Reference USA

The State Library has an online business resource that is free for all of our patrons to use. It can take the place of the criss-cross directories if any of you remember using those. ReferenceUSA from Infogroup offers verified details on 14 million U.S. businesses and 210 million U.S. residents. They bring that information directly to library patrons, making it faster and easier to find new business opportunities, research executives and companies, find news articles, conduct job searches, research papers, locate addresses and phone numbers, conduct market research and much more.

I recently had a call from someone looking for book publishers in our local area. I was able to search by keyword and geographical area to come up with 3 pages of publishers located in Utah. I was then able to sort them by zip code to find the ones closest to Brigham. This list gave me their contact information and executives name. If I click in further, I can also get a profile of their business, any job openings they might have (which will connect to a place to apply for that job), a map to find their location, stock data, nearby businesses and competitors information.

You could even use this database to find the closest pizza place in our area to order your lunch.

Susan

Job Searches

Many people in Brigham City are looking for work right now due to layoffs. The library is on the opposite end of the spectrum because we are actually looking for new employees - three of them! We will be losing two pages and one clerk within the space of 2 months. This will be a very hard transition for us because we have formed a very tight bond with these exceptional employees and it will be hard to see them go. The pages put the books back on the shelves for us every day - we couldn't live without them; the carts fill up so fast with returned books. The clerk works at the front desk and checks books out to our patrons and they are definitely the heart of our operation.

I read, recently, about a free search engine for job searches which was the listed in the 2008 Best of Free Reference Web sites put out by the American Library Association. This is a comprehensive, turbocharged search engine which enables job seekers to review millions of available employment postings on thousands of company and career sites and job boards. The site http://www.indeed.com/ is very easy to navigate allowing you to look by job title or location. Each job listing gives the title, description, company name, location, qualifications, salary, source of job listing, and date posted. Embedded links enable the user to apply directly for the jobs. Another feature of the site is the ability to create a job alert that notifies the user via email whenever new jobs matching his or her profile are posted.

I tried this search engine to look for the library page and clerk positions but the closest it came to finding them was a library position in Logan at Utah State so the search engine does not search workforce services where we have our positions listed.

Employer Rap

It's 5:45 pm and tonight I leave at 6 pm. Wednesday's are my scheduled day to write my blog and nothing has inspired me so far today. What can I come with in a hurry... I have my little file of things I think are interesting so out of this I am going to pull:

http://www.employerrap.com/ Employer Rap can give you the lowdown on a potential employer before you get a job offer. This site is like an online social network for job hunters. Workers can get an unvarnished sense of what it's like to work at a company from the rank and file. Companies are rated on pay and benefits, culture and atmosphere, vision and leadership. I checked on Proctor & Gamble and it got a score of 3.33 out of 5 possible points. Some examples of what employees said are: "This is a stable company", "Pay more", "I am here because I have a family to pay for", "Huge company, easy to get lost". There is also a link to the company website to you can find out more about it.

Susan

BRIGHAM CITY LIBRARY TO OFFER FREE RESUME SERVICE FOR JOB SEEKERS

BRIGHAM CITY LIBRARY TO OFFER FREE RESUME SERVICE FOR JOB SEEKERS

The Brigham City Library, 26 East Forest, Brigham City, Utah will be offering a free resume service. Sue Hill, Library Director, stated: “In this time of layoffs and economic stress, where individuals are applying for new or better jobs, the Brigham City Library would like to make life a little better by offering a free resume service.” The library has purchased resume software for circulation and for use in the library on our word processing computer. Patrons will be able to update resumes, make new resumes, and create a cover letter for the resume with this software. The word processing computer is available all hours that the library is open until a half hour before closing. There will be no cost for using the software or the computer. High quality watermark paper will be provided free of cost to print up 10 copies of your resume. A free compact disc of your resume will also be provided.

Those individuals who would like help or proofreading of their resume can come in or call and make a appointment with our literacy director, Diane. She will be available for help Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday from 11 am to 2 pm. She will also be available from 3 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. on Thursdays. If you need information or to make an appointment, call 435-723-5850.

sue