[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: sigh, the job market



Richard Cox wrote:
>There are many, many excellent and well-paying jobs out there for RECORDS
professionals, but    > they may not always be in archival programs and
institutions.

As an example click on the url below. It is ARMA International' CareerLink
http://www.shreve.net/armahq/jobs/viewjobs.php3?mode=viewall

Granted some of the positions do not list salary, but look carefully at the
words used in the position descriptions/requirements. And see what they are
looking for.

> People who take those positions make a career choice often having to do
with other interests    >and issues than salary compensation. Individuals
who want to make a career in records work need  >to obtain the appopriate
education, commit to life-long learning to retain skills and knowledge,
>and be open to critically important records positions in government,
corporations, universities,  >and other organizations.

My career began in the archival field, after four years I realized that
there was no future where I was located either in salary or career
advancement. I changed professions. I became a RECORDS professional. Better
salary opportunities, better chance for advancement, etc. And the fact that
as a records professional I could be more proactive in ensuring that
material was saved for the future.  But as Richard wrote there is a
life-long commitment on our parts to developing and improving your skills,
expanding your knowledge and being open to opportunities.

Someone else wrote:
<snip>
I think the biggest problem is lack of a career ladder.
Employees have no where to go.  There is no force to
increase the salary if the employee has little hope of
getting a job elsewhere.
<snip>

How true. All of my advancement has come about due to frequent changes of
employers either because of downsizing or a desire on my part to move
upward. During a twenty-year career I have been employed by five different
organizations. The shortest 18 months, the longest 7 years and two
relocations. Each change required more knowledge and skills on my part. AND
no it is not easy  to move.

Finally it comes down to market place economics. As long as archivists are
willing to work for low salaries institutions will continue to pay those
rates. As an example several years ago in Dallas fast food institutions such
as McDonalds, Burger King, etc. were unable to hire people in one area do to
their standard pay scales. In order to attract applicants they offered
salaries well above the norm (ie minimum wage) generally several dollars
above. As a result they started to attract applicants. As another example I
worked part-time for a bookstore (primarily for the 30% discount, not the
pay!). Many of the college students couldn't understand why they were paid
so little (generally 25 - 50 cents above minimum wage)until I showed them
the 50 applications received in just one week by people who wanted to work
in the store.

So if you want to attract qualified applicants to Northern Wisconsin then
you are going to have to raise the ante.

Finally Richard also wrote:
"For the growing importance of records, one needs only to read the
newspapers every day,..."

Go back to the listserv archives and look at some of the stories that I have
posted for the last four years. There is an ever growing awareness within
the business community of the importance of records. Microsoft may have
learned that you don't keep every e-mail message for the last ten years just
because you can. The ever increasing use of e-commerce, both at the
individual and organizational level is going to require greater knowledge of
how information and records are used and how to store them.

Now I must get back to work on contract for a major organization that has a
serious problem with their records. And yes I am developing a wanted ad - I
will be looking for people who understand records and how they are used
(lifecyce, records continuum, call it what you will), have excellent
computer skills and knowledge (do you understand how a network is put
together, do you understand document imaging requirements, can you talk
intelligently with computer professionals), understand business processes
(and can analyze them). My colleagues now understand that records are the
lifeblood of an organization (say Amen)and where a lot of organizations are
truly hurting.


Sorry if I ranted too long. Thank you Richard for an excellent exposition on
the topic and for the new book.

Peter A. Kurilecz CRM, CA
Woodside Summit Group, Inc
Richmond, Virginia
Tel: 804-744-1247 extension 23
Fax: 804-744-4947
mailto:peter.kurilecz@woodsidesummitgroup.com



> -----Original Message-----
> From: richard cox [mailto:rjc@LIS.PITT.EDU]
> Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2000 9:27 AM
> To: ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU
> Subject: sigh, the job market
>
>
> The conversation about the "job market" started out with Jill
> Jackson's
> statement and questions: "Because we are hiring, I have been
> watching job
> announcements a lot lately. I have noticed that quite a few archivist
> positions (of various types) keep getting re-advertised or
> the searches
> extended.  This is both exciting and unsettling depending
> whether one is
> a prospective employer or employee.  I am wondering whether there is a
> skill deficit, or whether more jobs than applicants.  Thoughts?  Are
> there fewer students going into archives at the library
> schools?  And is
> it just my imagination, or are grant funded positions more
> plentiful and
> harder to fill these days?"
>
> In typical fashion for this list, a posting about hiring and
> jobs started
> a string of messages in which individuals complained about salaries,
> etc.  Steve Fisher attributes the problems with a "booming
> economy" and
> also wonders if "We are also asking employees to do more with
> technology.
> The skills required are increasing, while perhaps the salaries are not
> keeping up accordingly."  Michael Miller adds, "Jobs in other fields,
> both private (corporate) and public, requiring similar skills (markup
> languages, db management, etc.) easily pay much more than beginning
> library/archive jobs (and often do not require a Masters, either)."
> Jacquelyn Saturley  wonders, "The pay that is being offered across the
> board is so absurdly low. I can think of no other profession, except
> librarians, that have such an extremely low pay scale. It is
> absolutely
> ludicrious."  Ronnie Cunningham laments, "I'm earning under
> $12 an hour
> for what was recently referred to as my 'professional expertise'.  But
> that was when I was being volunteered as a participant in a program to
> help other organizations.  I must take on two and sometimes
> three jobs,
> even though this one is full time, in order to pay the mortgage *and*
> eat."  JHF bluntly states, "The typical advertisement for an archives
> position calls for an individual who has at least one master's degree,
> and usually two, would prefer someone with three to five years
> experience, and is willing to to work for less than an
> assistant manager
> at McDonalds.   Perhaps jobs would be snapped up more quickly if there
> were real pay and benefits attached to them.  As it is,
> archivists are usually offered less than librarians...."
>
> I would add to this discussion that there are major problems
> with how the
> ARCHIVAL field is defining and setting standards for entry-level
> positions, but there are NOT problems with how society and
> scholars and
> others are viewing the importance of RECORDS.  For the
> problem with the
> remarkably static characteristics of entry-level positions
> over a twenty
> year people, I refer people to my article, "Employing Records
> Professionals in the Information Age: A Research Study," Information
> Management Journal 34 (January 2000): 18-33.  For the growing
> importance
> of records, one needs only to read the newspapers every day,
> look at the
> growing scholarship on records such as Donna Merwick's Death
> of a Notary
> (Cornell University Press, 1999), and the constant debates in Congress
> regarding records classification, secrecy, intellectual property.
>
> My two cents?  There are many, many excellent and well-paying jobs out
> there for RECORDS professionals, but they may not always be
> in archival
> programs and institutions.  Moreover, if the profession looks to
> traditionally low paying positions in historical societies and other
> cultural organizations, it will always be whining about a lack of
> appreciation.  People who take those positions make a career
> choice often
> having to do with other interests and issues than salary compensation.
> Individuals who want to make a career in records work need to
> obtain the
> appopriate education, commit to life-long learning to retain
> skills and
> knowledge, and be open to critically important records positions in
> government, corporations, universities, and other organizations.
>
> Food for thought?  Try reading the Merwick book, following the life of
> Adriaen Janse van Ilpendam, a Dutch emigre to New Netherland, whose
> career as a notary leads him to an uncertain existence after
> the English
> take over and their language replaces Dutch as the official
> language.  In
> fact, the notary takes his own life in 1686, as his place in
> society has
> all but evaporated.  The historian provides many insights into the
> importance and nature of records in the seventeenth century.
> In addition
> to describing the work of a notary and the sources for a notary's
> authority, Merwick discusses how the notary's papers form a sort of
> archives and uses considerable iconographic evidence to reveal how a
> notary's activities supported both government and private life in the
> colonial era.  Merwick relates an ironic tale as writing and
> recordkeeping become more important in the growing colonial settlement
> but the Dutch notary's form of records service fades in significance.
> One of the beauties of this study is the historian's
> remarkable indepth
> research into existing documentation in both this country and
> Europe to
> recreate the struggles of the notary (as recounted in the
> detailed "notes
> and reflections" section at the conclusion of the study).
> For example,
> Merwick reveals the notary's struggles with English through the
> misspellings and other problems with the documents at the end of the
> notary's life.  Merwick's book is a moving story, one with
> poignancy for
> today's recordkeeper struggling with technology, technique, authority,
> and status. Merwick's book, as the subtitle suggests, is
> intended to be
> an exploration into cultural change.  The last paragraph of the study
> suggests that Janse had to "read the performances of each
> cultural system
> in such a way as to find enough meaning to survive, if not to
> prosper or
> acquiesce with equanimity.  While others could do it, he
> could not" (p.
> 186).  While Merwick wonders about such struggles of three
> centuries ago,
> there is much to ponder for the modern recordkeeper and his or her own
> cultural transistions.
>
> More food for thought?  Read John Seely Brown and Paul
> Duguid, The Social
> Life of Information (Boston: Harvard Business School Press,
> 2000), a book
> that will be widely-read by corporate and government leaders
> both because
> of its accessibility in explaining complex issues but also because it
> deals with matters increasingly facing organizations today.  The book
> commences with a discussion of the limits of information, the problems
> with the over-abundance of information, and the standard, overly
> enthusiastic predictions about information technology and the value of
> information. Brown and Duguid emphasize that we need to
> understand social
> networks using information in order to comprehend how
> information might
> or should be used.  The book contains a highly readable discussion of
> knowledge management as well as a re-worked version of "The
> Social Life
> of Documents," First Monday 1 (1996) available at
> http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue1/documents/index.html, an essay
> all records professionals will want to read.  In their book, in this
> re-worked essay, they write, "Documents not only serve to make
> information but also to warrant it - to give it validity" (p. 187) and
> "So documents do not merely carry information, they help make it,
> structure it, and validate it" (p. 189).  Documents
> (including archives
> and records) structure society.
>
> So, Jill, no there are not fewer archives students these
> days.  BUT they
> may be going into other RECORDS jobs with greater potential for
> influence, more compensation, and where they might even be
> more appreciated.
>
>
> Richard J. Cox
> Associate Professor
> Department of Library and Information Sciences
> School of Information Sciences
> University of Pittsburgh
> Pittsburgh, PA 15260
> Voice:  412-624-3245
> FAX:    412-648-7001
> e-mail: rjc@lis.pitt.edu
> homepage: http://www.lis.pitt.edu/~rjc
>
> A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List!
>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe, send e-mail to
> listserv@listserv.muohio.edu
>       In body of message:  SUB ARCHIVES firstname lastname
>                     *or*:  UNSUB ARCHIVES
> To post a message, send e-mail to archives@listserv.muohio.edu
>
> Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at
>      http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/archives.html
>
> Problems?  Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <rschmidt@lib.muohio.edu>
>

A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List!

To subscribe or unsubscribe, send e-mail to listserv@listserv.muohio.edu
      In body of message:  SUB ARCHIVES firstname lastname
                    *or*:  UNSUB ARCHIVES
To post a message, send e-mail to archives@listserv.muohio.edu

Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/archives.html

Problems?  Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <rschmidt@lib.muohio.edu>