We specifically liked the Tater Tots For Fines initiative that you led at Busytown Library. That initiative was very inspiring and specific for the community you served, but it has helped us think about what we could do for our own community.

Once again thank you for your interest in the Everytown USA Library. If you would like further feedback on your application, please feel free to contact us via email.

Sincerely,
Scott Baio
Human Resources
Everytown USA Library

I probably didn’t nail it in the example above, but it gives a brief idea of what I’m thinking about when it comes to beefing up the rejection letter. Something more than just two sentences, and something that acknowledges that the panel did indeed read everything you put together and gave it the thought it deserves goes a long way. There’s still gonna be a little bit of sadness for the person that did not get the job, but all of those other emotions can either be minimized or all together avoided if there was just a bit more communication, guidance, and kindness from the employer. Take a moment, write some thoughtful worlds, and that energy you put into the world can go a long way.

A New Career In A New Town, Libraries, Life

A New Career In A New Town: The Emotional Roller Coaster of a Job Seeker

Justin Hoenke

If you, like me, are looking for a new job or are seeking a change in what you’re doing with your career, this post is for you. I want to get a bit into the weeds, talk about feelings, and overall connect with you on this post. Let’s swap war stories and be there for each other.

I’d say I’m happy with my current job 40-50% of the time. It ebbs and flows and some days feel much better than others. After a lot of thought, I’ve determined the root of why I’m feeling this way at my current job: my inspiration levels are at a very low point. I’m a person that craves working with others. My time in every other job up to this point (read all about those jobs at my very recently updated CV here!) found me surrounded by people who pushed, pulled, and nudged me to keep on growing and trying new things. Here at the Benson Memorial Library, I’m the boss and a lot of that work goes towards inspiring others. And I think I have done OK (these are the good things), but I’m definitely not perfect in any way. I feed off the energy that others (or in this case, one person) put off and that’s helped me in my three years here. But overall I search for more inspiration and the lack of it over a large period have time have left my reservoir all dried up.

Realizing where you are at in your professional career, the good and the bad things, can be emotionally exhausting. Any journey deep into your head and your heart will be this way. Added on top of that is the universal truth that change always moves at such slow pace and that new job you’re seeking may not be right around the corner. There will be more job postings you have to read. There will be more cover letters to write (heck, I need to write an entire post on the absurdity of cover letters). There will always be more tweaks needed for your CV.

What do you do when there’s so much waiting, a few rejections, and some applications that are never even acknowledged by the potential employer? You’ve got this energy sitting inside of you. There’s the initial thrill of putting together your application, then the lull as you wait, and sometimes the energy drain when you don’t get the job or just not hear back at all. It’s all so tough, and it’s all so much energy.

Personally I’ve found that surrounding myself with my family and being as creative as possible to be the way to not get down when the job hunt doesn’t go my way. Am I down because I may not have got that neat and unique job in the big city? That’s ok. Let’s all pile onto the couch and snuggle. Pajamas and pizza and a movie with the family. WHY NOT.

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I’m also hashtag blessed to have music as an outlet. Silly cover letters got me all anxious, tired, and worried? I will go over to my recording studio and work on a song or two. I may have struck out a few times on this recent job hunt, but damn have I been productive in writing, recording, and producing songs. I’ll have some new stuff to share with you soon, but for now enjoy this:

https://abigailfostersphotosynthesismachine.bandcamp.com/track/banshee

And finally, when I don’t get a job that I’ve applied for, I have this little mantra I keep in my head: “You missed out on so much. But luckily I still get to hang out with Justin. He’s a pretty good human being.” Just like Stuart Smalley…